KORONER’s KORNER: My Son

If you’ve read the last two articles, you’ve read how I was missing my dearly departed son and how I was going through his things almost 16 years after he passed away.  As I was going through papers, I found two papers that I’ve copied below.  The first appears to be words at a eulogy and the second is a letter I wrote to Richard one year after his death.  I’ve copied them verbatim with grammatical errors and all.  I hope they help someone.

“An Unfinished Stone for an Unfinished Life (this is the engraving on my son’s headstone).

I started out to write a letter of tribute to Richard but soon realized that it was not a letter of tribute, but a love letter.  Who would ever think a father would write a “love” letter to his son?  But maybe that’s something we could use more of, love letters between parents and children.  Something that doesn’t vanish when the phone hangs up or the e-mail crashes.

For those who offer kind words and condolences, I thank you.  But understand that silence is not bad.  For no words you say can ever make it better and no words can ever make it worse.  It is what it is.

God gives us each a different life with different roads to journey and different burdens to bear.  Some we bear for all to see, while others are private, but no less heavy on our shoulders.  For some of us, the guilt and shame of our past sins is only relieved by the love of Jesus Christ and by the mercy He shows in allowing us to forget over time.

If there is any message I hope to convey to anyone here today, it is simply to love your children while you and they are here.  To always greet them and send them off with a hug and a kiss and an “I love you.”  For no one knows what tomorrow may bring for any of us.  But rest assured, we will all drink from the same cup of life and death as Richard.  For where he lies, we will too soon be.”

“Dear Richard, it’s been one year since you passed away.  I was going to say “died,” but you still live in my heart.

This has been the saddest year of my life.  Sometimes, the smallest thing will remind me of something I did or didn’t do to you or for you and start me to crying.

It seems as if it is so easy to remember all the times I was a bad father and so hard to remember when I made you happy.  Reading your blogs, thank God you had a loving mother who made you feel good about yourself.

I wish I had been more supportive and encouraged you.  I wish we could have shared more hobbies and time together, but wishing will not change the fact that you are gone and that you will never come back.

If you could only hear me, I would thank you for all the pride and joy you brought to me as my first born and as my dad’s first grandchild.  I would thank you for being such a handsome, smart young man who went off to pursue his dreams.  I would thank you for continuing to live your life through the storms of your seizures and not just sitting still and feeling sorry for yourself.

Finally, I would thank you for teaching me, even after your death, about how important family is in life.  You have taught me patience and humility as all things will come to pass and nothing I ever do will ever be as important or meaningful as you were and are to me.

I apologize and am sorry I never expressed that to you while you were here.  Perhaps even I didn’t realize it until great things happened and the first person I wanted to tell and brag to was you, but you were gone and so was much of my joy.

Your absence brings such mixed feelings.  It means that all other bad things aren’t quite so bad now because nothing compares to you being gone.  But it also means that all good things aren’t quite so joyful now and that joy is always transient and temporary because I either don’t have you to share it with or because of the guilt it brings me.

I never knew how much I loved you until you were gone and that means you probably didn’t know how much I loved you.  A greater sin no parent could commit than to fail to teach their children how much love means.  I pray your death will mean that Johnny and Melissa (siblings) will never have to doubt my love.  Repeating my last and most important words to you the last time we were together, “I love you.””