One-room Schoolhouse

I was at the local electronics shop when a guy I barely recognized came up to me. "You said something once that I'll never forget," he said. At first, I had no idea what he was talking about. Then he reminded me about the toughest night of my life. I'd been going to AA meetings for a dozen years when my oldest son came down with what the doctors thought was the West Nile virus, a form of encephalitis. He was having seizures that the hospital couldn't stop. My son, for reasons of his own, had followed me into AA. He was a wonderful kid and he had turned his life around. He'd been a stage manager for a big local theater operation. But he left that, went back to school, got an MBA, joined a bank, and was a rising star in their financial operations. He'd just gotten married. Everything was terrific until he got sick, suddenly and frighteningly. Every body rallied around.