In this powerful reflection ESR MDiv student Anne M. Hutchinson shares about the loss of her son.
Everything
about that phone call felt wrong, even before I answered. It had started as an
ordinary evening in April. I was in an empty classroom preparing for an English
as a Second Language class that I was subbing for, when my phone rang, with an
unknown number showing up on the caller ID. It was my son’s stepmother, and she
quickly put my son’s father on. He said starkly, without any preliminaries,
“Your son is dead.” My son? Not our son? When had he become exclusively “my”
son? Almost mechanically, I asked the requisite questions: how did it happen,
when would the funeral be. My ex said he had just come from the coroner’s
office and was too upset to talk any more. My son had taken his own life at the
age of 27.
Trying
to take it in, I called my sister and a close friend to let them know. It was
too late to cancel class. The students would be arriving within the half hour.
Somehow, through the shock, I finished my preparations and greeted the students
as they arrived. The subject was spring, which would begin in a few days. In a
numb state, I put on my bravest face and got through the session. I invited the
students to generate English words about spring: flowers, seeds being planted,
rain, frogs—of all things. From the words, they created sentences to practice vocabulary
and verb forms. They worked in their textbooks in small groups, as usual.
Finally, time was up and I sent them home.
