Friendship, Part I

We are all surrounded by fascinating people, people whose stories deserve to be told. I'd like to introduce you to one of who is part of my world. This is the story of an unusual friendship, forged from tragedy. A friendship that crossed boundaries I would have thought bridgeless.

When I was a reporter at the Summit newspaper, we got word of a very strange story. A 2-year-old had died suddenly in a Silverthorne house. His parents, both charismatic Christians, were praying for their dead son's resurrection. His corpse was in their living room, where friends and family had gathered to pray with them.

This is the kind of story that we cynical, gallows-humored journalists live for. A tragic story turned bizarre, and bizarre to the level of national interest. My heart both plunged and leapt, plunged for the horror of a child's death and leapt at the thought of how far this story could go. Silverthorne was among my beats, so it unquestionably was my story.

I called the police officer who was on duty that day and he refused to give me the family's name. They deserved their privacy, he said. I agreed, but told him I also had a job to do. I told him, too, I would file a Freedom of Information Act request if he refused, reminding him the deceased's name was public. Reluctantly, he gave me the name.

The newsroom jokes started almost immediately. I joined in. In fact, I lobbed some of the best of them.

Then I heard details that stilled my tongue.

It was a wintry Sunday morning. The boy's mom was fixing breakfast in the kitchen and took a break to play tag with her sons, 2 and 8. The three of them chased one another around the living room, laughing. Whether the 2-year-old grabbed the filing cabinet or it gave in to gravity's pull on its top-heavy drawers is unclear. But the filing cabinet fell on the happy toddler. He died instantly.

As his mother later told me, "One minute he was there. The next, he was gone."

Robby was 6 when this story broke. I tried to imagine what she saw, to understand how completely and permanently her life changed in that second, how surreal the scene must have been.

I had the family's phone number and was ready to conduct the interview. But as the one-liners continued to fly all around me, I grabbed my notebook, went upstairs to the conference room, and closed the door behind me.

My heart was in my mouth as I dialed. Interviewing a grieving family seemed in poor taste to me in any circumstance. Calling to interview a grieving family because their method of doing so seemed freakish felt like not just an intrusion, but a kick in the gut to these people and their beliefs in their worst, most vulnerable hour. I did not expect them to speak to me.

The father answered the phone and greeted me warmly when I identified myself. Before I could offer my condolences, he said, "Aren't you the reporter who wrote that series about depression?"

Paul was a therapist, he said. "Those stories were wonderful," he said, mentioning the county commissioner with chronic depression who had been central to the story. "People in those kinds of positions should talk more about depression instead of hiding it. It would help so many others. Thanks for writing it."

I felt the first threads of a bond forming across the telephone wires. Paul had taken me completely by surprise and warmed my heart with a few well-chosen words. This kindness while he grieved his child.

Paul talked about his son's death with a candor that surprised me. He admitted their approach might seem strange to others, particularly since the child had already been embalmed. But God has resurrected people from the dead before, even in modern times, he said, and it could happen again if He willed it so. He knew this beyond the shadow of a doubt.

"Nothing happens if we don't ask," he told me.

In either case, the family's faith was unshakable, Paul said.

"If we think in our little pea brains we can understand it all and it has to make sense, we'll never understand that God's ways are higher than ours," he said.

I felt his belief, and somehow, I understood it. While it was not my way of thinking, who was to say he was wrong? And who was to mock this family's form of grieving? I wondered what I would do in the wake of such a loss, how fiercely I might cling to the idea of a second chance, how desperately a parent's fingers might clutch the hands of hope.

Suddenly, he spoke again. "You're not quoting me on this, are you?"

I stammered, and felt my face flush. "Well, that's what I hoped to do," I said. "That is why I called."

Paul was silent.

"I don't know if we want that," he said. "Can I ask my wife how she feels and call you back?"

I agreed.

I walked back downstairs feeling changed. The incredible situation that had moments before seemed laughable had been turned on its head for me. I felt a deep respect and admiration for this family and the strength of their faith, a confidence so strong they shrugged off the knowledge that others would feel sorry or laugh at them as though it were a pesky fly. The task at their hands was far more important.

I tried to relate this to the rest of the staff and while I struggled for words to explain it, some sense of it must have come through because the jokes stopped. The tone of the conversation changed. We spoke of strange, unexplained, seemingly miraculous stories we had heard, about death and children and loss.

Later, two co-workers told me the story changed them in ways they found hard to explain. It touched us all, a rare occurrence among jaded reporters.

Paul called back within half an hour. "OK, we've agreed it's all on the record," he said. "We're leaving it in your hands."