I WILL NEVER FORGET

It seems like yesterday! It happened many years ago, over 30 for sure and at this time of the year I remember him most.

I remember when he was born, and how the doctors and nurses and even his mamma couldn't get him to drink, my wife handed him to me and said: “Here Joe, you try.” As he lay in my arms for the first time, I was given a bottle to feed him with, and he took it and drank. I like to think he did that just for me.

His first steps were unsteady, and he took them with dogged determination, and wobbled like we knew he would, but he did it. We were all so happy!

And I remember an aunt telling me when she met him for the first time how much I looked like him at his age, like someone had chopped my head off and put it on him! That made me proud.

And of course I remember his last Christmas, and how painful it was. He spent it in a hospital, having entered the day after Thanksgiving Day: with seizures and his falling in his crib as he tried repeatedly to stand. How sad it was, how frightening it all seemed.

I remember spending this last Christmas morning with him at the North Shore University Hospital with my wife and two kids, and how painful it felt to see us in that room, clinging to hope for his recovery, not understanding what was rally going on, how final it would all become, how empty and cold we would all feel. And on Christmas Day, he lay in bed, with tubes stuck in him at the ankles because the doctors were running out of place to put a tube!

And so my son Joseph became ill over the holidays of 1980, and in January of 1981, not even 2 years old yet, he succumbed to his illness one night, and forever will I remember him on the holidays. It may be a season of joy for some, but to me it is the day of quiet reflection and love of my family that matters. No present but the health of my kids will mean anything to me on Christmas Day. 

I don’t mean to be a downer so close to Christmas, but a reminder that there are people in this world on that day who are alone, or in hospitals or in the care of Hospice, who need to be cheered up, given a present of a smile, a gentle hello, a visit to let them know that they are not forgotten. And for those parents who have lost a child, this time of the year can be the hardest, pray for them, without reservation for their peace and acceptance that life is what it is, and that some day we will all meet again.