The Boy Asked Me To Hold His Hand While He Died Because His Dad Wouldn’t

I stopped at his door. “Hey buddy, you want a teddy bear?”

He looked up at me with these huge blue eyes. Didn’t smile. Didn’t reach for the toy. Just stared at me like he was trying to figure out if I was real.

“Are you scared of me?” I asked. Kids usually are at first. I’m not exactly approachable-looking.

He shook his head slowly. “No. You look like the bikers on TV. The ones who protect people.”

Something cracked in my chest right then.

“Where’s your mom and dad, little man?”

He looked down at his elephant. “Mommy died when I was four. Cancer too. Daddy says he can’t watch another person he loves die. So he stays home.”

I stood there frozen. This child—this dying child—had been abandoned by the one person who should have been holding him through this hell.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Ethan. What’s yours?”

“Thomas. But my friends call me Bear.”

For the first time, he almost smiled. “Because you’re big like a bear?”

“That’s right, buddy.”

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he said something that changed my entire life: “Bear, will you be my friend? The nurses are nice but they’re always busy. And I get really scared at night.”

I should have said no. Should have handed him a toy and moved on like I did with every other kid. I had my own life. My own problems. I didn’t need to get attached to a dying child.

But I looked at that little boy sitting alone in that hospital bed, and I saw myself sixty years ago. Different circumstances, same loneliness.

My old man was a drunk who couldn’t be bothered. My mama worked three jobs and was never home. I grew up alone and angry and became a man who trusted nobody.Continue reading…