What do you say?

My friend, Bev, lost her husband in a farming accident earlier this week.  He was 46.  Bev and Mark have 2 sons, Adam, and Alan.  I don’t know the details and to be honest, the details do not matter.  I called her, is there anything she needs.  Not yet, she says.  We all went to the viewing last night.  Michael stayed with the Wrestling Team to pay their respects as a team (Adam, a freshman, is on the team) and Joshua, Melanie and I went thru the line.  The home was very busy, Mark has a lot of friends and family.  I see a lot of familiar faces from the community.  We politely wave to each other back and forth.  Melanie is standing between us.  She is drinking in all the sights and sounds of this huge recieving room.  The flowers, the relatives, the crying babies, the old timers who remember Mark as a little child, she is taking it all in.  Just as we approach Bev, Adam, and Alan, I begin to cry.  Bev is so young, the boys are still in high school, they have the farm to look after.  I hug Bev tightly and whisper in her ear that we are here if she needs anything.  I tell the boys the same.  We make our way over to the casket to say goodbye to Mark.  What a gentle man, a husband, a father, a farmer, he was too many things to list.  As Joshua and I say our farewells, Melanie begins to sob.  Deeply, like from down in her gut.  Joshua and I both try to console her, but she needs to just cry.  It finally hit her that Mark wasn’t just my friend’s husband, he was the father of a boy the same age as she.  Melanie managed to calm down after we got home.  I hope that Bev can be the strong woman I know she is and carry on without Mark at her side.