They knew not my son as did I.

They knew a different man.

My son was closed and distant.

He was far too private to know.

His engaging smile was uncommon,

and his quick wit was slow to show.

He rarely stretched his helping hand.

Similar poles of a magnet we were.

The closer we got, the harder he pushed away.

That I never understood!

I raised a son I never knew,

and then I met his friends.

They introduced me to my son,

but that was four days too late for him.

This man was open and honest.

His steel sharpened others’,

As his wit quickened theirs.

His helping hand was eagerly stretched,

and his magnetism properly poled,

In the four short years he wandered there,

he gathered within his wake

a group of friends to be envied and revered.

If but only he could have foreseen

the assembly at The Tavern that night,

and heard the stories and laughter and seen the tears,

maybe he could have also seen

that there was no reason for his end to come

under that tree and at the end of his rope,

for as it is known where he wandered and roamed,

so long as there is breath, there is also hope.

---

Aaron Wray Hawkins

3 AM – May 11, 2024

This poem was inspired, in part, by the moto on the South Carolina car tag:

“While I breathe, I hope.”

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