Bob CollinsIt’s Friday on public radio, so this is a test of your tear duct system again.
Start with this photograph provided by Bill Jones, who tells StoryCorps of his son.
Every father has got a picture like this, from a time when dreams were big.
Aaron, the boy above, was turned down by five families before Jones agreed to adopt him. But first he decided not to.
“You know, children know when they’ve been rejected. So, I found myself down at FAO Schwarz. I had bought a teddy bear. I went back to the adoption agency and I said, ‘I want to give a present to that kid.’ Aaron heard my voice and came running across the room and threw his arms around my legs. And I just cried.”
His son was schizophrenic.
“Every day was a struggle with him,” Jones tells StoryCorps. “Except that he was a loving, sweet person.”
He died of a drug overdose at 30.
It’s the story of the collision between the dreams we have and the reality we have to accept.
