Saturday, May 13, 2000
A Lesson in grace
Mother's gesture is amazing
A mother's love is stronger than anything. Stronger, even, than a mother's grief.
In the last year, Sharon Coffey has discovered the depth of that love. Until April 5, 1999, she was just a single mom struggling to raise her family and keep the bills paid. But that day, her 12-year-old son, Ben Van Cleave, took his life.
A sensitive boy who loved his skateboard and his drums, Ben had been the target of ridicule by a small group of classmates. His mother knew the other kids' taunts hurt him. He'd come home irritable, saying nobody liked him. But, close as she was to her son, she could not know the depth of Ben's pain.
Some children survive that kind of torment, but with scars that disfigure them for the rest of their lives. For others, like Ben, it is a blizzard that engulfs them, makes them lose their bearings, and they never find their way home.
On one horrible evening, Sharon Coffey learned the cost of unkindness.
She could have reacted in any number of ways — bitterness, retreat, blame. But this soft-spoken, fiercely strong woman chose to react with love. She says it came from God. One month after Ben's death, she presented the Benjamin Van Cleave Friendship Award to students in three Lawrenceburg, Ind., schools, that her son had attended.
In simple, straightforward words, the award defines the sort of compassion that will save some children's childhoods, and other children's lives:
“This award is given for being kind, friendly and helpful to all students, including those who do not make friends easily; for being accepting of all people no matter what others may say about them; and for always treating others with dignity and respect.”
The courage behind the award — and the rightness of it — touched off a powerful reaction. This spring, Lawrenceburg's Greendale Middle School held Kindness Awareness Week. Students at nearby St. Lawrence School wore ribbons in Ben's memory. A small group of students regularly stop by Mrs. Coffey's home, hoping to start a “kindness club.”
Mrs. Coffey herself is lobbying Indiana lawmakers to adopt a law similar to Florida legislation that requires character development in elementary schools.
“If I can help one kid, even if it takes me the next 50 years, it's worth it,” she says quietly. Beginning the award program did not come easily for Mrs. Coffey. The $150 to pay for the first year's awards was set aside from a family budget so tight the single mother had to work three jobs to keep food on the table.
The far higher cost was a mother going back to the very places her son had been wounded, to heal others.
When friendship, empathy and acceptance draw as much attention as scholarship, popularity and athleticism, all children will be happier and safer.
Ben Van Cleave poured out his pain on himself rather than others. In one courageous act of grace, his mother has tied his name forever to kindness.
To help with the work she has begun, you may donate to the Benjamin Van Cleave Friendship Award Fund, c/o United Community Bank, 230 Walnut St., P.O. Box 70, Lawrenceburg, IN 47025. To support this extraordinary woman, you may send letters to me, and I will forward them to Sharon.
Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH 45202, or e-mail her at krista_ramsey@hotmail.com .
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