The Ballestero Blog

It’s Just Too Painful

We slowly pushed our trays as we viewed the K&W Cafeteria choices for lunch. My son, Bryan and I were on our way to the deer lease, but right now we were hungry. The servers were commenting that we chose the same entries and side dishes. “You can tell we’re father and son,” Bryan offered.

“You’re father and son?” the old gentleman in front of my son asked, turning in our direction.

“Yes sir” my son offered.

“Aw, it’s good to see fathers and sons eat together. I lost my son two months ago. He was my only son. He was 42, he died of a broken heart.” The old gentleman’s eyes rimmed with tears.

I gave him my condolences. My son did too. I volunteered that I was a minister and that Bryan was a pastor in Raleigh. He responded that he was a minister as well, a C.O.G.I.C. pastor.

I asked him if he was alone. When he said yes, I told him I would be honored if he shared the table with us. He accepted readily.

When we sat down, I invited him to pray for the food. What a prayer he prayed. Then we began a comfortable conversation. He told of the events of his minister son’s premature death.

With tears in his eyes he began to slowly talk. He said, “When a woman loses a husband, Daniel Webster called her a ‘widow’. When a husband loses a wife in death, he called him a ‘widower’. When a child loses their parents he decided to called them an ‘orphan’.

“But then old Daniel Webster thought about a name for when a parent loses their child.  He thought, and he thought. But then he shook his head and said that it was impossible to come up with a name for that. It was impossible because it was just too painful.”

We both cried together.