My twelve-year-old son came home soaking wet after giving his late father’s umbrella to a pregnant stranger who had gotten caught in the rain. I thought he must be upset, until the next morning when our garden was filled with forty-seven umbrellas and boxes, turning his simple act of kindness into something far bigger than either of us had anticipated.
My twelve-year-old son delivered the last gift his father, Darren, had ever bought him, and three mornings later, forty-seven open umbrellas appeared in our front garden
It all started the week before, when Eli walked through the door completely soaked.
I opened the door with a kitchen towel slung over my shoulder, already irritated because the pharmacy had called again about a prescription that was still in my late husband’s name.
Then I looked at my son.
Water ran through her hair. Her shirt clung to her body and her lips trembled.
“Eli,” I said, pulling him inside. “Where’s your umbrella, love?”
He looked me in the eyes and I felt a knot in my stomach.
I prayed it wasn’t blue. Please, let it not be blue.
“She’s gone, Mom,” she whispered.
The blue umbrella had never been expensive. It had a wooden handle, a silver adhesive button, and Darren’s slanted handwriting on the inside of the strap because Eli used to lose everything when he was little.
But that umbrella, he never lost it.
Darren had bought it two months before the illness took him from us. From then on, Eli wore it everywhere.
“What do you mean you’ve left?” I asked.
Eli swallowed. “I’m sorry, Mom. I gave it to someone.”
“Did you give it away? What about…?
He lowered his chin.
For a brief moment, I wasn’t kind. I wasn’t proud. I was just an exhausted widow gazing at another empty space where my husband had once stood.
“Eli, that belonged to your father.”
“Lose.”
“So why would you give it away?”
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