And at home, forget about it. I was a workaholic back then, two jobs, out of the house at dawn and not back until 8 or 9. A lot of those nights, Jeff wouldn’t eat his dinner. His mother would get so angry, but what could she do? How do you force someone to eat? The best she could do was the tried-and-true route, telling him that if he didn’t eat dinner, he wouldn’t get dessert.

I would walk into his room when I got home, and he would be lying there, wishing he had eaten dinner so he could have a snack before bed.

“You hungry?” I would whisper, and he would nod, big eyes gleaming in the light from the hall. I would sneak him something, our little secret. Sometimes we would eat it together.

When Jeff was in middle school, my wife noticed he was getting home late from school, sometimes a little dusted up. It turned out some neighborhood boys were picking on him, waiting for him along the path they all took, making his life miserable. It made me furious, probably because I felt guilty for working so much and not being around to protect him.

People didn’t make a big deal out of bullying back then the way they do now, but I had to do something. Jeff was a small, sweet child who never hurt anyone. He just wanted to take the path home and feel safe doing it, but these kids kept singling him out.