Dear Rachel

Old Songs & Memories

2007-10-14T17:44:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

It's been a while since I've posted, yes? Perhaps I was thinking it had all been said, that -- at least until whatever illusory "closure" offered by the trial comes to pass -- there was nothing more for me here.

Then again, the trial keeps being continued and Lesley and I and Deb and the rest of the parents and loved ones feel as if we're suspended in amber. Or maybe it's more like we we're suspended in the web of a giant spider; perhaps we'll wriggle free, or perhaps it will consume us.

I surely need no help thinking of you -- I think of you every day -- but fall is here, and today the saddest song in the English language reminded me of you:

Since you went away, the days grow long;
And soon I'll hear old winter's song.
But I miss you most of all, my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall.

Love,

Dad

Dream A Little Dream of Me

2007-05-27T11:05:00.000-05:00

And it's fading now, fading away
It's only a dream;
Just a memory without anywhere to stay
- Neil Young

Have you any dreams you’d like to sell?
- Stevie Nicks

Dear Rachel,

Last night I had a dream about you. Oddly, that's a very rare occurrence—or perhaps it's really not; perhaps I simply forget the dreams as soon as I awake, as I forget most of my dreams. It may be that I recall this one so clearly because the anniversary of your death approaches.

In my dream, you and I were traveling cross-country. I don’t know where we were going or why we were headed there, but we were driving your car, I think, and taking our time; just a nice, pleasant, leisurely jaunt of the sort that we never actually got to take together. The majority of the dream—or at least, what I remember of it—took place in a restaurant at which we had apparently stopped for dinner. (You were much better behaved at this restaurant than when you were four years old and we stopped at a Coco’s in California. We happened to drop in right in the middle of a rush occasioned by that chain’s popular senior citizens’ discount. You sipped a hot chocolate and looked around at all the people eating their dinners, your big brown eyes peering over the mug. “Dad,” you said very loudly, “why are all of these people so old?!”)

In my dream, we didn’t know anyone in the restaurant (not a chain this time, but an old house converted into a sort of funky diner) when we first entered, but by the time we were having dessert (and when did either of us, left to our own devices, ever skip dessert?), you had made friends with everyone in the room. This was no surprise at all, of course; that’s just the way you were—outgoing, friendly, gregarious. You couldn’t possibly enter a room without making a new friend or running into an old one. You were simply a companionable person, and a joy to be around.

This was a lucid dream: That is, in my dream, I knew that I was dreaming. I remember thinking to myself, “This is only a dream, but isn’t it a beautiful one? I’m with Rachel again, even if only for a little while and even if only in a dream.” One takes what solace one can find.

I can’t have you back, not ever. But last night we were together again for a few bright, happy moments.

Love,

Dad

Smart's Just Not Good Enough, I Guess

2007-03-21T12:15:00.000-05:00

Like many intellectuals, he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a simple way.
- Marcel Proust

Dear Rachel,

I always thought it was funny that you believed I was so smart. I remember you filling out one of those Internet surveys in which you answered, “My dad” to the question, “Who is the smartest person you know?”

It’s natural for a daughter to believe one of two things about her father: Either he’s brilliant, or he’s a complete idiot. Luckily for me, you opted for the former rather than the latter.

As you grew up, I was engaged in what might be viewed as intellectual pursuits. (I suppose that’s a fancy way of saying that I’ve never really worked for a living.) I was a teacher, then an editor, then a software developer, and finally, toward the end of your life, an editor again. To an adoring daughter – and you were always that – I suppose these would seem like vocations that required intelligence and training and skills of an intellectually demanding nature. Then again, you might just as easily have been asking yourself, “Hmmm… How come Dad can’t hold a job?!”

At any rate, while I never thought of myself as stupid, I also never believed that I was quite as smart as you thought I was.

This is especially true now. If I’m so sharp, why didn’t I know you were in trouble? How did I not see that your personal life had gotten to a point at which you were in physical danger? Why didn’t I see what was happening?

This, I know, is part of the dark, brooding blanket of guilt that hangs over all of us who’ve lost a child to violence: We tend to feel responsible for things over which we really had no control. I realize that, but it still pains me that, as well as I knew you and as much as I loved you, there could have been looming in your social orbit a danger so violent, so predatory, and so malevolent. And all without me suspecting that you were at risk.

And now that it’s happened – now that I’ve lost you to that malevolence – I’m not sure I’m smart enough to know how to get through it.

Love,

Dad

Surviving Christmas

2007-02-12T16:21:00.000-06:00

I’m so tired. but I can’t sleep
Standin’ on the edge of something much too deep;
It’s funny how we feel so much, but cannot say a word;
We are screaming inside, but we can’t be heard
- Sarah McLachlan

Dear Rachel,

Well, here it is February, already. I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve written. Odd, especially since things have been weighing even more heavily on me these days than before. That makes sense, I suppose, considering that your birthday is coming up, followed closely by the trial and then the anniversary of your death. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to bring myself to write.

We got through the holidays fairly well, really; much better than last year. The only disaster came when, on the morning of Christmas Eve, I went to set the table for breakfast. Without thinking about it, I grabbed cutlery for four and headed for the dining room.

But there are only three of us sharing Christmas now.

Amy was upstairs, I think, so she didn’t notice. Lesley did notice, but pretended not to. I quietly put the extra place setting back in the drawer and went out to have a cigarette and wipe my eyes.

Things happen like that. You can be plodding along, thinking you're doing pretty well, when suddenly a huge hobnailed boot comes out of nowhere and stomps on your heart.

Love,

Dad

Inconstant Moon

2006-12-12T19:00:00.000-06:00

I'll find you in the mornin' sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you
- Sammy Fain / Irving Kahal

Dear Rachel,

Well, it’s Christmas again. Lots of pretty lights, melodious bells, stockings hung by the chimney with care, carols sung by the choir, and all of that. This used to be my favorite time of year: The family all together (a rarity, what with the two of you in college and living in Virginia and Texas), the two sisters snuggled on the couch (making jokes about Nebraska, usually), great smells wafting in from the kitchen . . . . Secrets whispered behind cupped hands and jokes told aloud.

The holidays are hard, now. We all remember you, and we miss you; what should be a time of joy becomes instead of time of shared sorrow. We’re still gathering at home (Amy having just graduated from TCU—you would’ve been so proud of your baby sister!), but your absence makes it tough to find any joy in the gifts, the family outings, the visits to friends’ homes. We all try to celebrate, but the spirit of the season vanished when you were taken from us. I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back.

It’s getting cold, here in Nebraska, but I still go out on the back deck and I look up at the stars and I wonder which one is you. Which sharp point of silvery, twinkling light is my little girl? Are you out there anywhere? Can you feel us missing you? Do you know how much we loved you, and how much we still love you?

Lesley and I don’t really need or want much this Christmas. We have cars and clothes and a house and toys and, most importantly, we have each other. And the one thing we want most in the world is the one thing we can’t have, of course.

Love,

Dad

Neither Have I Wings To Fly

2006-11-08T14:15:00.000-06:00

The river is wide,
I can’t cross over;
And neither have I
Wings to fly.
—Traditional Irish Folk ballad

There are so many, many times during the day that memories of you strike me, often unbidden: I’ll see a young woman who reminds me of you. I’ll think of a song (such as the one noted above) that makes me think of you. I’ll come across a photo. There’s no escaping this and, of course, no one (except for the man who murdered you) is to blame. In fact, there may come a time, I’m told, when I’ll cherish these memories, a time when I’ll embrace them. After all, they’re all that I have left of you. I’m looking forward to that time, but so far it’s not happening. For now, the memories are like bright, sharp knives that twist in my gut.

Then there are memories triggered by something someone has said or done. Usually it’s quite inadvertent: A friend might make a comment about how well her college-age son or daughter is doing. Someone might say something reminiscent of some of the verbal banter in which the two of us used to engage. (“Is that a whine? There’s no whining here!” Or maybe, “Poor… ,” something like the way we used to make fun of whatever problem you might be having by saying, “Poooooor Rachel.” Poking fun at ourselves by poking fun at [and thus minimizing the importance of] whatever “tragedy” had befallen you that week.) A buddy might mention “the kids” or even just talk about an upcoming graduation.

The thing is that when people do this, they almost always realize that they’ve just said something that might be hurtful; they glance quickly at me to see if I noticed, and then they carry on as quickly as possible in the hopes that perhaps I missed whatever it was.

I never miss it. Not ever. How could I? I think of you always. The ache is not as painful as it once was – at least, not usually – but it’s always present. It doesn’t take much to make it flare up; every such comment makes the pain jump instantly from a sort of background ache to a sharp, momentarily debilitating pain.

But I guess I’d rather that than think that I could ever forget you.

Love,

Dad

Little Things & Big Things

2006-09-29T16:39:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

At first it was the “big things” that got to me. The realization that I would never get to share some of those defining moments with you, that certain important milestones would never be reached. I’ll never get to walk you down the aisle. Never watch (all blubbery and teary-eyed, no doubt) as you get an award, accept a big promotion, or walk across the stage to get that master’s degree. I’ll never be able to call on you for advice—instead of the other way around—as I enter my dotage and am wondering about where (and how!) to live, how to maximize my savings, etc. (You were supposed to be around to help out your doddering old dad, you know.) I’ll never get to marvel that my “little girl” is now 40 years old. Never help you move into that first real house of your own. Never get that phone call from you: “Better sit down. Are you sitting? OK, well, you’re about to become a great-grandfather.” (Not so sure I was looking forward to that one anyway.)

So many big moments we’ll never share.

These days, though, it’s mainly the “little things” that I think about. I see a young woman on the playground help her child master the monkey bars, and I think, “Rachel will never help Shaylyn do that.” I see a nice sunset or a beautiful white cloud against a bright blue background and think, “Rachel can’t see this.” The telephone rings and I think, “That won’t be—can’t be—Rachel.” A country song comes on the radio and I think, “Rachel really likes George Strait, but she can’t hear this.” I pull up next to a car in which a young woman is smiling and talking on her cell phone and I think, “Rachel always did that—but no more.”

A thousand little things remind me of you.

Those little things add up and they occur all the time and they hurt a lot. The world isn’t really made up of those big things, of large moments of huge import, is it? Instead it’s a collection of thousands of seemingly unimportant little things; a never-ending stream of small moments that eventually become—well, whatever we make of them, I suppose. Canadian poet Robert Brault advised us to learn to “enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” And, as it turns out, they were.

Love,

Dad

Injuring Eternity

2006-08-23T15:38:00.000-05:00

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. —Thoreau

Dear Rachel,

Last week on my way home from work I ended up stuck behind several cars at a traffic light. (In Nebraska, this constitutes a “traffic jam.” Remember those traffic jams in L.A. and San Diego? You and I have been in some real traffic jams, haven’t we?) At any rate, the “traffic jam” meant that I had a few moments to just sit there in peace.

As I was waiting for the light to change, I noticed a young woman and her eight- or nine-year-old son coming out of the public library on the corner. I could tell by the set of the woman’s chin and her pursed lips that she was angry about something. She stomped down the walkway toward the parking lot with her shoulders hunched and her eyes flashing. Behind her, the son tried gamely to keep up. Every once in a while he’d say something, looking as plaintive as possible. (And a small boy can look very plaintive indeed.) The mother would glance over her shoulder and snap something back and then continue striding angrily toward her car. Obviously, they were having “issues.”

The whole exchange took maybe 20 seconds or so, just long enough for me to notice what was going on and to wonder what their disagreement might be about. Did the boy take too long while looking at some books? Did he drop a book and break the spine? Did he forget his library card at home, causing his mom to have to turn around drive back to retrieve it? Did he leave a book—now overdue—on his nightstand?

Whatever it was that caused the conflict, it couldn’t have been all that momentous. I wanted to jump out of my car, rush over there, and grab the woman and shake her by the shoulders: “What’s wrong with you?!” I would have cried. “Don’t you know how precious this time is that you have with your son? How valuable? Do you know that, once spent, this time can never be lived again? Is this how you want to spend your time with your son? Angry about some silly, meaningless thing? You should be walking by his side, his small hand in your larger one, and you should both be smiling. You should make sure he’s smiling, because—believe me, I know—it could be the last smile you ever see from him.”

“My daughter’s dead,” I would have said. “She was taken from me suddenly. I would give anything, anything at all, to see her smile just one more time. To walk beside her one more time.”

“But I’ll never again see her smile, never walk beside her. Never hold her hand. You can, though, if you will. Will you? Please? Will you do that for me and for all the parents who, for whatever reason, are unable to walk beside their children?”

Love,

Dad

Joy & Loss

2006-07-26T14:29:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

Looking at the date of my last post, I was going to say that it’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to you. But that’s not true, really. I speak to you always… I talk to you when I awake in the morning and when I lie down to sleep at night. My thoughts turn to you throughout the day—when I should be writing a column or editing an article, I find myself thinking of you, missing you, instead.

I guess that’s just how it’ll always be.

We’re getting ready to go to Virginia Beach on Friday for Shaylyn’s birthday party. (There’ll be a huge crowd; she is, after all, Virginia’s smartest and cutest four-year-old.) This will be another one of those bittersweet visits, of course. I love seeing Shay-Shay, your mom, great-grandparents Pat & Elaine, your old friends, Debbie’s old friends, a zillion other four-year-olds from Shaylyn’s school and all the others. And Shaylyn’s Aunt Amy will be there, too!

But you won’t be there, except in our memories. Debbie’s rambling old house is alive with memories of you. Pictures of you on the walls (including the beautiful graduation photos you never even got to see), Wizard of Oz trinkets and memorabilia from your collection, stacks of cards and letters that arrived before and after your funeral.

So, as much as there is to enjoy, there’s also so much to remind us of what we’ve lost. And the joy will be over in a few hours, and the loss will go on forever.

Love,

Dad

Time Passes

2006-06-22T11:32:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

Time passes, and things get a little better. Not completely better, of course, and not all at once. And not in a linear fashion, either; it’s the old “one step forward, two steps (or sometimes three or four or five) back” thing.

Still, I can see some light now. I don’t cry as much as I used to; rarely, in fact. I don’t as often find myself in a blue funk, either staring into space or working furiously on some essentially meaningless project just so I don’t have to think. Because having time to think means having time to remember, and while remembering can be good, it seems too often to lead to endless ruminating during which I replay in my mind not all the wonderful times we had together, but the moment of your death. There’s no percentage in doing that, of course; I certainly can’t change anything, and I don’t even really know all the particulars of your death. And yet, it’s hard not to think about it, difficult to avoid replaying that ugly little movie over and over again in my head.

But overall, I feel better as we head into year two.

I’ve heard people say, though, that the second year is often worse than the first—as hard as that might be to believe. (How could anything be worse than this?!) It makes a certain amount of sense, though: We spent that first year in a daze, struggling to handle details that needed to be taken care of, largely numb to the reality of your death. That first year was a constant and seemingly endless struggle to get through the next hour, the next day, the next week. Eventually, we discovered that we’d somehow survived a full year.

Which is where the trouble sometimes starts, I think. You get through that first year and there’s a feeling of accomplishment of sorts, a realization that you managed to sidestep—or sometimes just plow right through—all the landmines. My house is still standing, as is my marriage. I can still do my job, though perhaps not with the same joy I once took in it. I can still find enjoyment in friends, in a good dinner, in a good joke (or even a bad joke).

But nothing’s changed, really. We got through the year, but that didn’t change the fact that you’re gone. The fact that we got through the first year (including a painful but beautiful remembrance on the anniversary of your death and a terribly bittersweet Father’s Day) hasn’t changed a thing. One cannot undo a death.

So, yes, I can see why the second year might, for some people, be even worse than the first. We were pretty numb during that first year. The second year brings with it the realization that this is forever; an understanding that life will never again be the same, that when he shot you he killed something in all of us, something that can never fully come back to life.

So I guess that time doesn’t “heal all wounds.” Some of them simply scar over, and that’s the most one can ask for. To paraphrase one of my favorite authors: Time passes, but sometimes it beats the crap out of you as it goes by.

Love,

Dad

Balm in Gilead

2006-05-25T16:18:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

Poe’s raven was wrong, I think. There really is balm in Gilead.

It’s now been almost exactly one year since you were killed. It’s been a long, dark, painful year; I doubt that any of us will ever be the same. We all spent numbed weeks in shock, followed by long months during which we cried almost constantly. (There was a time when I was so used to crying that crying felt normal; not crying brought with it an odd, almost discomfiting, feeling. As if my mind and body had settled into a comfortably acceptable routine of weeping.) I wondered (as I know Lesley did), “Will I ever again not feel sad?”

Those months were followed by months of anger. I raged (and still rage) against the man who did this to you, to us; and against a providence that would allow him to.

But I have found myself feeling happy on occasion. I have laughed. I have joked. I have found (much to my surprise, and with more than a bit of guilt) ways to enjoy my life.

Some of this is, I know, due simply to the passage of time. We are wired to move past our grief; it would be biologically counterproductive not to do so. One is, and must be, predisposed to find ways to move on because not to do so is to enter the realm of madness. (And not everyone makes it: Some are unable to cope. They dive into a bottle or move to a hermitage or end their own lives. Their grief has done more than injure them, it has driven them mad.) Most of us manage to escape that fate, though. Our grief hurts us, even maims us; but it doesn't cripple us, not permanently.

More helpful than the passage of time, though, have been the gentle ministrations of friends and family. I wouldn’t presume to list them all here, but many, many friends and relatives came forward to help when it must have very difficult to do so. We couldn’t have been very good company, especially in the early months. And yet, friends, neighbors, and relatives came through for us. They dropped by. They sent letters and emails. They brought food and flowers and beer. (Early on they even mowed our lawn, picked up our mail, returned library books, and more.) They asked us how we were doing and they really wanted to know; they didn’t turn away when we gave them the real answer, painful as it must have been for them to hear it.

We received—and continue to receive—so many things from so many people. I think it’s because of that, and because of the relationship that Lesley and I have, that we’ve made it this far. It’s hurt a great deal, and it continues to hurt, of course. (This is a club that you cannot un-join. Once you sign on, you’re a member for life.) But things are not as dark as they were.

There is some balm in Gilead, then. Not enough, not by a long shot. But some. More than I would have thought, anyway.

Love,

Dad

Mothers' Day

2006-05-22T11:03:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

Apparently I’m not as smart as I thought I was. (And nowhere near as smart as you thought I was. But I guess daughters always give their daddies more credit than they deserve.)

I somehow never saw Mother’s Day sneaking up on me. I knew it was coming, of course, and I knew it would be tough for all the mommies: Debbie, Lesley, Andi (grandmommies, after all, are simply mommies-once-removed), etc. But I figured that it wouldn’t affect me much. After all, I am neither a mom nor a daughter, and my own mother passed away almost 10 years ago.

I was pretty safe, I thought.

But no, I had a tough time on Mother’s Day. I kept thinking about what a great mother you were to Shaylyn. (Lesley and I were amazed at your maturity and your patience. Where did that come from, we both wondered?) I thought about my mother, your “Grams,” and how much I miss her.

And I worried about “the mommies” in our family. And about all the other mommies for whom Mother’s Day was not a day of joyful celebration, but of loss and pain. I remembered Elizabeth Stone’s comment that becoming a parent was “…to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” So many, many mothers’ hearts have been broken while walking around outside of their bodies.

Ironic, isn’t it? Mother’s Day is so…Hallmarkian. It’s an artificial holiday, really. Well-deserved, of course, but pushed largely by the greeting card companies, the flower vendors, the candy manufacturers, restaurants. It’s driven mainly by commerce, at least these days.

How could something so artificial be so painful?

And now, another date to dread: This weekend is the anniversary of your death. On the 28th of this month it will have been exactly one year since you were murdered. A full year of numbness, then pain, then more numbness, then still more pain. A full year of trying to figure out why this happened, and of wondering if there were anything any of us could have done to stop it. A full year of hell.

Love,

Dad

Lucky Guy

2006-05-09T14:14:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty lucky person. I’ve almost always gotten the things I really needed or wanted: good job, nice home, wonderful wife. And much of that, I think, was really just luck. Yeah, I worked for it, but other people worked just as hard (or harder), were just as smart (or smarter), and not all of them have had good lives. Some of them have suffered horribly; some have had their lives brutally cut short.

But not me. I’ve never really suffered. And until now, there just hasn’t been that much that I’ve wanted that I couldn’t have.

Now I have to come to grips with the knowledge that—in spite of the fact that I still have a good life—not much of what I’ve accomplished in terms of material success really means much. Who cares if I can drive a nice car? Go to the movies when I want? Live in a nice house? It’s not that this stuff isn’t meaningful, it is; but its importance pales beside the things that really matter. I would give it all up in a heartbeat—and so would Lesley, Debbie, Amy, and others—if I could have you back.

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, I now discover that the one thing I want most in the world turns out to be the one thing that I cannot have.

Love,

Dad

Phantom Limbs

2006-04-26T13:49:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

When I was a very young child, I met a man who was missing an arm. Being too young to be embarrassed (or polite), I must've stared a little too long and he noticed me looking at him. We talked about his arm and about how he came to lose it: Apparently there’d been a farm accident involving an auger or a reaper or something—I was too young to understand, or perhaps it was so long ago that I've simply forgotten. In the end he lost his arm and was lucky to have lived at all.

To a small child, this seemed an exciting (and slightly scary) story, but the most interesting thing he said was that, on occasion, the arm still hurt. I couldn’t imagine that, but he said that he sometimes still felt pain; when this happened, he said, it felt exactly as if the arm were still there.

That was the first time I’d heard about “phantom limbs.” Apparently it’s not uncommon, though. Something to do, perhaps, with neural pathways having been conditioned to interpret signals in a particular fashion and having no other way to interpret them, even when the limb that would normally send those signals is no longer present.

Missing you is a bit like having a phantom limb. You’re gone, but sometimes I’m struck by pain that come out of nowhere, from something I thought I’d gotten used to. But no, there’s no getting used to this, really. It’s kind of like having a phantom heart, I guess.

Love,

Dad

Laughter, Like A Silver Bell

2006-04-07T14:04:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

I’ve been remembering your laughter. In a drone of voices, it rang out like a silver bell; it was unmistakably you, and I could always hear it, even in a crowd. No matter the size of a gathering, we could always find you by the sound of your uninhibited, honest laugh. Sometimes it burbled like a clear, running stream; sometimes it fell, emerging instead as a low, throaty chuckle.

Either way, hearing it, I would know two things that were, oh, so important to me: I would know where you were, and thus, that you were safe; and I would know that you were happy.

And now we have to live without that laughter. The world is an immeasurably darker, more somber place now, and it doesn’t even know what it’s lost. But we know: me, your mom, Lesley, Amy, your friends and family. We all know what’s been taken from us and we know all about the ragged hole your absence leaves in our hearts.

How ironic, if there were indeed a heaven, that you would get to go there while the rest of us remain here in hell.

Love,

Dad

Future Imperfect

2006-03-29T13:54:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

More on tenses… I’m still having trouble with them. I suppose I always will.

I hate referring to you in the past tense. “Remember when Rachel caught a fish and had no idea what to do with it?” “Hey, didn’t Rachel go to South America that year?” “Boy, Rachel sure could throw a baseball.” “Rachel loved Amy like a sister; no, more like a best friend who happened to be her sister.” “Rachel came to visit last winter.” [Unspoken: And she’ll never come to visit again.]

It’s that reference to an immutable and forever removed past that hurts, I guess. All of the things you did, all of the things we did together, the things we said to each other, they’re all in the past and they’ll never happen again. Not only will you never again “catch” a softball with your mouth (“I said, ‘Keep your eye on the ball!’ I didn’t say, ‘…oh, and don’t bother moving your mitt!’ I’m sure the tooth will be fine; just put it under your pillow tonight.”), but we’ll never again get together and laugh about it.

As I neared middle age, I realized that I kind of enjoyed looking back at the past; after all, as one ages, one eventually gets to the point where one actually has a history to look back on. But you were so much a part of that history that looking back now is painful. There’s a big, ragged hole in my history.

But even having to think of you in the past tense isn’t as bad as the realization that, in addition to the past being hurtful, the future has been altered—irreparably torn like a piece of fabric come unraveled.

It’s the future that hurts the most, in fact. I find myself thinking of you in various future conditional tenses: “Rachel would have found a job by now; I wonder if she’d have decided to stay in Virginia.” “Rachel would have been 25 next February.” “Rachel would have loved this lake.”

It’s that “would have” that’s so painful; it’s a grammatical construction that’s by definition full of promise, now never to be realized. You can’t say “would have” without implying a loss of the future.

I loved you so much. I still love you, I’ll always love you, and tenses be damned.

Love,

Dad

And One With Wings

2006-03-20T16:42:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I’ve noticed that I have quite a problem with tenses these days. That’s not surprising, really; we’ve talked a bit about it with our local grief support group and it seems to be a common thing.

And really, tense is at the heart of the problem when someone asks the question that we all dread: “So, how many children do you have?” Among those of us who have lost children, that’s referred to as The Question: No parent of a deceased child wants to hear it, because the answer—no matter how it’s phrased—is going to be painful. What do we say? “Well, we had two, but now we only have one.” No, that doesn’t work. And if we just say, “We have two” or “We have one,” both answers ignore the fact that one of our kids has died. Isn’t that the same as pretending that everything is as it was? Or that you never existed? We could never do that.

One of our grief group members has a beautiful answer, but I can’t bring myself to use it because I don’t believe it. When The Question comes up, she responds, “I have two, one with feet and one with wings.”

Oh, I wish I could buy into that. If it were true, you’d definitely have wings, Rachel. You’d have the biggest, most beautiful wings anyone had ever seen. They’d shine alabaster-white in the sun, I know they would. They’d be stippled by iridescent flecks of green and blue that would flash in the sky as you soared above us all. You’d be just as beautiful after death as you were in life.

I don’t believe that, of course. No wings. No angels. No hope for an eventual reunion. I can't believe in all of that. I’ve never in my life so wanted to be wrong about something.

Love,

Dad

Falling Into A Hole

2006-03-08T13:37:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

We just never know when we’re going to get blindsided. I can be doing pretty well and then a song will come on the radio or a young woman your age will walk by and set me off. Lesley and I have talked about this, and I know that she gets hit by it, too. No doubt Amy and Debbie have had the same terrible experience.

This time it was during a business trip to Orlando. I’d gone out to give a speech to a PC users’ group. I like speaking to such groups, getting to meet readers, etc., although I hate the actual traveling: hours waiting in airports, followed by hours crammed into too-small seats on an airplane. (Not to mention the actual flying! Zooming along at 600mph in a glorified cigar holder. Ugh.)

At any rate, the trip was fine, as these things go, until I got up Saturday morning and went outside to have a smoke as I drank my morning coffee. It was then that I suddenly realized: I always called you when I was on these trips, usually in the morning while drinking my coffee and smoking the day’s first cigarette. For some reason you got a kick out of me calling from Florida, Texas, California, Washington state, etc. And I got a kick out of it, too. You’d laugh and say, “So, Dad, where are you today?” And I’d respond, “Let’s see, it’s Thursday, so I’m in Orlando.” Or Seattle or Las Vegas or Dayton or wherever.

But this time there was a hole in my morning—a huge, ragged hole that matched the one in my heart. I was on another one of those trips, but this time I couldn’t call my little girl.

I stood there drinking my coffee and my eyes filled with tears. I hoped no one would walk by and wonder what my problem was.

This is like falling into a murky, gloomy pit. I’ll be going along feeling pretty well, and then I stumble and fall into a deep, dark hole, spinning and tumbling out of control in the darkness. Sometime it feels like I’ll fall forever.

Love,

Dad

Saying Goodbye

2006-03-01T14:47:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

You came into the world so quietly, and so few people were there to greet you: me, your mom, the doctor, and a couple of nurses. That was about it. It was early in the morning, a little after 7:00, and your mom and I had spent the entire night in labor. (Of course, I got off easy.) But you finally arrived, the two of us fussed over you for a bit, then your mom went to sleep and I (foolishly) headed for school, thinking that I could manage to teach my classes after having been awake all night. (I didn’t last long.) It occurs to me now that not many people knew that you had arrived.

What a difference from when we said goodbye to you.

It’s been nine months now since your funeral and I can finally think about it without falling apart. It was a beautiful funeral, as these things go. You had so many friends! We all loved you, of course, but I hadn’t realized just how many people felt that way.

The funeral home was overflowing. The owners had to open up the lobby and several anterooms, and they piped the service out into the rest of the building so that those who couldn’t find a seat could still hear what went on.

Many people came to the podium and spoke lovingly of you, and there were many funny Rachel stories told; we laughed through our tears. (My favorite story was about how when you were pregnant with Shaylyn and your belly was too big to allow you to sunbathe at the beach—which you dearly loved doing—your friends dug a “belly hole” in the sand so that you could lie on your stomach in the sun.) Amy spoke long and lovingly about you; she was very brave, crying the entire time but still managing to tell those gathered how you and she had become stepsisters who were closer than many (most?) real sisters. Others stepped up and talked about how you were always there for them, how you refused to give up when life placed obstacles in your path, and how you encouraged them to do the same. There were young people in that crowd who would finish college largely because you showed them that it could be done.

Finally, your mom spoke. She was amazing. Whereas I couldn’t have said two words without falling apart, she stood up there and talked about you and about her love for you for several minutes. She cried, but she was composed and coherent, strong and beautiful. (She finished by inviting those in attendance back to the very house where, only three weeks earlier, many of us had celebrated your college graduation.)

There were VIPs in attendance. Many of your professors from both TCC and Old Dominion were there, as were the head of your department at ODU and the dean of the school. (In fact, I recently heard from one of your TCC professors. He was kind enough and thoughtful enough to drop me a line just to say that you were a wonderful person and to note what a great help you were when he took you and your fellow students to Russia.) The admiral in charge of the base at Norfolk sent an aide to represent him, since your mom works for the Navy. Most surprising of all, I thought, the president of ODU was there. That was a very nice gesture for one intelligent, dedicated, and accomplished woman to make to another.

But as beautiful as it was, nothing could alter the fact that we were there to say goodbye. That’s a terrible thing to have to say to someone whose life was really just beginning. It’s so hard to find anything positive in such a tragedy. I try, though, I really do. I think about some beautiful lyrics I’ve been hearing lately:

I probably wouldn't be this way,
I probably wouldn't hurt so bad;
I never pictured every minute without you in it,
Oh, you left so fast.
Sometimes I see you standing there;
Sometimes it's like I'm losing touch;
Sometimes I feel like I'm so lucky to have had the chance to
Love this much.

And I am thankful, truly thankful, to have had the chance to love you. But I would give anything and everything I have to see and hug and kiss you just one more time.

Love,

Dad

Growing Up With Grams

2006-02-22T15:18:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Like many teens and pre-teens, you were kind of a brat and probably a little too smart for your own good. You were often sullen and self-centered, occasionally demanding, and once in a while just plain rude. In other words, pretty much a normal teenager. You seemed to have a problem with authority figures, especially female ones: You were always fine with me, but constantly at loggerheads with your mother, and sullen and sometimes downright nasty with Lesley.

You grew out of that, of course, as most kids do. We’ve often commented on the fact that, seemingly on the day you graduated high school, you somehow instantly became a nice person and a fine young woman.

But I knew it was coming long before that. I knew that there was a good person inside of you several years before you graduated.

During a summer visit when you were around 15 years old, we all went to meet my mother at the airport: you, me, Amy, and Lesley. Grams hadn’t been doing well; her health was failing, and in fact she had only another year or two to live. A lifetime of diabetes and heart trouble had worn her down. You hadn’t seen her in a while and, although we had told you that Grams wasn’t doing well, you weren’t really prepared.

They brought her off the plane and down the jetway in a wheelchair. She looked pale and wan, gray and old, and she peered about myopically, trembling and nervous, almost completely blind and barely able to hold her cane across her lap.

She was sickly-looking and when you saw her you burst into tears. The hardy, ebullient, robust Grams you loved so much was obviously gone, replaced by this frail, fragile, old person who needed a wheelchair to get around and who could no longer see well enough to identify her own grandkids.

You lagged behind as we started off toward the baggage claim area, and Lesley and Amy took care of Grams while I turned back to see if you were OK. You weren’t, of course. You were sobbing, tears streaming down your face; your makeup running all over. I hugged you and patted you on the head and made nonsensical Dad-noises that nonetheless soothed you. You looked up at me and said with a catch in your voice, “Grams is very sick. She’s gonna die!”

I don’t remember what I said to calm you down. No doubt it was something along the lines of, “Well, honey, everybody dies; Grams has lived a long life, and besides, she’s still got a few years in her.” Whatever it was that I said, you quieted down and stopped crying, and we were able to get everyone home. But you stayed very close to Grams during that last visit.

That’s when I knew you were going to grow up just fine, were in fact already in the process of growing up. I realized that you were thinking about someone other than yourself, that someone else’s pain was touching you. That you had suddenly encountered the notion of mortality and that you found the plight of others moving. That’s the mark of an adult.

Love,

Dad

Losing The Future

2006-02-17T16:30:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Today is your birthday. You would have been 25 years old. You should have been 25 years old, a recent college graduate, just starting out. (That “would have been” really hurts. I have a real problem dealing with tenses these days.)

This is the time when you should have been jumping into your career, eager to get going with your life, ready to take on the world. This is – or would have been – the point in your life when you finally start to see some rewards for all that hard work you put in at school, when you’d be able to look at the world with stars in your eyes and an endlessly optimistic vision for your future. Who knows, perhaps you would have changed the world.

You did change my world, of course. And Lesley’s and Debbie’s and Amy’s and . . . well, countless other people’s. And always for the better.

The grief counselors point out that when one loses a parent, we grieve because we have, in effect, lost the past. When we lose a spouse, we grieve for the loss of the present. But when we lose a child, we grieve because we've lost the future. And that's the most painful loss of all.

I miss you. I miss you every day, of course, but even more today.

Love,

Dad

Homesick

2006-02-13T15:36:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I'm home sick today; a nasty cold that I thought I'd managed to kick last week. But it occurs to me that in addition to being home sick, I'm also "homesick." Not for some other place, really. I love Nebraska and I love our old house; there's really nowhere else I'd rather live.

I think what I'm homesick for is that life I used to have, the life we had together. I want that old life back. I want you back.

But I can't have you back, and that's why it just doesn't quite feel as if I'm really home. I'm so happy to be here in Nebraska, to be with Lesley, and to be doing what I do for a living . . . . And yet, it's not quite right. The Earth is skewed, tilted wildly on its axis, and nothing's quite the same any more.

I think that's what upsets the griefstricken so much. We look around and everyone seems to be living their normal lives, and the sun rises and sets, and dogs bark, and kids play in the street. It's as if nothing were wrong. We want to scream, "Damn you people! Don't you see it? Can't you feel it? Don't you know that the Earth is spinning out of control? Don't you even know that the end of the world has come and gone?!"

The world ended, and almost no one noticed.

Love,

Dad

Learning To Fly

2006-02-10T14:15:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

You (and Amy, too) learned to fly at an early age. That is, being shuttled among sets of parents fairly regularly (summer visits, etc.), you both soon became familiar with airports, with finding the correct terminal and gate, whom to ask for help, and all the rest. By the time you were seven or eight, you were a seasoned traveler.

And every time Les and I took you to the airport for that trip back to San Diego (and later, Virginia), I got another few gray hairs. It wasn’t so much saying goodbye to you, knowing that I might not see you again for months, although that in itself was painful. I just hated seeing that plane take off with you on it. Some 75 tons of complicated airplane (with about a million rivets, each one supplied by the lowest bidder) would roar into the sky carrying you away from us and toward . . . well, toward home, we always hoped.

I almost couldn’t watch. I’d beam my thoughts to the pilot: “Look, you’ve got my little girl in there. You watch your ass. I don’t care if you were out late last night, whether you’re having trouble with your wife or kids, or anything else. That’s my baby sitting behind you. She’s just a kid, and I love her more than anything. For God’s sake, please be careful!”

And he—or sometimes, as the years went on, she—was careful. You flew a million miles, never got stranded, never had a problem. You were as comfortable in an airport as most kids would be at the local skating rink. For you it was a chance to read a book or magazine, get some sleep, do your nails, and listen to some music. (And in years to come you flew to Europe, South America, and Russia, all without a problem.)

For me, it was agonizing. I worried about you from the time you left your mom’s until we met you at the gate. Then, on the return trip, I’d worry about you from the moment you boarded the plane until we heard from you or Debbie that you were home safely.

All those hours of worry for nothing. How terribly, tragically ironic.

Or maybe it’s not really irony after all. Maybe it’s just plain old fear, the same fear that every parent battles when sending a child out into the world, into the unknown. Of course, as it turns out, it’s all unknown, even the parts you think you know well.

Love,

Dad

A House Is Not A Home

2006-02-02T16:23:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I’m pretty sure we’d talked about the man who owns the house next door… He doesn’t live in it; actually, no one does. The house has been empty for at least 20 (some of the neighbors say closer to 30) years. It just sits, dark and brooding, with no occupants other than an occasional squirrel that manages to find its way in through an attic vent.

The house is showing its age, but it isn’t dilapidated or unsightly. Mr. S. comes by every day to check on it, and a crew arrives every couple of weeks to mow and trim. Every year or so a painter paints the fence—our side as well as Mr. S’s side—and every few years the entire house gets painted.

I have to admit that it’s nice having such quiet neighbors.

Mr. S. is a bit odd, of course. After all, why would someone hang on to an empty house? It’s a very nice house in a wonderful neighborhood; if you’re not going to live in it, why not sell or rent it?

But he won’t do that. The house is a shrine of sorts to his son. Many years ago, Mr. S. bought the house for his son—I don’t know whether he’d intended it as a loan, or whether it was a wedding present, or whether there was some other arrangement involved. In any case, the son died of cancer before he could even move in.

Since then, the house just sits. Mr. S. won’t rent it out, he won’t live in it, and he won’t sell it. He simply keeps it more or less tidy, driving by in his old Caddy to check on it every day.

Until last May, I didn’t understand Mr. S. at all. He was obviously a little odd to begin with, and the death of his son (and then, years later, his wife) seems to have put him over the edge. He’s not crazy, but he’s more than a bit off-center. When you and I spoke of him and of his house, I’m pretty sure we just decided the guy was “weird but harmless,” and let it go at that. After all, how could someone let a death drive him to such a state? People die. It’s terrible, of course, but it happens. “OK, it’s sad,” we were saying in so many words. “Now get on with your life.”

I guess it’s easy to come up with quick, facile judgments when you’ve never felt the pain of the person you’re judging. I understand Mr. S. a little better now. There is no pain like this pain. If he wants to keep an empty house as a shrine to his son, then let him. I can understand how he feels.

Love,

Dad

Inconstant Memory

2006-01-31T15:34:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I keep forgetting that you’re gone.

I’m not senile (not yet, anyway). It’s not as if I actually think that you’re alive, it’s just that every once in a while—and only for a fraction of a second—I forget that you’re dead.

I’ll look out the window and see that it’s snowing and I’ll catch myself thinking, “Oh, snow! I hope it’s still snowing when Rachel visits; she loves the snow!” Or I’ll run across some cool gadget and think, “I’ll call Rachel about this. She’d love it.”

Once in a while, I’ll even think, “God, I miss Rachel. I should give her a call.”

So I’m calling. Can you hear me?

Love,

Dad