The night my 12-year-old son came home from his best friend’s funeral, the silence in our apartment felt heavier than words. Caleb didn’t throw down his backpack, didn’t ask for food, didn’t complain about homework. He just slipped into his room and shut the door. Hours later, I found him on the floor, clutching Louis’s old baseball glove like it was the last piece of his best friend he could still hold.
Louis and Caleb had been inseparable since kindergarten. They dressed up together for Halloween, built impossible Minecraft worlds, and played side by side in Little League. But when cancer took Louis far too soon, it tore a hole in my son’s heart that nothing seemed able to fill.
Therapy helped a little. Time helped a little. But grief doesn’t follow rules. Some days Caleb would laugh again, other days he looked like joy itself had left our home.
Then one night in June, he lifted his head at dinner and said, “Mom, Louis deserves a headstone. A real one. And maybe a night where everyone remembers him.”
Before I could even respond, he added, “I’ll earn it. I don’t need anything for summer. I’ll mow lawns, walk dogs, wash cars—whatever it takes.”
From that moment, grief gave way to purpose.
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