I want to share with you an event that occurred the night before I arrived home for Thanksgiving this year…

Since a few weeks after his graduation from HS last May, our youngest son, James, has been sharing an apartment with three great friends Murphy and I have come to know well. It’s in a neighborhood we had tremendous reservations about, but they were somewhat lessened knowing he was among friends and not alone.

Sunday night, late, while Sam and Ryan were out having a smoke, James and Daniel were inside when two men armed with automatics tried to enter the house. James held the door as long as he could, until the two overpowered him, and came in the door shooting. At him. He made it up the stairway, two rounds splintering wood on the column support inches behind him. He grabbed his phone and his friend, and they made it out the upstairs landing down to the street — as the two gunmen exited the apartment, chasing and firing at Sam and Ryan — six rounds from two pieces, missing both of them. James had already called 911, but hollered loud enough to raise the alarm, and
break the gunmen away from his mates, but not before they’d tackled Ryan, put a pistol in his mouth and took everything he had.

I believe that our firstborn son, Patrick, taken from us in the brilliance of his life, was in that house that night, that moment…that instant; perhaps shielding his brother with wings….perhaps shielding them all. Miraculously, none were seriously hurt, or worse.

It was, to paraphrase, the worst of times and the best of times — at the same time, giving Murphy, me, Tucker and Jesse, the greatest
of all reasons on earth to be thankful this day.

Life is measured in instances; in the blinks of our eyes, in instant moments that change our lives from that moment on, forever.

May God hold each of you in the hollow of his hand, and wrap wings around you this day, and always.