A Hand in the Dark

The call came at 12:45 a.m. 

His voice was slurred and small, the way it used to sound when he was little and afraid of thunderstorms.

“Ma,” he said, panting.

My son wasn’t a caller. He was a texter. If he was calling, something was wrong — and judging by the fear threading his voice, I knew he was in trouble.

My heart started hammering in my chest. “What’s the matter, Buddy? What’s going on?”

“Ma…I ain’t gonna lie… I had too much to…drink.” He let out a long moan.

“Where are you?”

“Ballpark.”

“What ballpark? Where?” I pressed, now breathless, my hands shaking as I clutched the phone.

He groaned again and retched.

“Buddy, what ballpark? What’s the address? Dad and I will come and get you.”

“College… Google…it.”

“Should I call an ambulance?”

More groaning at the end of the line.

“Buddy, do you need an ambulance?”

“Nah…”

And then the line disconnected.

My son is a straight-A student. Intellectually, he soars above his peers (and oftentimes my husband and me), seeing the world with a clarity and insight far beyond his years. He’s careful about who he lets get close to him and usually exercises good judgment. This night was completely out of character for him, which is a big part of what made his late-night call so alarming.

I called him back. No answer. No text. Just silence — the kind that presses against your chest until it hurts to breathe.

I woke my husband. Together, we frantically Googled the ballpark at our son’s college, praying that we had the right address. Praying the half-hour drive to reach him wouldn’t be too late. All the while, I kept debating whether to call 911.

“He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine,” my husband chanted as he gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his tanned knuckles turned white. “We’ll get to him in time.”

I called our son again. Still no answer, so I texted him: Dad and I are on our way, Buddy. We’re not mad. Okay? We’re just concerned. We’re proud that you had the courage to call us. You won’t get a lecture. We just want to get you safely home. We’ll get your car later.

When my husband and I first pulled into the college ballpark, we didn’t see our son’s car. The lot was dark and mostly empty, and for a few seconds, everything in me clenched. Then we spotted it, parked at the farthest edge of the lot. The driver’s side door hung open, the faint glow from the dome light spilling out onto the pavement.

And there he was — our precious son. Face down on the cold ground, surrounded by the sour evidence of his body’s fight to keep him alive. His phone lay just out of reach, as if he’d tried to answer my calls but couldn’t.

My husband and I dropped to our knees beside him. We called his name once. Twice. He stirred just enough to let us know he was still with us. Relief and fear collided like opposing currents, pulling me in two directions at once. Then came the next hurdle: getting him upright.

He was 21, over six feet tall, and solid muscle. He towered over us. Lifting him felt like hoisting an elephant onto the highest branch of a tree. His legs wouldn’t cooperate. He was pure dead weight. We braced, lifted, stumbled, caught him again, and somehow — through grit, panic, and a kind of parental strength that defies reason — we loaded him into the car.

By the time we got home, he was shuddering. His skin was icy, his body limp and spent. He draped himself over the toilet, dry heaving into the bowl as my husband looked on, making sure he didn’t accidentally drown himself. Meanwhile, I tore through our son’s closet, searching for something warm to put on him — a zip-up hoodie, not a pullover. My husband and I didn’t have the physical strength to fight the fabric over our son’s head while he trembled and sagged against us. We stripped off his vomit-soaked clothes, wrapped him in clean layers, and half-dragged, half-carried him to bed. We rolled him onto his side and tucked him in snugly, like we used to do when he was little.

And then, while he drifted in and out of consciousness, I hurried through the house to gather soft lighting. I didn’t want him to wake up to a blinding brightness or to darkness, both of which would have left him startled and disoriented. A soft glow was the better choice — a calming departure from the harsh glare of the overhead light he always used. I took two of the Luminara nightlights from the main living area and plugged them in on opposite sides of his room. Then I slipped fresh batteries into my favorite faux lantern and set it next to his bed.

I sat beside him in the dim glow of the lantern light, counting his breaths, smoothing my fingertips through his hair the way I used to when the world felt smaller and safer. He swatted at me when I offered him more Gatorade to drink after he’d already taken a few weak sips. It was the most beautiful thing I’d seen all night — that spark of him fighting his way back.

Still, I felt gutted — angry, even — that my sweet boy, who’d long struggled to make and keep friends, had been abandoned on the pavement, covered in his own sick, by people who should have cared. He could have been arrested for public intoxication, mugged, beaten, or worse. This was the kind of story that could have made headlines — the kind that rips through a family and leaves a wound that never heals. Instead, it became ours to carry privately, but the kind that breaks something inside you, the weight of what could have happened sitting like a stone in your chest.

But then, somewhere between the ticking of the little wooden clock my son had made in elementary school and the rise and fall of his chest, he reached for me and tightened his hand around mine. Just like that, I was a child again, remembering two very different women who shaped the mother I would become.

I thought of the woman who raised me—the cold, cutting way she treated me whenever I failed to perform to her expectations. She presented herself as the perfect mother, locked in a private war to outshine her brothers, and I became the casualty of her relentless need to keep that image intact. Behind closed doors, she belittled, berated, and threatened me to fall in line or else. If I was lucky, she replaced her verbal bile with the silent treatment, often for weeks at a time. I was luckier still when she sent me away to boarding school after I refused to play the part she demanded. Escaping her abuse saved me from becoming like her: a mother whose love came with brutal conditions. Strings. Punishments.

Then I thought of my late grandmother — the most remarkable Christian woman I’ve ever known. She was the heartbeat of my childhood, my refuge, the living proof that I was worthy of a mother’s love. Her love never wavered or turned away when I failed. She showed up every single time. She could be firm when I needed it, but even in correction, her mercy was steady, never cruel. When my mother ripped me away from my family and home, my grandmother remained steadfast. Her love — and the love of Jesus she lived by — never abandoned me. She called, sent care packages and cards, visited, and made sure I knew I was loved. Because of her, I never completely forgot my worth.

Sitting there with my son in the lantern’s soft glow, still holding his hand, I realized which legacy I’d chosen to pass on. Not the cruelty. Not the shame. Not the fear or abandonment. But the kindness. The mercy. The steady, patient, and unwavering love of Jesus that my grandmother had always extended to me.

I didn’t feel heroic or saintly. I just felt…grateful. Grateful that my son was alive. Grateful that he had a mother who could meet him in one of his darkest nights with mercy instead of judgment. Grateful that pain didn’t get the final word. Grateful that somewhere along the way, my grandmother’s love took root in me and grew strong enough to carry us through any storm.

Not a grand declaration. Not a perfect ending. Just a mother holding her child’s hand through a foul tempest, refusing to pass the darkness on.

Because love shows up in the messy middle when it’s hardest to give — not just in the shining moments that make me proud. I thank God for His mercy, for my survival, and for the strength He gave me through my grandmother’s legacy of love to keep showing up.

Tomorrow will bring hard conversations, choices to face, and growth to be made — but my son won’t have to walk through it alone or in shame.

This was the lesson my grandmother had spent a lifetime trying to teach me: Unconditional love can rewrite history, even in the dark.

© 2025 Lowvee Cole. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.