His grandmother arrived days later and took custody, and since then I’ve driven hours each month to visit. We sit in the backyard and talk about fear, guilt, and the slow work of healing. Bit by bit, he’s learning that he didn’t cause his mother’s death — her love carried him out of that fire.
Last month, he asked if he could call me Uncle Danny. That’s when I realized something powerful. I didn’t just help save a child who thought he had caused the unthinkable. He saved me too — proving that sometimes the person who arrives to comfort a broken child is carrying wounds of his own, and healing happens in both directions.
