HE NEVER LEFT ME.

And I will never forget.

“Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.”

George Eliot 

Joseph

Every year since 1981 there are two days I commemorate, two days that have so much meaning to me in that they teach me something important. April 6t, 1979, the day he was born and January 28, 1981, the day he passed on and was freed from the pain and anguish he was in.

I try not to dwell too much in his death, but try to keep his memory alive, because he is my son, Joseph. I know people who feel the pain of their child’s death and understand it is not easy. Especially when you have an adult child. People will criticize them for dwelling have to live in the shoes of the parent to understand it. 

My son Joseph was my third child. Joseph looked like me when I was his age, an aunt said he looked like someone had cut my head off and put it on his body. 

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on”.

Robert Frost

Life indeed goes on and the cycle of life with death is but nature’s way of cleaning out the old and bringing in the new to replace it. 

Today Joseph died 39 years ago, he would have been a man in every respect and still my child, my son: he was my hope for tomorrow. 

Michael

All my sons are special people. One, Michael, in fact, does me proud in that he cares about the future, is starting to put his money where his mouth is, doing work for the disabled and for the community. He is passionate about what he does and seems to be intent on keeping his goals in sight. I’m proud of that and grateful, and I hope he stays his course and finds his focus rewarding that is important as being a doctor or nurse, it is about life itself, it doesn’t seem to be about himself.

Anthony

You know about my other son Anthony, a writer, wrote for The Big Bang Theory, how neat is that? But most importantly has made all the right choices in life I think. He has always worked hard and continues to be successful on a moral plane. 

Somehow, in my mind’s eye, I see these two sons as a part of what Joseph might have been, maybe I should say: ‘was’. 

So today, I will go out in Joseph’s garden I built so many years ago, and sit for a while and think of him, maybe even talk to him, and he will have his day in his father’s eyes, I will never forget him.