"If you were my boy I'd take you out and gamble," he said. "But you are your father's and your mother's and you are in a lucky boat."
"May I get the sardines? I know where I can get four baits too."
"I have mine left from today. I put them in salt in the box."
"Let me get four fresh ones."
"One," the old man said. His hope and his confidence had never gone. But now they were freshening as when the breeze rises.
"Two," the boy said.
"Two," the old man agreed. "You didn't steal them?"
"I would," the boy said. "But I bought these."
"Thank you," the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.
The boy is good to Santiago. Kind. It's a kindness that seems innate. It just is who the boy is.
This post is difficult for me to write. I am dealing with a school situation involving my son that has hurt him more deeply than anything that's happened in the past. I have kept a lot of my son's struggles private over the last couple years. I will do the same tonight, despite all my impulses to go on a tirade about bullies, the stigma of mental illness, and school officials.
There were two things my son was looking forward to at the end of a school year that has been incredibly difficult: his final school chorus concert and his eighth grade trip to Great America. Both of those things were taken away from him today. It was done without my son even knowing that it was going to happen. Swiftly. Based on the word of a group of children who have been tormenting my son for over five months.
We live in a society right now where bullying has become the norm. Almost acceptable. Cruelty and injustice are what define today, and it happens at all levels, from the Presidency of the United States down to an eighth grade lunchroom or playground. I have always believed that, in the end, good always prevails over evil. Perhaps that isn't the case anymore.
For the next two days, I'm working from home because I don't want to leave my son alone. He has struggled with depression and thoughts of self-harm over the last two years. At one point, he even acted on those impulses. I have never seen my son as broken as he was today. Because of meanness. Cruelty. Impulsive short-sightedness. Lack of insight.
I realize, without context, none of what I'm writing makes much sense. Just know that my son is a good, kind, sensitive kid. He's not an angel. I will be the first to admit that. But he deserves better than this, if not from his classmates, than from the adults I trust to care care of him.
Saint Marty is heartbroken for his son tonight.
