Lost and found

What do you do on the day your son gets out of prison? While he's on the Greyhound bus from Ohio on PA 276 in street clothes and staring out the window at spring green hills for the first time in over two years.

You go to the Korean market and load up on "kalbi," and wraps to make spring rolls, and lemons for lemon meringue pies, and you cook for two days. You borrow long tables from the church to fit all his friends and have them come celebrate with you, even the neighborhood kids who weren't precisely invited; take them off the highways and byways.

There's no robe or ring to throw on him, but upstairs in my bedroom is a bag of jeans, hoodies, and T-shirts that have been waiting for this homecoming. (Still no sign of the contact lenses.)

What you do on the day your son gets out of prison is think about what he's thinking on the six-hour ride. Next is a halfway house, with guys stacked eight deep and an ankle bracelet. And you know what he's wanting --- just to go off somewhere by himself and have a good cry.

But today is party time and that is good too. His little brother is looking happy; I see no trace of a bitter attitude in him. I will not have to call him aside and say, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found."