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This is the year two summary from Chris' main website. Year two was a horrible year for us.Many had told us to expect the worse in regards to bereavement and grief and mourning. It was worse. Unlike year one when we were still in a fog, year two was brutal and devastating and I was unable to organize thoughts in any real coherent fashion and so my summary was more an extended rambling over the course of many days. The only thing missing from these pages are the music files and such. I may at some point integrate those things into this secondary site. Thank you.
"I patted Chris on the back and looked at him as he gazed out the window towards the sunset. The last bit of sunshine hit his face and, as always, Chris beamed a brilliant smile."
From Nicky J's story
It is still so new & all we see is the empty
space, but that is not how it is in the
landscape of the heart. There, there is no
empty space & he still laughs & grapples
with ideas & plans & nods wisely with each
of us in turn. We are proud to have known
him. We are proud to have called him friend.
b. andreas
12-19-06
I have so much still I want to express to you about Chris and what we have learned this past year. Much has happened over the last few days since the second year anniversary; signs from Chris, from God, from someone, letting us know we are not alone, that we have not been abandoned. We have been touched on several occasions, through the actions and words of very special people. We have to sort it all out but clearly through a process that we have come to know and accept, we are being touched by a grace.
Thank you to all of you who have kept Chris in your hearts over these past two years. I know it must make him so happy to know you haven’t forgotten him and that more importantly, you all carry a small bit of his nature within you. Your love of him and your remembrance of him is just a small bit of the legacy of friendship, tenderness, love and happiness he leaves with all of you. If we all strive to take just a small part of his character and use it in our daily lives, especially in those tough moments that life brings, we will be honoring his memory and in the process, making life better for all we know and love and for all we come in contact with.
Once again we have crossed the threshold- the finish line if you will. As so many other bereaved parents have done before us, we have survived another year without our son. We have weathered the brutal, emotional storms of this, our second year.
We are limping across this second year mark. The numbness of the first year was replaced with the harsh reality of Christopher’s death. The fog and veil of denial, of disbelief, of endless wishes for waking a nightmare- all vanished this time, replaced with the starkness and bareness of this new life we live.
We will in time have to learn how to tuck deep away the nightmare of that night; shut our eyes tight to the horrific post traumatic flashbacks
We will have to find a way to replace those painful phantoms with the better, warm days of our son’s extraordinary life, a life so rich, so full of love, so full of his incredible spirit.
In time those beautiful memories will enrich us and carry us along for the rest of whatever days are left.
We have to find a way to move forward toward those days and somehow leave this pain behind.
12-17-06
On this, the morning of our second anniversary of the loss of our son, Christopher, I am struggling to find a central theme that might envelope and describe the last 365 day we have endured. Last year, the words came easily and I know that is because I was being directed to a certain point of view- something or someone was nudging me along the path I took in describing our first painful year and the revelations given me which allowed me to formulate certain ideas and concepts and to use those findings to come to the understandings I came to.
This year there has been no “help” that I am conscience of. I have tried repeatedly to sit and organize all the thoughts and ideas and perceptions filling my mind especially over the last few months as the days slowly melted their way to this time- to this date.
I want so desperately to be positive, to try to look on the “Brightside”. I want to pen something my son would be proud of; a pride that would let me know I am making progress, that I am learning, that I am finding ways to think more about how he lived instead of how he died and in finding those ways, finding the new person that is unearthed after the grief and pain lessen and the harsh reality of his death is replaced by the warm memories of his wonderful life.
I will try Christopher, I will.
Here is one of Chris' favorite songs from John Mayer's second cd. The lyrics remind me so much of my son and also of the concert we all went to that summer. As Mayer started the concert with this very song, I wanted so much to be next to Chris and to see the look on his face as I knew he would be so happy and excited to hear the first strains of this song. As it was, we were unable to get all of our tickets together and he and Julie were closer to the stage than Mary Kay and Caranne and I were. I wanted so much to share this moment with him.
CLARITY
I worry
I weigh three times my body
I worry
I throw my fear around
But this morning
There's a calm I can't explain
The rock candy's melted, only diamonds now remain
By the time I recognize this moment
This moment will be gone
But I will bend the light pretending
That it somehow lingered on
Well all ive gots
And I will wait to find
If this will last forever
And I will wait to find
If this will last forever
And I will pay no mind
Well it won't and it won't because it can't
It just can't
(It's not supposed to)
Was there a second of time I looked around?
Did I sail through or drop my anchor down?
Was anything enough to kiss the ground
And say I'm here now?
And she is here now
So much wasted in the afternoon
So much sacred in the month of June
How bout you?
And I will wait to find
If this will last forever
And I will wait to find
That it won't and it won't and it won't
And I will pay no mind
Worried bout no rainy weather
And I will waste no time
Remaining in our life together
Dec. 09, 06
Christopher has been close by this past month. He comes and goes, never staying for more than ten minutes or so, sometimes less. But he has made his presence known to both Kay and me. After a few experiences you come to “know instinctively” the feeling of his presence; the way the room feels, the way your feelings and emotions jump strongly- the calm and the sense of peace and happiness that coincides with his all too brief stays.
But we pray for these brief interludes with him; for his ability to continue to reach out to us. We know he cannot always comply. I don’t believe he is able to consciously decide to visit us. There are many conditions that have to align, many things both of this world and of the other side that have to precisely occur for him to be with us.
It is one of the few graces we as bereaved parents are allowed for the sacrifice we make. For us, it is a miracle, a “given”; an event parents like us understand.
I know in my heart and from past happenings that Christopher has made himself known to friends and family. His death has affected so many, so deeply and I believe he has reached out to those who have needed his help. To those who are open to the possibilities- to those who believe.
12-07-06
The second year without Christopher has been brutally devastating in its effects on our lives and our psyche. I think subconsciously we knew what was looming ahead and in fact had been gently warned. This second year has been a back breaker.
Nov.28th 2006
Some musings
In the two years since Christopher’s death, dozens, maybe a hundred families have suffered the same fate we have. It’s hard to imagine so many families giving up their children and going through the same hell and agony. But it happens and it happens far more often than I was aware of. That I am sensitized to it now is unquestionable and that without even looking for those incidents and I find them is probably understandable. But that God takes so many of them away is to me the greatest mystery and the greatest reason I struggle with my faith.
I remember the morning I read about Richie Restivo and his stabbing death at the parking lot of Rockhurst High School. Chris was I think a freshman or sophomore that year and the event rocked him deeply. Little did I know we would be chosen to walk the same path but a short time later. And then there was Ryan Kruse. Killed while skateboarding down a hill in Gladstone and flying into a busy intersection, being hit by a car- another one taken. Witnesses who attended him as he lay in the street say he made the sign of the cross. I have kept in contact with his family and have gotten to know a small bit of their life before and now after his death. They have just passed the first year date but a few weeks ago. And then Sam Woodell, Christopher’s classmate; taken two nights after our own precious son, again in a car accident as a passenger. These are but the four I have become intimately involved in over the last two awful years.
What I have come to believe and understand is that even though we are all sharing the same life shattering experience, going through many of the same emotions and struggles, the death of ‘your” child and the way he died, shapes and forms your outlook on both the aftermath of the death and of the ways we view our loss and our philosophical pinning on which we hang to for comfort. And it also shapes how we view the deaths of other parents’ children. It’s sad but it is true- we don’t see all the death’s as the “same”, we cannot because they are not. Each death as tragic and painful as it is is unique and complex and though they may share some similarities, they are as different as their fingerprints.
And with those differences come the myriad ways we as the grieving parents view their deaths, cope with their death, view our beliefs of faith and God and most importantly I think- “our little shred of painful truth “each of us has to find and cling to in order to be able to function, to get through every long day, every anniversary, every conversation, every encounter with friends and family, every look of pity and relief that it was not them, every gut wrenching memory and horrific flashback, every cliché and platitude dispensed, every “ How are you doing”- all of it.
That unique little “truth” is I guess not so much a truth as it is a reason, a “why” it happened, a belief of faith or fate, depending on your point of view, some small bit of intellectual and emotional “firefly”, something so delicate but yet so important , each of us has to hold it ever so gently, not squeeze too tightly lest we destroy it and in its loss, our loss of the thing that keeps us sane- allows us to function, to continue.
And each of us has our own little “touchstone”- the belief, the explanation that we cling to- our reason “why” it happened. Everyone’s is different based on how they view God, death, the afterlife; be it “heaven” or some other form of existence that we flow to after our earthly bodies have failed. But the important thing is our belief that validates and legitimizes why our son or daughter was taken. We have to have it to survive this nightmare regardless of how shaky or ethereal the reason is or how strong our conviction is of the “why”.
I wonder if those that believe in fate or happen chance fare better than those of us who have the belief in a higher power directing and ultimately deciding our lives. I wonder if those with a deep believe that things just “happen” don’t have an easier time adjusting to the loss of their children. Mostly I wonder if somehow I make this harder than it has to be. Is it possible to just tuck this away and move on? Is it possible to just decide that enough is enough – that now its time to stop the tears, stop wondering why, stop all the “if only this-if only that”. Is it possible for us to not be sad anymore that Chris is gone and along with him, so many hopes and aspirations, so many possibilities and dreams, so many lost days and years, all the things in our lives and HIS that we have been cheated out of?
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Flying At Twilight
