Can I just color?

Today I had one of the sweetest teaching moments of my career. I have a student who comes from an amazing family that are missionaries in Mexico. Zach's parents are my age and had to come back to the states because his mom had a miscarriage last summer and ever since then has been in intense pain and the doctors cannot find out what is wrong. It is a very sad story, the mom has to walk around in a wheelchair and is just vey weak. This family has to stay in the states until the mom gets better. Like I said, this family is incredible and I love them to pieces. Zach is a sweetheart and we pray for his mom every morning.
Right after school was out this afternoon our school secretary took me aside to tell me that Zach's mom had to be admitted to the ER and that she thought it would be better for me to tell him and then I was to take him to extended care. I was trying to hold it together but it was hard, my heart broke as I thought about the open house being tonight and how Zach was SO excited for his mom to be able to come and see the surprise that we cooked up.
So I told Zach that his mom's doctor appointment was going to be a little longer than expected and that he was going to extended care. He was obviously worried so we just said a quick prayer together.
I took him to where he needed to go and told the girl in charge that if he seemed really sad that he could come back to the classroom and hang out with me.
About 15 minutes later there was a knock on my door and in walks Zach and here is what was said:
Me: "Hey Buddy! How are you?"
Zach: "Good"
Me: "What's going on?"
Zach: "Nothing, I just am thinking about a lot of stuff."
Me: "Do you want to talk about it?"
Zach: "Not really. Can I just color? Do you want to color with me?"
Me: "Of course"
For the next twenty or so minutes Zach and I did simply that, just colored together and were silly and had a lot of laughs. It distracted both of us from what was going on and it was good.
Zach's dad came and picked him up and I could tell that it meant a lot to him that I would take the time to sit and color with Zach and that warmed my heart. It was the least I could do.
Zach's dad was able to come to the open house but not his mom as she has to spend the night in the ER.
I took lots of pictures of the classroom all decorated as an ocean for the open house and will post them soon. In the meantime, say a little prayer for sweet Zach and his family. I will keep you updated.