For years, I thought I’d won the kid lottery. Frank was polite, responsible, straight A’s—every teacher’s dream. Even while his father was dying, he stayed steady, finishing homework beside a hospital bed, promising, “All of it, Dad.”
After the funeral, he became even more controlled. I mistook it for strength. If he kept his grades perfect and his room spotless, maybe our broken life would hold together.
Then his teacher told me he hadn’t been in class for three weeks.
That night, I tested him.
“How was school?”
“Fine,” he said calmly. “History lecture. Industrial Revolution.”
The lie was smooth. Practiced.
The next morning, I followed him. He didn’t go to school. He rode to Oak Grove Cemetery and knelt at his father’s grave.
“I try to go,” he whispered. “But it’s too loud. Everyone acts normal. I feel like I can’t breathe. I’m trying to be the man of the house so Mom doesn’t have to cry. But I’m so tired.”
Hidden behind a headstone, I realized his “strength” was a prison built to protect me.
I stepped out. “Frank.”
When I told him I knew, the mask fell. “I can’t mess up,” he said. “You already lost Dad.”
I took his freezing hands. “I don’t need you to be solid. I need you to be fourteen. It’s my job to carry this—not yours.”
“I heard you crying,” he admitted. “I thought if I was perfect, you wouldn’t have to.”
“You could have cried with me,” I said. “That’s what family does.”
Under the maple tree, beside his father’s grave, he finally sobbed. And for the first time since the funeral, we both did.
We had counseling, meetings, missed work to fix. But walking out of those gates together, I understood: while I was trying to survive, my son was trying to save me. Sometimes the strongest thing a parent can do is give their child permission to be weak.