ABSTRACT
Dreaded news arrives by means that become instantly insignificant once the delivery is completed. In past decades, telegraphs, the letter from the War Department, the neighbor with the only phone in rural farmlands walking upon the stone path to the screen door, or the official telephone call from the local police were the scripts. In my case, it was a phone call recorded on an answering machine message at four in the morning. In responding to the message, I heard my son’s mother, sobbing, say that Andy, our only son, is dead.
