VOIDS

Joseph

It was a Sunday morning, and TLW (The Little Woman) was visiting my son Joseph in North Shore University Hospital. It was mid-January in 1981, and I was home watching my two older children.

As I looked at my oldest son, who was occupied with something I don’t remember, I thought of how lucky he was not to be in an adult world worrying about all that goes on in life.

Sitting at the breakfast table, the phone shattered my calm and I went to the phone hoping it was TLW, and I wasn’t disappointed. She had met with the doctor who told her that Joseph would not live out the week! It took a moment for it to sink in, and all I could do was stare into the wall and try to absorb the underlining fear that I had which was coming true!

I thought about my wife and how she was taking all this, and realized she had to be strong to tell me this. She is the strongest woman I know.

When the funeral was over I began the motions of life, of trying to figure out how this happened to my family, how this could be on top of my daughter’s disability and how unfair life was getting. I felt sorry for my wife and oldest son and myself. My daughter was being served by her disability at that moment, she was unaware of the horror we were living.

For five years we lived with the fact constantly, reminding ourselves of what had happened to my son. We had each other, and that made life livable, and meaningful. There was the distraction of baseball games, relatives and work, but each day we were reminded: each day we relived the horror, the finality of that cold January day in the snowfields of the cemetery as we laid our son into his final resting place.

There was a huge void. A black hole, an abyss that kept me from a mind of peace, I could see the other side, but I couldn’t reach it. Then five years later we learned that a new addition was coming into the world, and suddenly, I could file that day that so often haunted me and take it out only when it was necessary. We were building a bridge across the abyss! On December 29, 1987 #2 Son was born, and a joy uplifted me, put a bounce back into my step and gave TLW some happiness once again.

#2 Son

As #2 Son grew up, like many kids his age, he had his days, and believe me, some days were not easy. He would get mad at his mother and me, and thought maybe he wasn’t understood. Little did he know that if it weren’t for him, there might not have been a tomorrow with the sun rising, but just one continuous cold raining night!

As I look back now, I can’t believe that those days have come and gone, that we survived and because of him, we live a stronger life.

There is a wonderful organization out there called The Compassionate Friends, it serves parents who have lost children, and it serves a temporary purpose of getting families through the horrors of losing a child, and it serves the permanent purpose of reaching out to them in time of emotional need and through empathy, understanding and experience, lighting the way for recovery. I was unaware of it way back then, I don’t know if it even existed, but I do know that it helps, and I hope it is around for a long time, to help mend a broken heart and help parents find their way to fill a void. I wish we had it back then, but I will take #2 Son.

"I can think of younger days when living for my life
Was everything a man could want to do
I could never see tomorrow, but I was never told about the sorrow
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend a this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again
I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees
And misty memories of days gone by
We could never see tomorrow, no one said a word about the sorrow
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again"