A boy, on the verge of being what is referred to as a young man, asked for his mother.

Where is she? What have you done to her?

And because he was a boy mistaken for being older, they answered him.

She is gone. She won’t becoming back.

He knew not to cry in front of those men with the prickly faces and matter of fact voices.

And he knew that this news, of the loss of one person, changed everything. (Image from The Art Institute of Chicago, Mark Chagall’s Chicago Windows.)