by Wilbur Witt
In the late nineties a young woman, her three year old son, and two girlfriends were racing across Jonesboro, Arkansas to a Christmas party. They apparently ran through a stop sign, crossing into the path of an SUV, which slammed into the side of their small car, killing the mother, one of her friends, and pitching the baby out through a side window, skidding him across the highway, bouncing him off a chain link fence, finally depositing in a field with two broken legs.
His parents were divorced. His father was staying with us in Texas. We got the call at noon, during Christmas dinner. The information was confused, and we were sure little Michael was dead, as was his mother. I stayed back in Texas to maintain the house, but everyone else rushed to Arkansas. When they got there the doctors told them that the baby, while being scraped up a bit, and with two broken legs, was going to be fine. There was no logical explanation as to how he got out of the car during the impact. The doctors said he just flew across that highway like Mighty Mouse. The baby became known as "Mighty."
Mighty's dad became a police officer. Later he would go to the Middle East to fight terrorists as a private contractor, and remains there to this day. We raised Mighty in the big house at Berry Creek. He walked slightly bow legged, due to his injuries, and he loved to eat. In later years it was hard to get that boy up for school, and if you didn't stay right on him he'd miss that bus every time.
Our family was Catholic. In the second year of my marriage to Mighty's grandmother I had become Catholic. I wanted the four boys we were raising to have a good moral structure, and I found that attending Mass provided for that need. My boys fell right into the flow of the church. They had Father Everette, and all the people there, and Sunday was actually fun.
Years and tears went by, my son Bobby died, Timmy turned to drugs and went to prison, Wilbur did well in the Navy, but he lived in California so we rarely saw him, and Michael went over to Afghanistan to find Bin Laden. As you already know, Jackie came and went, and between my wife's heart attack, and Jackie's legal problems the family was devastated.
We hardly noticed little Mighty quietly growing up, not attracting much attention to himself. He loved to run up to the Country Club where there was a concession stand that served burgers outside, and Mighty had an open account I had been very strong in my faith, but after all that happened I fell away. I still believed in God, but all the trappings of the Church were not as important to me anymore. I never questioned what had happened, I just adjusted and went on.
Mighty eventually moved into his father's new house about sixty miles away. While his dad worked his job overseas, he lived with his dad's girlfriend. He began to go to the Church. Then, quietly, he began to take his classes. Last night, he brought the family together to witness his confirmation. They all stopped and watched as Mighty made his mark on the family. During that ceremony, he showed my now ex-wife a ring. I wasn't there. Im very distant from the family now, and haven't been to church in years. The ring he showed her was a simple thing. A little silver thing with a cross on it. He told her, "Grandpa gave me this when I was a little boy. I saved it for this day." Then, he slipped it onto his finger. I don't really know where that ring came from. During the confusion of that awful Christmas it wound up on my desk. I had never seen it before, but i kept kept it in a desk drawer until the boy was old enough to keep up with it because I suspected that someone else had worn it on that eventful day so long ago in Arkansas.
