No one will never know the reason why… all anyone can do is speculate.

One morning, Dane, one of my co-workers called to say he would not be coming into work. His oldest son had hung himself from a tree. I knew Dane’s son, Josh, who used to do yardwork at my home.

At work, Dane often mentioned his concerns with Josh’s obsession with superheroes. Josh was the oldest of eleven children and I thought it natural for him to identify with superheroes. No, Dane insisted, there was nothing natural about Josh’s obsession with superheroes.

Josh was a good worker and the problems his father struggled and worried over, were not evident. Only we’d sit down for lunch and start talking, did I pick up on Josh’s state of mind. Josh was into stories about superheroes I’d never heard of before. At first, I thought he was talking about batman and superman, but he said those were for kids and told me about his superheroes.

Josh read graphic novels that looked like comics when I was a kid. Except, in Josh’s comic books, the whole world was dark, dangerous and violent. Whenever Josh told me the stories, it was plain to see that he was struggling to see reality clearly – and I understood his father’s worries.

After Josh died, Dane and I talked a lot. Josh’s need and desire to protect his younger siblings and be their superhero was unmistakably true. At 16, Josh was a big kid, tall, broad shouldered and strong. He was also a very sweet young man, gentle, kind and loving towards his siblings. If there was any violence, anger, or hate in that boy, no one ever saw it. One afternoon, Dane recalled Josh talking to him about mass-shooters. Umm, Dane, I replied, can you recall any more about what he said?

Dane repeated their conversations. Josh wasn’t talking about the shootings or the victims, he was talking about what those mass shooters were thinking about, when they killed people. I will spare you the cracking of a father’s heart, and simply say, Dane realized too late, that Josh had been telling him, he understood those mass-shooters, because he was in the same state of mind. Instead of killing innocent people, Josh had killed himself. Dane, it is no comfort, I said, but it seems that your son heard what you told him, and he believed you. Raffey, he replied, if that’s true, my son was thinking about killing people, started weeping and said, I raised a mass-murderer. No, Dane, no, I replied as gently and firmly as I dared, when all was said and done, your son clung to the goodness you put in him, by protecting the people he loved.

I was compelled to share this story, by way of saying, be careful what you say, the children are listening.

Remember, the children are listening.