Shut up. Trust God. Take Balloons.

Leonard died a few nights ago.  He was in his early sixties, a quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair since an accident in his early twenties.  He lived with his mother who cared for him the last forty years in the house next door to us.  After suffering a major heart attack, Leonard was brought home with hospice care after a week in the hospital.  He passed away about a week later.

When we found out Leonard had died my seven year old son Nick said, “Mom, why are you crying?  Leonard got out of his wheelchair!”

Oh, yeah.  You’re right.

The day of the funeral Nick and I went to the grocery store and bought some food for the family.

Nick looked over the toy aisle and decided he’d spend some of his money on balloons.

Our neighbors didn’t get back home from the funeral until after dark.  When their cars arrived, Nick shouted, “They’re home!!”  I started getting the food together, and he said, “Where are my balloons?”

“You don’t need your balloons.  We need to take the food over.”

“Mom, I need the balloons.  I’m going to take them a balloon.”  Off he ran to find them.

I stood in the kitchen stunned.  Uh oh, doesn’t he know you don’t take a balloon to a grieving family?  We might as well take party hats, noisemakers, and a karaoke machine!  I was trying to decide how to tell him, “Son, balloons have no place at a funeral. We don’t want to insult them.”  But I also felt a strong voice that translated to, “Shut up, Carol, wouldja just this once?”

Nick came back in the kitchen with an inflated blue balloon and said, “I’m going to write them a note.  Where’s the paper?”

I hesitantly pointed to the nearby paper.  He wrote a note, “I am verry verry verry verry sorry about what happened.  Love, Nick.”  He drew hearts all over the paper.  Then he taped the paper to the balloon.  “Okay, Mom, I’m ready!”

At this point I realized there’s no way I’m going to tell him to leave his gift at home, and I’m ashamed to admit I was still concerned about how the balloon would be received.  But I decided to trust the “Shut up, Carol,” and off we went across the yard to the neighbor’s home.

Nick ran over ahead of me and was already well inside the house when I arrived.  As I walked in the door, I heard our eighty-five year old neighbor saying to her other sons with a lilt in her voice, “Look what Nick brought us!”  As I walked in the kitchen she was holding the balloon, reading the note, hugging Nick, and then passing the note and the balloon around.  Then each person was hugging Nick, and he was beaming in a way I hadn’t seen before.

The kid knew.  Somehow he knew.

And because of him, now I know, too.

Shut up.
Trust God.
Take balloons.