WHEN A NIGHTMARE HITS HOME.

Joseph

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

We all suffer nightmares of some kind, and now on a national scale, a nightmare so great, it has paralyzed the whole world!

Every January since 1981 I have been reliving a personal nightmare, that of losing a child. My son Joseph was born on this day in April of 1979. His life was filled with hope, love, and joy. I had another child and it seemed extra special in that I had another son. Coming from a home of four sisters growing up without a brother, this child was a special event to me. I love my daughter and would not trade my experiences raising and advocating for her as her father, but would trade her experiences for what she has to live through every day of her life.

An aunt said that he looked like me as if someone cut his head off and put mine on him, instead. That of course I assure is not true, he was a beautiful child.

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 6, 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.

Mamma Ellen

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 on the pain, but would not dare to live in the shoes of the parent to understand it. 

Ellen, my wife, has suffered greatly as she has so valiantly fought for her children in os many ways, sacrificing her comfort and peace for all her children, truly a remarkable woman.



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. 

Courtney and Darby

Today, Joseph would have been a man in every respect and still my child, my son: he was my hope for tomorrow. Today is his 41st birthday.

All my sons are special people. One son, Michael, does me proud in that he cares about the future, puts 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. His work in my eyes is as important as if he was helping his brother Joseph who he never met or his big sister Ellen who he deeply cares about.
 

Anthony and Michael

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. He too has faced adversity, losing his beautiful wife and mother of my beautiful Granddaughter Darby, Courtney during the childbirth of my grandson Robert.
 

Daddy and Bobby

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

So today, I will go out in Joseph’s garden I built so many years ago in his memory 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.