My beautiful 19-year-old son Morris was killed in his apartment Jan. 17, 2008, less than two months after leaving home to attend college. It was a senseless tragic accident with a shotgun held by a roommate who had been one of his best friends since they were both about 8 years old. From the moment I found out time -- as I knew it -- stopped for me.  

I had raised Morris alone since infancy and cherished every minute of it. His father had some problems I had hoped he would surmount during the pregnancy. He didn’t and I left him when Morris was just two weeks old. From that point on my son was my focus, the love of my life and my greatest joy.

As he grew I noted the quiet and consistent way Morris took responsibility and the kind and genuine way he treated people. I didn’t realize until after it happened how many others had also taken note. More than 900 people showed up from around the country for his funeral. The rabbi said more than 600 of them were under the age of 20, many who flew in on a day's notice from out-of-state colleges.  Friends who weren't able to make it home in time held services for him in Gainesville, Duke University and in Israel. There were more than 300 of his friends at an impromptu memorial two days before, where the rabbi said he was expecting to counsel maybe 5 to 10 people. Letters and notes from people came everyday for months telling of some act of kindness Morris did, how important he made them feel and what a special relationship he had with each person. It was clear, no matter who it was he met or spoke with, he left a lasting impression.

Of all the stories I told the reporter who did the first newspaper article, she chose to include how in high school when a friend came out, he refused to distance himself, reminding other boys who were nervous about it that this was the same kid they’d known all their lives.  She mentioned it was appropriate his funeral was held on Martin Luther King Day because he had a picture of Martin Luther King on the wall by his bed for years -- a reflection of his own belief in human rights and diversity.

There’s more about the way he lived his life and what he brought to others on the website for the foundation formed in his memory: The Morris Stein Foundation (MoSt). The foundation’s broad mission:  to make the world we live in a better place by encouraging individual responsibility and fostering awareness of ways to take responsibility.  The motto -- do the MoSt for the environment; for animal rescue; for tolerance and diversity; and for gun safety; Get the MoSt Out of Life -- reflects the causes and ideals Morris held close to his heart and exemplified by his actions.

There is an online petition I’ve begun for Safety Instruction before Gun Ownership As a gesture of support, please take a moment after reading this to click on the link and sign: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/safety-instruction-before-gun-ownership

Soon after the funeral one of my friends brought over the book We Don’t Die, George Anderson’s Conversations with the Other Side by Joel Martin and Patricia Romanowski. She explained it had helped her when her father passed a couple of years before. It sat on my shelf for nearly three months before I could even bring myself to open it. I began reading it sometime in April, around the time my cousin’s teenage daughter Lindsey came with one of her friends to stay with me on their spring break.

Their visit forced me to get out a bit and I ferried  them to a few places so they would have an interesting time. One afternoon,  I took them to South Beach, the whole time wishing Morris was with us or that I’d gone with him before he left. Driving home on the causeway a song by The Fray came on the radio. I had been thinking about Joseph, the boy who held the shotgun when it went off. The words of the song hit me,  “Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend... I would have stayed up with you all night, Had I known how to save a life...”  

I was just overwhelmed and started to cry while driving Morris’ Scion TC. It’s a stick-shift and he wasn’t crazy about my driving it in the first place. I could almost hear him saying “Mom, don’t cry while you’re driving my car.”  Lindsey asked if I wanted to pull over or get off at the next exit. I told her I was okay, pulled myself together and focused on just driving, keeping both hands on the wheel, merging to go north on I95 and then turning on the blinker to merge three lanes over. When I turned the blinker off, I realized the hazard lights were blinking. I asked Lindsey if she had put them on.  She said no.  I didn’t know where the control was located to even turn them off.  It took a moment but we figured out where the switch was on the dashboard near the radio controls and turned them off as another song played now:  “You promised me you'd be around... I believed...If someone said three years from now you'd be long gone I'd stand up and punch them out cause they're all wrong... Who knew... When someone said count your blessings now 'fore they're long gone... Who knew”.  I felt like everything was so surreal and turned to Lindsey and asked “are you hearing the same words I’m hearing?” She was. The minute we got home I googled the lyrics and found out the song is  “Who Knew” by Pink from her album entitled “I’m Not Dead.”

A few things had happened before this that also took my breath away. For months after there was a series of other wonderful spectacular signs that could not possibly be mere coincidences. I would note them, photograph them and collect them. But I still questioned their source and whether or not I was reaching by attributing the signs to messages from my son.

I decided, with my friends’ encouragement, to make an appointment to see George in person. Prior to my meeting with him, I wrote down a few questions I had for my son and for George.  Nearly every single question was answered in some way.

During the session George said “you’re sign crazy correct? In other words you’ve seen several of them.” He went on to say that Morris had “joked and said whether it be a color or a number” there have been signs.


“Without explaining your son keeps showing me initials. He’s done it three times. This is another one of his signs. Out in public you see the initials from his name when you least expect it…Even if you never came to see me in your life, you could catalog to a degree that you have had signs.”

He said that Morris showed him the back of a car, a license plate with initials. He’s sending signs to keep me going.

Initials, as well as numbers and colors, had been showing up for me just as George said: an M etched in the pew in front of me at a church wedding; and MOE Boston 06 carved in the highest rafter of a wooden tower I climbed near the beach. My biggest and most poignant sign was a handprint with a heart in the center I had begun to see in unexpected places, on clothing tags, license tags and even a small piece of paper I found on the beach in Spain under my mother’s wheelchair. I thought that was what George was seeing when he mentioned being shown a license plate until Morris’ friend Nick -- whose name was mentioned in the discernment -- showed me that he had special ordered a commemorative plate with Morris’ initials and RIP for his car.

After reading “We Don’t Die” and before my appointment, I read two books written by George Anderson and Andrew Barone and another book about George by Joel Martin. In all of the readings in all of the books, there was no other mention of “Oedipus” or use of the Yiddish word “futzing” that I can recall, both part of our family humor and both mentioned in passing by George in our discernment.

“You’re obsessed,” he said at one point. “I was when he was alive,” I replied, laughing in between tears.

Yes, there were general statements that could have applied to almost any loss situation. George told me I’d “been through the mill.” That I was left behind and wish I could’ve taken his place. He said “You’re a mess. You’ll never be the same again.” He also said I wish I could’ve saved him, that I would have gladly sacrificed myself for him and that I feel like I could’ve or should’ve done something to prevent it.

But there were enough particulars, enough nuances and subconscious choice of words to make me feel I was hearing from my beautiful son. 

At one point it felt like a familiar direct negotiation was going on between us. He was trying to convince me that he wouldn’t be there if he wasn’t supposed to be there. I was and am sure he left before his time. George explained, sounding so much like Morris, that he would not have wanted to be here in his body if he couldn’t live a full and independent life. “He is his own person on his own unique journey.”

George mentioned it’s not like something  “mom kisses and makes all better.” I took that to mean maybe Morris saw me at the hospital, at the funeral home and at the funeral after he was gone from his body, when I was kissing his right shoulder, his hand and talking to him quietly on that side, as that was the side that was open to me. I had thought he had been shot on his left shoulder and found out later it was his right shoulder and that the stitches I had seen at the hospital were from part of the emergency effort to save him.

I had made the appointment with George and my hotel reservations in my friend Sandy’s name, more for the people who I expected would cast doubt upon my return than for me. I was so convinced by what I had read of the readings and George’s humble, quiet way.

Still, there were no guarantees and as I waited in the lobby to be called for my appointment, my emotions and the fear I could leave without having made any kind of connection to Morris overtook me and I began to cry before I even went in the room.

“What’d [she] do, get lost? What’s the hold up?,” was the first thing George said he was hearing from the male presence who had come forward and was most excited and most wanting to begin the session. That would so be Morris.  George said immediately there were two other males and two females there as well -- no doubt the only other immediate family I’ve lost, my father, grandfather, grandmother and a sister. They stood by in the background.

There were points where I was frustrated. I already knew who my son was to me and how he had died. I wanted so desperately just to tell George and to hear information I didn’t know. But I resisted and let the information come the way George requested.

“Can I tell you,” I ask. “No,” George said, “I want him to tell me.”

I don’t know if he works that way for the skeptics or if years of experience have shown him that people only cheat themselves when they don’t allow the information to come on its own. Whatever his reason,  I’m certain it’s really for us, the ones left behind, so we don’t miss out on any of the treasures our loved ones want to share we us.  Now, because I waited, I have a recording of George telling me Morris was explaining how close we were to one another, how unique and loving our relationship had been and the depth of the love bond between us.  That to me has been a great comfort and I have listened to it again and again.

“You do have a tie in the heart,” The two of you just fit like a glove,” I hear George say. “He’s showing me you’re linked in the heart...  You and he had such a nice loving relationship. The relationship must be very unique. The love is very deep....he comes as family but he also comes as a very good friend. The friendship is there as well so it’s a double hit.”

There’s also a double edge to listening to the recording. I wince when I hear myself after the session, when the months of anonymous planning, all the questions I had for George about the books and all the emotions of being there boiled over and spewed out of me. If Morris was still nearby I know he was saying “uh oh, there she goes.” He was always the one who would reel me in, or at least try.  To his credit, George took the ride and was gracious and understanding in his response.

I met with George on Jan. 21, 2009, exactly a year since the funeral and just one day after Obama’s inauguration.  During the campaign, whenever I heard Obama speak, I saw Morris and all he could have become with his innate intelligence, compassion, charisma and big picture view of the world. I saw it in his writings as well, especially in his last essay for college. Written just a month before it happened, it explains his view of the appropriate use of power and strength. I am so proud of him and  what he wrote:

“Ostentation reveals the not so attractive truth, which is fear and vulnerability. Booker T. Washington knew that you don’t have to degrade another to promote yourself when he said “There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up”…, Instead of having hate for the cards he was dealt he used education to achieve what he wanted. The fact that the quote was said by a man with his history makes it that much more insightful to me. What I mean is that if he had that much clarity, peace and understanding of himself and the world around him what excuse could I ever have for not helping others, or “pulling up”.
 
I can truly say that I love Booker T. Washington for everything that he was but more importantly everything he wasn’t. He did not succumb to the ignorant and racist people in his world attempting to oppress him. He did not resort to violence in the face of hate; he achieved everything he wanted without using someone else as a stepping stool. This quote means so much to me because of its obviousness and its genius. I consider someone who brings one person out of privation stronger than someone who’s ruined hundreds of their competitors to get to the sought after “top”.
 

There’s a link to the entire essay and more of his writings on a page of the foundation’s website: www.theMoStFoundation.org/essays


I hope my son knows the impact he has had on everyone whose life he touched, how special he was and how much he is loved.  I miss him so much there are no words to describe it.  And, eventually, I will see George again.
 
 
 

Our grateful thanks to all our contributors for their heartfelt and courageous stories.  If you would like to read previous installments, please click here