Hearing my dead son’s name made my stomach drop instantly.

I arranged to leave Harper with my trusted neighbor Pat and drove straight over to St.

Jude Hospital.

On the way, I drove past the mechanic’s shop where Ryan had worked.

A new sign hung over the entrance, but the loading bay still had the dent where he had backed a van into the frame during his first week.

He called me laughing that day, not because the accident was funny, but because his boss had told him the frame needed replacing anyway.

Ryan believed that honest work could make a person proud even when it did not make him rich.