We have windows that surround our indoor pool room on all four sides, plus skylights.  It is a beautiful sight to be inside and watching a rainstorm on a spring day or the moonlight on a clear, crisp night.  Our kids bedrooms are on the 2nd floor of the house and the hallway leading to their rooms can be seen from the pool room.  At the top of the stairs is a loft where Dalton spent much of his time playing video games and watching tv.  The rules were no food or drink were allowed up there.  Everyone seemed to be able to handle that rule fairly well except DD.  He always thought he was so clever sneaking his pop and snacks up there (as if I didn’t know).

About three weeks after the accident, I found myself sitting alone in the loft, rocking back and forth in his video game chair.  It didn’t take long for the emotions to take over.  I rocked and cried.  Somehow I ended up laying on my side on the floor staring under the entertainment center.  Looking back at me were about 15 sucker sticks and candy wrappers.  I turned my face to look under the sofa.  A single dirty sock and a box of half eaten chocolates were neatly stuffed under there as well.  Something made me pull open a side table drawer.  Four jumbo sacks of sunflower seeds, a half-eaten Kit Kat bar, and an empty can of pop were stuffed inside.  It was like little pieces of my son were scattered all around me.  I laid back down on the floor and cried harder, clutching the sunflower seed sacks like a crazy person.  Eventually, I sat up and what I saw next was more than I could bear.  Across the loft on the windows looking into the pool room were his handprints.  The sight took me by surprise.  It felt so intimate.  Like he was there.  Naturally, I walked over and placed my hands on top of his.  They were about a 1/2 an inch larger than my own.  Man, he had grown.  I thought about the hands that held my own crossing a street.  The hands that paint-balled the Virgin Mary statue in my landscaping.  The hands that pitched a no-hitter.  The hands that made those very prints one day as he saw me walking through the pool room, pushing his palms against the glass simply because he knew I hated handprints on my windows.  I thought about the hands that now held my own heart.

I stayed upstairs that night tracing his fingerprints for a long time.  Before I started downstairs, I made sure everything was as he left it, down to the last sucker stick stuck to my carpet fibers.  Cleaning that stuff would have to come another day when I would have more strength.  At that point in my grief, I was still reminding myself when to breathe.  Feeling drained, I remember walking into a dark kitchen to find Troy sitting at our breakfast table with his head buried in his hands, sobbing loudly.  I hadn’t even noticed his crying over the sound of my own.  Looking at the sight of one another, we both knew how each other was feeling.  It was going to be another one of those nights.  Saying nothing, we followed one another into our bedroom and prepared ourselves for another sleepless night.

I thought about Dalton’s handprints today at Mass as Father was giving his homily on the Holy Trinity.  I’m not sure why.  I think it was because Father was explaining how Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples after His resurrection, revealing the nature of the triune God, and what they were expected to do next.  The disciples were told by Jesus to spread the gospel, observe the commandments, and to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Basically, Jesus said to “go make your mark.”  It occurred to me that my son had done that very thing in his short 13 years.  The proof was on the glass. Literally.

Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.  (1 Timothy 2:8)