Ripped Boy Ripped Jeans Ripped Heart

James was one of those kids who wore ripped jeans in the fifties. Sixty years before it was the style. His mother passed when he was eleven, in fifth grade. He came home from school to learn she was dead. He had been a mama’s boy; it was a huge shock. His older brothers both knew about her cancer, She had it for three painful years. They had kept him in the dark at her request. James began to shut down that April day. Some neighbors tried to make it better, but how could they? I know how you feel made it worse. He pushed everyone away, wearing dirty ripped jeans. His father was depressed, in his own funk, too upset to notice. James stopped going to school; no one made him. He could not have gone anyway. His biggest fear was that he would return home and his Daddy would be dead too.