Parables Retold: The Lost Son (2017)

            There was a family that lived in a small town. They led a quiet life. The father worked and his wife stayed at home to raise their two sons. When the sons grew to adulthood and moved away she began to volunteer at the local shelter. Everyone in town knew and loved the couple. They lived a happy life and eventually the husband retired. Some time after that the wife became sick. A year later she succumbed to the illness and died.

            The town surrounded the husband with support and the two sons moved home to care for their aging father. A few days after the funeral the members of the town returned to their lives leaving the father alone with his sons. The sons could tell their mother’s death had taken a toll on their father and decided to stay until he had fully recovered.

            Every morning the sons would rise early and prepare breakfast for their father. Every day their father would rise, eat breakfast with his sons in silence and then sit on a worn, leather couch that faced a picture window that opened up to the winding road leading up to the house. The father would sit on that couch for hours and hold his wife’s necklace tightly in his hand. It was a simple necklace, just a rough crystal wrapped in twine, but it had been her most prized possession.

            Life proceeded like this for about a month. The sons ensured their father’s health and kept the house and his affairs in order. One day the younger son broke the traditional silence at breakfast with a question. He wanted to know what was written in his mother’s will. He asked his father how much she had left to him. Silence settled back on the kitchen after the question had been asked. The younger son did not break his gaze with his father. The older brother stood to protest the inappropriate nature of the question but his father silenced him.

            The older brother fumed at his sibling. How could he think of himself while their father withered away before their eyes with grief? He could not believe his ears when the father beckoned his younger sibling to follow him to his study. He watched them leave the room. That evening the younger brother packed his bag and left. He did not say where he was going. He just said he needed to get out of that house.

            The next morning the older son rose and prepared breakfast alone. He sat with his father in silence as they ate. When his father rose to sit on the couch, however, he joined him. They sat together in silence, staring out of the picture window. The sun beamed its warmth through the window and the wind breathed gently through the green grass in the yard. The father held his wife’s crystal necklace in his hand and the older son put his arm around his father. They sat in silence for hours until the older son left to tend to the house.

            Months passed and the father’s health showed no signs of improvement. The older son stayed. He did not want to abandon his father in his time of need and he hoped for a word from his brother. No word came. After a few more months the older brother gave up all hope of hearing from his sibling. He had grown to loathe his memory. How could he abandon them like that and never call? Their father was dying and he was gallivanting around doing God knows what. He was a disgrace.

            As time passed, the older son’s resentment grew, as his father seemed to age at an increasingly rapid pace. They sat together on the decrepit couch every day and stared out the window in relative silence. The older son never knew what his father hoped to find through the window but he enjoyed the time they spent together in minimal conversation. Something about sharing the same space on that uncomfortable couch and breathing in the same air comforted him and he knew it did the same for his father. On a few occasions his father would smile and express his gratitude. He had never been a man of many words so the older son took these moments as an outpouring of love from his father. He would smile back and they would return to their silent vigil together.

            The year crept by and ushered in the anniversary of the wife’s death. The members of the town visited. They brought food and lingered around the house for a few hours, unsure of what to say or do. The husband enjoyed their company and seemed to light up with their presence. One of his old friends gave him a very expensive bottle of scotch and told him to save it for a happy occasion. As the day passed more people came and went until eventually it was just the father and the older son again. The house settled back into its silence.

            Anger began to fill the older son again. His brother had not so much as called to check on them. It was the anniversary of their mother’s death and he could not even be bothered to call. The older brother slammed plates around the kitchen as he picked up the mess the visitors had left behind after his father went to bed. Why should he be left here to be his father’s sole caretaker while his brother and everyone else got on with their lives? At this thought the brother recoiled. He could not believe himself as his mind raced. His father needed him. He did not have the luxury of leaving him when he needed someone most. He could see the grief taking his father with each passing day. It aged him at an alarmingly rapid pace. He did not know how much longer he had. He treasured the time he spent with his father during this time and would not trade it for anything.

            A few weeks after the anniversary of their mother’s death the older son stood at the kitchen sink washing the dishes from breakfast that morning when he heard his father let out a yell and jump from the couch. He ran into the kitchen and slid to a stop. The older son turned and could see his father’s face beaming with joy.

“Your brother has returned!” He yelled with the enthusiasm of a much younger man and ran from the kitchen, unable to contain himself.

            The older brother heard the front door slam as his father ran from the house. He was sure his father had lost his mind and ran to the picture window to see what his father had seen to cause such a mental break that he would hallucinate the return of his brother. When he reached the window, however, what he saw shocked him. His younger brother was limping down the path to the house. His clothes were ragged and bloody and he could not tell at a distance but he appeared to be covered in cuts and bruises. He watched his father run up and embrace his son. The older brother clenched his fists. Why was he not scolding him? How could he be so happy to see him after abandoning them only to return for a free handout once his luck ran out? The older brother returned to the kitchen. He pretended to not hear his father when he entered the house again.

“Come with me. We need to clean you up,” the older brother heard his father say. “What happened to you? Tell me everything.”

            Then the father called across the house to his oldest son. He asked him to call their friends in town. They needed to celebrate the return of his brother. The oldest son began to protest but his father did not hear him. He was already shuffling off to the master bedroom with his brother. The older brother wrenched the phone from the receiver, nearly tearing it off the wall and began calling their friends. Everyone sounded so happy to hear the news of his brother. With each consecutive call the brother grew more furious. Why were they so happy to hear his brother had returned? He had been here all this time and they had never shown that much joy or gratitude toward him.

            A few hours later people began to show up at the house with food and drinks. The house hummed with a life that had not been there since before the man’s wife had died. People talked and laughed in nearly every room of the house. Suddenly everyone fell silent. They all looked as the father called for everyone’s attention.

“I would like to thank you all for coming here tonight. We are here to celebrate a joyous occasion and I wanted to share it with my closest friends.” At this a cheer went up from the crowd and the father had to silence them again as a smile spread across his face. “My youngest son, whom you all know, left over a year ago to seek his fortune in the city. I had not heard from him in all that time but today he returned home.”

            With a grandiose wave of his arm the father directed everyone’s attention to his son as he emerged from the master bedroom. The crowd cheered despite the boy’s rough appearance. It looked like he had gotten in with a rough crowd. His face was covered in scars and one of his fingers was missing. A smile cracked across his rough face as he walked through the crowd with a pronounced limp.

            The older brother took a sadistic pleasure knowing that at least his brother had paid for abandoning them. This joy was fleeting, however, as he noticed his brother’s neck and what was hanging from it. There, glinting in the light of the house was his mother’s crystal necklace that his father had safeguarded all these years. The brother’s fury boiled inside him. His brother had returned to swindle his father out of more of his possessions. When his father called for him to retrieve the bottle of scotch to be opened for the occasion he could no longer contain himself. Shouts filled the entire house and everyone stopped. It was not until the brother’s reeling mind had caught up with him that he realized he was the one shouting. He shot daggers at his brother as he yelled at his father.

“Have you forgotten what he did to us? Did you forget that he never called? He took his mother’s, your wife’s, money and squandered it on God knows what!”

The brother punctuated each statement with every feeling of contempt that had built up inside of him over the past year and then directed his tirade at his brother.

“How can you show your face here? You not only abandoned our father but you abandoned me and disgraced our mother’s memory! Look at you! You’re not fit to call yourself a member of this family!”

            The older son jabbed his finger into his brother’s chest. The younger son staggered back under the strength of his brother. A few members of the crowd intervened and separated the two of them. When the older son resisted his father stepped forward.

“Let’s take a walk,” the father said and the older son followed.

            Whispers rippled through the house as the older son stepped outside with his father. He was about to launch into another diatribe when his father calmly raised his hand to silence him. The father placed his hands on his son’s shoulders and looked deeply into his eyes. Tears streamed down his face as he addressed his oldest son.

“You have stayed with me all this time. You kept me going and enjoyed my house and my company while your brother was away. You brought me joy every day you stayed but today,” at this the father faltered and cleared his throat to regain his composure, “Today your brother, my youngest son, has returned. I thought he was dead but he has returned, as if brought back from the dead. That is why we are celebrating. There will be a time for seriousness later. Tonight is about joy. Our family is whole again!”

            The father embraced his son and walked up the steps to the front door of the house. He turned when he realized his oldest son was not with him.

“I just don’t understand how you could forgive him,” the oldest son said, his eyes steeled toward his father.

            The father took a deep breath and looked with great sadness at his oldest son. “A year ago I lost one son. Please don’t cause me to lose another. This party is for all of us.”

            With that the father returned to the party. The oldest son remained outside in the front yard contemplating his father’s words. He listened to the laughter coming from inside the house but he could not bring himself to join them. The night sky stretched overhead as the party continued and the oldest son watched his father and younger brother through the picture window unable to bring himself to walk into the house because of the anger stored up in his heart.