I’ve been doing a pretty good job holding it all together. Unfortunately, I’ve also gotten a little lax about guarding against what I watch on TV. The other night on the 10:00 news I caught a story that will haunt me for a long time to come.

Billy Spencer was a 19-year-old marine who shipped to Iraq in 2006 – just a kid. Much like my son. Apparently he and his buddies were documenting their deployment. They’d agreed that if anything happened to any of them, they’d download the videos before the government could get rid of them.

Within a year, Billy had been killed in action. One year. The other marines delivered the videos to Billy’s parents as agreed. They just kept showing those videos on the news, and I could not look away.

I also could NOT stop crying. He was just a boy. There they all were, talking into the camera, and one of the boys yelled out “I love you, mom.” I went to bed that night replaying over and over in my mind the image of military personnel knocking on my door. How? How do parents survive something like that?

I know, I know, I know that it does no good to get worked up about something that won’t even become a possibility for my son until after next August. But what the mind knows and the heart fears are two different things.

My girlfriend came into the library the next morning, and we talked about Josh. And I shared with her about that news story that was now stuck in my head. She looked at me and carefully said, “At least he knows Jesus.” I just sat and looked at her, then I started crying. I think I scared her. She felt awful, and I don’t believe my assurance that my tears were not a result of what she said seemed to satisfy her. After all, she’s right; I do at least have that comfort. No matter what happens, Joshua knows the Lord. If he were ever to be taken from me in this life, I could rest in the knowledge that he was in a HUGELY better place.

And yet, somehow that doesn’t seem to stop the nightmare I’m fighting against.