No one could have predicted the arrival of fifty bikers at my son’s funeral. Certainly not the four teens responsible for his death.
Crying has never been my thing. Spending twenty-six years as a high school janitor hardened me, made me learn how to keep everything bottled up. But when that first Harley pulled into the cemetery lot, then another, then one more—until the entire place was shaking with their roar—that’s when I finally lost it.
My fourteen-year-old son, Mikey, had taken his own life in our garage. His suicide note named four of his classmates. “I can’t do this anymore, Dad,” he wrote. “They won’t stop. Every day they tell me I should kill myself. Now they’ll finally get what they wanted.”
The police called it “tragic but not criminal.” The school principal offered “thoughts and prayers,” then suggested scheduling the funeral during school hours to “prevent any issues.”
I’d never felt so powerless. Couldn’t protect my boy while he was alive. Couldn’t get justice after he was gone.
Then Sam showed up at our door. Six-foot-three, leather vest, gray beard down to his chest. I recognized him—he pumped gas at the station where Mikey and I would stop for slushies after his therapy appointments.