Dear Rachel

So Close to Folding

2008-10-05T09:49:00.022-05:00

Like an old Holy Bible you clung to through so many seasons,
With the rules of survival in words you could still understand;
When they prove something wrong you believed in so long you go crazy,
And you're so close to folding the cards that you hold in your hand.
Singing, Holy Toledo, I can't see the light anymore,
All those horizons that I used to guide me are gone.
And the darkness is driving me farther away from the shore;
Throw me a rhyme or a reason to try to go on.
- Kris Kristofferson

Dear Rachel,

Well, here we are at an ending, of sorts. Not "closure," certainly (God, I really hate that word), but at least an end to the legal wranglings and the bickering amongst attorneys and judges. Marcus -- now that he's pleaded guilty and been sentenced, I can be a bit less discreet about naming names -- has been sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. He'll spend the rest of his life confined to a small concrete cell at the Red Onion State Prison.

I suppose I'm satisfied with that, although I suspect that some of the other parents and family members may not be. I'm sure that many were hoping for the death penalty, and who can blame them? Me, I want him to live in a cement box for the next 40 years, unable to see his daughter, to hear birds singing, to hold a woman. I want him to suffer for the rest of his life; after all, that's what we parents and siblings and loved ones will be doing.

The proceedings were awful, reopening old wounds and ripping fresh ones as we learned more about that terrible night. You were the last to die. I never knew that. I had hoped that you were among the first, and that you had had little time to be afraid. But that's not what happened. You were the last; after shooting Candace (three times; boy, that is one tough young lady), killing Bryce and David, and shooting Jonathan, Marcus hunted you down in the hallway outside of the condo as you spoke to the 911 operator on your cell phone. You were only a few feet from the exit; you could have run, but you stayed to call for help for yourself and the others. Why didn't you run? Instead you tried to hide out in the hallway and call for help and he hunted you down and shot you in the head, the way a conscientious hunter would track and finish off a gutshot deer.

God damn him to hell.

While the hearing was terrible for everyone, including Marcus' parents, family, and friends, it must have been especially awful for the Bauerbands and the Kusas. For us at least, there is a terrible, tragic logic in what happened: As horrible as it was, we saw it growing out of some sort of (never fully explained) conflict between you and Marcus; it was you he was really after as he stormed through that condo, dealing death wherever he went. As crazy as it was, there was something like sense there: At that moment, he hated you and so he killed you.

But what about those two young men? I know them now. Before the hearing, they were just names to me, but now I know them. I've met their parents and their siblings and, in one case, a young woman who is now a widow; we've spoken and we've hugged and we've cried together. I saw photographs of them as they grew up and I heard people speak of them and their dreams. (Ironically, all three of you had recently -- within weeks of the murders -- graduated from either college or grad school.)

What must they think? How much harder is it for the friends and families of these two young men? They can see no logic, however horrible -- because there is none. The boys were so briefly in Virginia, come for a quick, happy visit with old friends to celebrate their recent graduations, before they were shot down by a man who didn't even know them, didn't take the time to meet them, and who had no reason at all to hate them. For the Kusas and the Bauerbands this was not merely a tragedy, but seemingly the random act of a vicious animal, a mad Providence, something beyond all reason. And they would be perfectly correct, of course.

And yet... Lesley and Debbie and I owe much to these people. They were very kind to us when they could have been hurtful. They shared their pain (and allowed us to share ours), when they could have been insular and standoffish. They could have blamed you (and therefore us) for this; it would have been easy to do -- one does seek, after all, to assign blame as a way to make some sort of sense of such horror.

But they did not do that. All of them are wonderful,decent people -- kind, gentle, well-spoken and articulate. I ache for them so. The parents, hurt beyond description and, like us, possibly beyond repair. The brothers and sisters, angry and bewildered, but remembering Bryce and David with love, and even with humor. And beautiful Kristina. So young to be a widow, and bereft for so little reason: This was not a war, an illness, an accident. It was not something of which one could make some kind of sense, however awful. It was a visit from Hell. It was as if Death had tricked her, made her believe that her dreams had finally all come true, or were about to, and then stalked her handsome young husband and laughed as he stole those dreams. And in a way, I suppose that's exactly what happened.

If any of them could ever bring themselves to forgive Marcus Garrett for what he did, they would have to be saints; certainly they would have to be much better Christians than I could ever hope to be. And in fact they do seem to be Christian people, in the best sense of that word. I hope their faith has helped sustain them; I know that I envy them that faith.

Love,

Dad

Old Songs & Memories

2007-10-14T17:44:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

It's been a while since I've posted, yes? Perhaps I was thinking it had all been said, that -- at least until whatever illusory "closure" offered by the trial comes to pass -- there was nothing more for me here.

Then again, the trial keeps being continued and Lesley and I and Deb and the rest of the parents and loved ones feel as if we're suspended in amber. Or maybe it's more like we we're suspended in the web of a giant spider; perhaps we'll wriggle free, or perhaps it will consume us.

I surely need no help thinking of you -- I think of you every day -- but fall is here, and today the saddest song in the English language reminded me of you:

Since you went away, the days grow long;
And soon I'll hear old winter's song.
But I miss you most of all, my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall.

Love,

Dad

Dream A Little Dream of Me

2007-05-27T11:05:00.000-05:00

And it's fading now, fading away
It's only a dream;
Just a memory without anywhere to stay
- Neil Young

Have you any dreams you’d like to sell?
- Stevie Nicks

Dear Rachel,

Last night I had a dream about you. Oddly, that's a very rare occurrence—or perhaps it's really not; perhaps I simply forget the dreams as soon as I awake, as I forget most of my dreams. It may be that I recall this one so clearly because the anniversary of your death approaches.

In my dream, you and I were traveling cross-country. I don’t know where we were going or why we were headed there, but we were driving your car, I think, and taking our time; just a nice, pleasant, leisurely jaunt of the sort that we never actually got to take together. The majority of the dream—or at least, what I remember of it—took place in a restaurant at which we had apparently stopped for dinner. (You were much better behaved at this restaurant than when you were four years old and we stopped at a Coco’s in California. We happened to drop in right in the middle of a rush occasioned by that chain’s popular senior citizens’ discount. You sipped a hot chocolate and looked around at all the people eating their dinners, your big brown eyes peering over the mug. “Dad,” you said very loudly, “why are all of these people so old?!”)

In my dream, we didn’t know anyone in the restaurant (not a chain this time, but an old house converted into a sort of funky diner) when we first entered, but by the time we were having dessert (and when did either of us, left to our own devices, ever skip dessert?), you had made friends with everyone in the room. This was no surprise at all, of course; that’s just the way you were—outgoing, friendly, gregarious. You couldn’t possibly enter a room without making a new friend or running into an old one. You were simply a companionable person, and a joy to be around.

This was a lucid dream: That is, in my dream, I knew that I was dreaming. I remember thinking to myself, “This is only a dream, but isn’t it a beautiful one? I’m with Rachel again, even if only for a little while and even if only in a dream.” One takes what solace one can find.

I can’t have you back, not ever. But last night we were together again for a few bright, happy moments.

Love,

Dad

Smart's Just Not Good Enough, I Guess

2007-03-21T12:15:00.000-05:00

Like many intellectuals, he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a simple way.
- Marcel Proust

Dear Rachel,

I always thought it was funny that you believed I was so smart. I remember you filling out one of those Internet surveys in which you answered, “My dad” to the question, “Who is the smartest person you know?”

It’s natural for a daughter to believe one of two things about her father: Either he’s brilliant, or he’s a complete idiot. Luckily for me, you opted for the former rather than the latter.

As you grew up, I was engaged in what might be viewed as intellectual pursuits. (I suppose that’s a fancy way of saying that I’ve never really worked for a living.) I was a teacher, then an editor, then a software developer, and finally, toward the end of your life, an editor again. To an adoring daughter – and you were always that – I suppose these would seem like vocations that required intelligence and training and skills of an intellectually demanding nature. Then again, you might just as easily have been asking yourself, “Hmmm… How come Dad can’t hold a job?!”

At any rate, while I never thought of myself as stupid, I also never believed that I was quite as smart as you thought I was.

This is especially true now. If I’m so sharp, why didn’t I know you were in trouble? How did I not see that your personal life had gotten to a point at which you were in physical danger? Why didn’t I see what was happening?

This, I know, is part of the dark, brooding blanket of guilt that hangs over all of us who’ve lost a child to violence: We tend to feel responsible for things over which we really had no control. I realize that, but it still pains me that, as well as I knew you and as much as I loved you, there could have been looming in your social orbit a danger so violent, so predatory, and so malevolent. And all without me suspecting that you were at risk.

And now that it’s happened – now that I’ve lost you to that malevolence – I’m not sure I’m smart enough to know how to get through it.

Love,

Dad

Surviving Christmas

2007-02-12T16:21:00.000-06:00

I’m so tired. but I can’t sleep
Standin’ on the edge of something much too deep;
It’s funny how we feel so much, but cannot say a word;
We are screaming inside, but we can’t be heard
- Sarah McLachlan

Dear Rachel,

Well, here it is February, already. I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve written. Odd, especially since things have been weighing even more heavily on me these days than before. That makes sense, I suppose, considering that your birthday is coming up, followed closely by the trial and then the anniversary of your death. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to bring myself to write.

We got through the holidays fairly well, really; much better than last year. The only disaster came when, on the morning of Christmas Eve, I went to set the table for breakfast. Without thinking about it, I grabbed cutlery for four and headed for the dining room.

But there are only three of us sharing Christmas now.

Amy was upstairs, I think, so she didn’t notice. Lesley did notice, but pretended not to. I quietly put the extra place setting back in the drawer and went out to have a cigarette and wipe my eyes.

Things happen like that. You can be plodding along, thinking you're doing pretty well, when suddenly a huge hobnailed boot comes out of nowhere and stomps on your heart.

Love,

Dad

Inconstant Moon

2006-12-12T19:00:00.000-06:00

I'll find you in the mornin' sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you
- Sammy Fain / Irving Kahal

Dear Rachel,

Well, it’s Christmas again. Lots of pretty lights, melodious bells, stockings hung by the chimney with care, carols sung by the choir, and all of that. This used to be my favorite time of year: The family all together (a rarity, what with the two of you in college and living in Virginia and Texas), the two sisters snuggled on the couch (making jokes about Nebraska, usually), great smells wafting in from the kitchen . . . . Secrets whispered behind cupped hands and jokes told aloud.

The holidays are hard, now. We all remember you, and we miss you; what should be a time of joy becomes instead of time of shared sorrow. We’re still gathering at home (Amy having just graduated from TCU—you would’ve been so proud of your baby sister!), but your absence makes it tough to find any joy in the gifts, the family outings, the visits to friends’ homes. We all try to celebrate, but the spirit of the season vanished when you were taken from us. I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back.

It’s getting cold, here in Nebraska, but I still go out on the back deck and I look up at the stars and I wonder which one is you. Which sharp point of silvery, twinkling light is my little girl? Are you out there anywhere? Can you feel us missing you? Do you know how much we loved you, and how much we still love you?

Lesley and I don’t really need or want much this Christmas. We have cars and clothes and a house and toys and, most importantly, we have each other. And the one thing we want most in the world is the one thing we can’t have, of course.

Love,

Dad

Neither Have I Wings To Fly

2006-11-08T14:15:00.000-06:00

The river is wide,
I can’t cross over;
And neither have I
Wings to fly.
—Traditional Irish Folk ballad

There are so many, many times during the day that memories of you strike me, often unbidden: I’ll see a young woman who reminds me of you. I’ll think of a song (such as the one noted above) that makes me think of you. I’ll come across a photo. There’s no escaping this and, of course, no one (except for the man who murdered you) is to blame. In fact, there may come a time, I’m told, when I’ll cherish these memories, a time when I’ll embrace them. After all, they’re all that I have left of you. I’m looking forward to that time, but so far it’s not happening. For now, the memories are like bright, sharp knives that twist in my gut.

Then there are memories triggered by something someone has said or done. Usually it’s quite inadvertent: A friend might make a comment about how well her college-age son or daughter is doing. Someone might say something reminiscent of some of the verbal banter in which the two of us used to engage. (“Is that a whine? There’s no whining here!” Or maybe, “Poor… ,” something like the way we used to make fun of whatever problem you might be having by saying, “Poooooor Rachel.” Poking fun at ourselves by poking fun at [and thus minimizing the importance of] whatever “tragedy” had befallen you that week.) A buddy might mention “the kids” or even just talk about an upcoming graduation.

The thing is that when people do this, they almost always realize that they’ve just said something that might be hurtful; they glance quickly at me to see if I noticed, and then they carry on as quickly as possible in the hopes that perhaps I missed whatever it was.

I never miss it. Not ever. How could I? I think of you always. The ache is not as painful as it once was – at least, not usually – but it’s always present. It doesn’t take much to make it flare up; every such comment makes the pain jump instantly from a sort of background ache to a sharp, momentarily debilitating pain.

But I guess I’d rather that than think that I could ever forget you.

Love,

Dad

Little Things & Big Things

2006-09-29T16:39:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

At first it was the “big things” that got to me. The realization that I would never get to share some of those defining moments with you, that certain important milestones would never be reached. I’ll never get to walk you down the aisle. Never watch (all blubbery and teary-eyed, no doubt) as you get an award, accept a big promotion, or walk across the stage to get that master’s degree. I’ll never be able to call on you for advice—instead of the other way around—as I enter my dotage and am wondering about where (and how!) to live, how to maximize my savings, etc. (You were supposed to be around to help out your doddering old dad, you know.) I’ll never get to marvel that my “little girl” is now 40 years old. Never help you move into that first real house of your own. Never get that phone call from you: “Better sit down. Are you sitting? OK, well, you’re about to become a great-grandfather.” (Not so sure I was looking forward to that one anyway.)

So many big moments we’ll never share.

These days, though, it’s mainly the “little things” that I think about. I see a young woman on the playground help her child master the monkey bars, and I think, “Rachel will never help Shaylyn do that.” I see a nice sunset or a beautiful white cloud against a bright blue background and think, “Rachel can’t see this.” The telephone rings and I think, “That won’t be—can’t be—Rachel.” A country song comes on the radio and I think, “Rachel really likes George Strait, but she can’t hear this.” I pull up next to a car in which a young woman is smiling and talking on her cell phone and I think, “Rachel always did that—but no more.”

A thousand little things remind me of you.

Those little things add up and they occur all the time and they hurt a lot. The world isn’t really made up of those big things, of large moments of huge import, is it? Instead it’s a collection of thousands of seemingly unimportant little things; a never-ending stream of small moments that eventually become—well, whatever we make of them, I suppose. Canadian poet Robert Brault advised us to learn to “enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” And, as it turns out, they were.

Love,

Dad

Injuring Eternity

2006-08-23T15:38:00.000-05:00

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. —Thoreau

Dear Rachel,

Last week on my way home from work I ended up stuck behind several cars at a traffic light. (In Nebraska, this constitutes a “traffic jam.” Remember those traffic jams in L.A. and San Diego? You and I have been in some real traffic jams, haven’t we?) At any rate, the “traffic jam” meant that I had a few moments to just sit there in peace.

As I was waiting for the light to change, I noticed a young woman and her eight- or nine-year-old son coming out of the public library on the corner. I could tell by the set of the woman’s chin and her pursed lips that she was angry about something. She stomped down the walkway toward the parking lot with her shoulders hunched and her eyes flashing. Behind her, the son tried gamely to keep up. Every once in a while he’d say something, looking as plaintive as possible. (And a small boy can look very plaintive indeed.) The mother would glance over her shoulder and snap something back and then continue striding angrily toward her car. Obviously, they were having “issues.”

The whole exchange took maybe 20 seconds or so, just long enough for me to notice what was going on and to wonder what their disagreement might be about. Did the boy take too long while looking at some books? Did he drop a book and break the spine? Did he forget his library card at home, causing his mom to have to turn around drive back to retrieve it? Did he leave a book—now overdue—on his nightstand?

Whatever it was that caused the conflict, it couldn’t have been all that momentous. I wanted to jump out of my car, rush over there, and grab the woman and shake her by the shoulders: “What’s wrong with you?!” I would have cried. “Don’t you know how precious this time is that you have with your son? How valuable? Do you know that, once spent, this time can never be lived again? Is this how you want to spend your time with your son? Angry about some silly, meaningless thing? You should be walking by his side, his small hand in your larger one, and you should both be smiling. You should make sure he’s smiling, because—believe me, I know—it could be the last smile you ever see from him.”

“My daughter’s dead,” I would have said. “She was taken from me suddenly. I would give anything, anything at all, to see her smile just one more time. To walk beside her one more time.”

“But I’ll never again see her smile, never walk beside her. Never hold her hand. You can, though, if you will. Will you? Please? Will you do that for me and for all the parents who, for whatever reason, are unable to walk beside their children?”

Love,

Dad

Joy & Loss

2006-07-26T14:29:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

Looking at the date of my last post, I was going to say that it’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to you. But that’s not true, really. I speak to you always… I talk to you when I awake in the morning and when I lie down to sleep at night. My thoughts turn to you throughout the day—when I should be writing a column or editing an article, I find myself thinking of you, missing you, instead.

I guess that’s just how it’ll always be.

We’re getting ready to go to Virginia Beach on Friday for Shaylyn’s birthday party. (There’ll be a huge crowd; she is, after all, Virginia’s smartest and cutest four-year-old.) This will be another one of those bittersweet visits, of course. I love seeing Shay-Shay, your mom, great-grandparents Pat & Elaine, your old friends, Debbie’s old friends, a zillion other four-year-olds from Shaylyn’s school and all the others. And Shaylyn’s Aunt Amy will be there, too!

But you won’t be there, except in our memories. Debbie’s rambling old house is alive with memories of you. Pictures of you on the walls (including the beautiful graduation photos you never even got to see), Wizard of Oz trinkets and memorabilia from your collection, stacks of cards and letters that arrived before and after your funeral.

So, as much as there is to enjoy, there’s also so much to remind us of what we’ve lost. And the joy will be over in a few hours, and the loss will go on forever.

Love,

Dad

Time Passes

2006-06-22T11:32:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

Time passes, and things get a little better. Not completely better, of course, and not all at once. And not in a linear fashion, either; it’s the old “one step forward, two steps (or sometimes three or four or five) back” thing.

Still, I can see some light now. I don’t cry as much as I used to; rarely, in fact. I don’t as often find myself in a blue funk, either staring into space or working furiously on some essentially meaningless project just so I don’t have to think. Because having time to think means having time to remember, and while remembering can be good, it seems too often to lead to endless ruminating during which I replay in my mind not all the wonderful times we had together, but the moment of your death. There’s no percentage in doing that, of course; I certainly can’t change anything, and I don’t even really know all the particulars of your death. And yet, it’s hard not to think about it, difficult to avoid replaying that ugly little movie over and over again in my head.

But overall, I feel better as we head into year two.

I’ve heard people say, though, that the second year is often worse than the first—as hard as that might be to believe. (How could anything be worse than this?!) It makes a certain amount of sense, though: We spent that first year in a daze, struggling to handle details that needed to be taken care of, largely numb to the reality of your death. That first year was a constant and seemingly endless struggle to get through the next hour, the next day, the next week. Eventually, we discovered that we’d somehow survived a full year.

Which is where the trouble sometimes starts, I think. You get through that first year and there’s a feeling of accomplishment of sorts, a realization that you managed to sidestep—or sometimes just plow right through—all the landmines. My house is still standing, as is my marriage. I can still do my job, though perhaps not with the same joy I once took in it. I can still find enjoyment in friends, in a good dinner, in a good joke (or even a bad joke).

But nothing’s changed, really. We got through the year, but that didn’t change the fact that you’re gone. The fact that we got through the first year (including a painful but beautiful remembrance on the anniversary of your death and a terribly bittersweet Father’s Day) hasn’t changed a thing. One cannot undo a death.

So, yes, I can see why the second year might, for some people, be even worse than the first. We were pretty numb during that first year. The second year brings with it the realization that this is forever; an understanding that life will never again be the same, that when he shot you he killed something in all of us, something that can never fully come back to life.

So I guess that time doesn’t “heal all wounds.” Some of them simply scar over, and that’s the most one can ask for. To paraphrase one of my favorite authors: Time passes, but sometimes it beats the crap out of you as it goes by.

Love,

Dad

Balm in Gilead

2006-05-25T16:18:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

Poe’s raven was wrong, I think. There really is balm in Gilead.

It’s now been almost exactly one year since you were killed. It’s been a long, dark, painful year; I doubt that any of us will ever be the same. We all spent numbed weeks in shock, followed by long months during which we cried almost constantly. (There was a time when I was so used to crying that crying felt normal; not crying brought with it an odd, almost discomfiting, feeling. As if my mind and body had settled into a comfortably acceptable routine of weeping.) I wondered (as I know Lesley did), “Will I ever again not feel sad?”

Those months were followed by months of anger. I raged (and still rage) against the man who did this to you, to us; and against a providence that would allow him to.

But I have found myself feeling happy on occasion. I have laughed. I have joked. I have found (much to my surprise, and with more than a bit of guilt) ways to enjoy my life.

Some of this is, I know, due simply to the passage of time. We are wired to move past our grief; it would be biologically counterproductive not to do so. One is, and must be, predisposed to find ways to move on because not to do so is to enter the realm of madness. (And not everyone makes it: Some are unable to cope. They dive into a bottle or move to a hermitage or end their own lives. Their grief has done more than injure them, it has driven them mad.) Most of us manage to escape that fate, though. Our grief hurts us, even maims us; but it doesn't cripple us, not permanently.

More helpful than the passage of time, though, have been the gentle ministrations of friends and family. I wouldn’t presume to list them all here, but many, many friends and relatives came forward to help when it must have very difficult to do so. We couldn’t have been very good company, especially in the early months. And yet, friends, neighbors, and relatives came through for us. They dropped by. They sent letters and emails. They brought food and flowers and beer. (Early on they even mowed our lawn, picked up our mail, returned library books, and more.) They asked us how we were doing and they really wanted to know; they didn’t turn away when we gave them the real answer, painful as it must have been for them to hear it.

We received—and continue to receive—so many things from so many people. I think it’s because of that, and because of the relationship that Lesley and I have, that we’ve made it this far. It’s hurt a great deal, and it continues to hurt, of course. (This is a club that you cannot un-join. Once you sign on, you’re a member for life.) But things are not as dark as they were.

There is some balm in Gilead, then. Not enough, not by a long shot. But some. More than I would have thought, anyway.

Love,

Dad

Mothers' Day

2006-05-22T11:03:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

Apparently I’m not as smart as I thought I was. (And nowhere near as smart as you thought I was. But I guess daughters always give their daddies more credit than they deserve.)

I somehow never saw Mother’s Day sneaking up on me. I knew it was coming, of course, and I knew it would be tough for all the mommies: Debbie, Lesley, Andi (grandmommies, after all, are simply mommies-once-removed), etc. But I figured that it wouldn’t affect me much. After all, I am neither a mom nor a daughter, and my own mother passed away almost 10 years ago.

I was pretty safe, I thought.

But no, I had a tough time on Mother’s Day. I kept thinking about what a great mother you were to Shaylyn. (Lesley and I were amazed at your maturity and your patience. Where did that come from, we both wondered?) I thought about my mother, your “Grams,” and how much I miss her.

And I worried about “the mommies” in our family. And about all the other mommies for whom Mother’s Day was not a day of joyful celebration, but of loss and pain. I remembered Elizabeth Stone’s comment that becoming a parent was “…to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” So many, many mothers’ hearts have been broken while walking around outside of their bodies.

Ironic, isn’t it? Mother’s Day is so…Hallmarkian. It’s an artificial holiday, really. Well-deserved, of course, but pushed largely by the greeting card companies, the flower vendors, the candy manufacturers, restaurants. It’s driven mainly by commerce, at least these days.

How could something so artificial be so painful?

And now, another date to dread: This weekend is the anniversary of your death. On the 28th of this month it will have been exactly one year since you were murdered. A full year of numbness, then pain, then more numbness, then still more pain. A full year of trying to figure out why this happened, and of wondering if there were anything any of us could have done to stop it. A full year of hell.

Love,

Dad

Lucky Guy

2006-05-09T14:14:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty lucky person. I’ve almost always gotten the things I really needed or wanted: good job, nice home, wonderful wife. And much of that, I think, was really just luck. Yeah, I worked for it, but other people worked just as hard (or harder), were just as smart (or smarter), and not all of them have had good lives. Some of them have suffered horribly; some have had their lives brutally cut short.

But not me. I’ve never really suffered. And until now, there just hasn’t been that much that I’ve wanted that I couldn’t have.

Now I have to come to grips with the knowledge that—in spite of the fact that I still have a good life—not much of what I’ve accomplished in terms of material success really means much. Who cares if I can drive a nice car? Go to the movies when I want? Live in a nice house? It’s not that this stuff isn’t meaningful, it is; but its importance pales beside the things that really matter. I would give it all up in a heartbeat—and so would Lesley, Debbie, Amy, and others—if I could have you back.

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, I now discover that the one thing I want most in the world turns out to be the one thing that I cannot have.

Love,

Dad

Phantom Limbs

2006-04-26T13:49:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

When I was a very young child, I met a man who was missing an arm. Being too young to be embarrassed (or polite), I must've stared a little too long and he noticed me looking at him. We talked about his arm and about how he came to lose it: Apparently there’d been a farm accident involving an auger or a reaper or something—I was too young to understand, or perhaps it was so long ago that I've simply forgotten. In the end he lost his arm and was lucky to have lived at all.

To a small child, this seemed an exciting (and slightly scary) story, but the most interesting thing he said was that, on occasion, the arm still hurt. I couldn’t imagine that, but he said that he sometimes still felt pain; when this happened, he said, it felt exactly as if the arm were still there.

That was the first time I’d heard about “phantom limbs.” Apparently it’s not uncommon, though. Something to do, perhaps, with neural pathways having been conditioned to interpret signals in a particular fashion and having no other way to interpret them, even when the limb that would normally send those signals is no longer present.

Missing you is a bit like having a phantom limb. You’re gone, but sometimes I’m struck by pain that come out of nowhere, from something I thought I’d gotten used to. But no, there’s no getting used to this, really. It’s kind of like having a phantom heart, I guess.

Love,

Dad

Laughter, Like A Silver Bell

2006-04-07T14:04:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

I’ve been remembering your laughter. In a drone of voices, it rang out like a silver bell; it was unmistakably you, and I could always hear it, even in a crowd. No matter the size of a gathering, we could always find you by the sound of your uninhibited, honest laugh. Sometimes it burbled like a clear, running stream; sometimes it fell, emerging instead as a low, throaty chuckle.

Either way, hearing it, I would know two things that were, oh, so important to me: I would know where you were, and thus, that you were safe; and I would know that you were happy.

And now we have to live without that laughter. The world is an immeasurably darker, more somber place now, and it doesn’t even know what it’s lost. But we know: me, your mom, Lesley, Amy, your friends and family. We all know what’s been taken from us and we know all about the ragged hole your absence leaves in our hearts.

How ironic, if there were indeed a heaven, that you would get to go there while the rest of us remain here in hell.

Love,

Dad

Future Imperfect

2006-03-29T13:54:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

More on tenses… I’m still having trouble with them. I suppose I always will.

I hate referring to you in the past tense. “Remember when Rachel caught a fish and had no idea what to do with it?” “Hey, didn’t Rachel go to South America that year?” “Boy, Rachel sure could throw a baseball.” “Rachel loved Amy like a sister; no, more like a best friend who happened to be her sister.” “Rachel came to visit last winter.” [Unspoken: And she’ll never come to visit again.]

It’s that reference to an immutable and forever removed past that hurts, I guess. All of the things you did, all of the things we did together, the things we said to each other, they’re all in the past and they’ll never happen again. Not only will you never again “catch” a softball with your mouth (“I said, ‘Keep your eye on the ball!’ I didn’t say, ‘…oh, and don’t bother moving your mitt!’ I’m sure the tooth will be fine; just put it under your pillow tonight.”), but we’ll never again get together and laugh about it.

As I neared middle age, I realized that I kind of enjoyed looking back at the past; after all, as one ages, one eventually gets to the point where one actually has a history to look back on. But you were so much a part of that history that looking back now is painful. There’s a big, ragged hole in my history.

But even having to think of you in the past tense isn’t as bad as the realization that, in addition to the past being hurtful, the future has been altered—irreparably torn like a piece of fabric come unraveled.

It’s the future that hurts the most, in fact. I find myself thinking of you in various future conditional tenses: “Rachel would have found a job by now; I wonder if she’d have decided to stay in Virginia.” “Rachel would have been 25 next February.” “Rachel would have loved this lake.”

It’s that “would have” that’s so painful; it’s a grammatical construction that’s by definition full of promise, now never to be realized. You can’t say “would have” without implying a loss of the future.

I loved you so much. I still love you, I’ll always love you, and tenses be damned.

Love,

Dad

And One With Wings

2006-03-20T16:42:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I’ve noticed that I have quite a problem with tenses these days. That’s not surprising, really; we’ve talked a bit about it with our local grief support group and it seems to be a common thing.

And really, tense is at the heart of the problem when someone asks the question that we all dread: “So, how many children do you have?” Among those of us who have lost children, that’s referred to as The Question: No parent of a deceased child wants to hear it, because the answer—no matter how it’s phrased—is going to be painful. What do we say? “Well, we had two, but now we only have one.” No, that doesn’t work. And if we just say, “We have two” or “We have one,” both answers ignore the fact that one of our kids has died. Isn’t that the same as pretending that everything is as it was? Or that you never existed? We could never do that.

One of our grief group members has a beautiful answer, but I can’t bring myself to use it because I don’t believe it. When The Question comes up, she responds, “I have two, one with feet and one with wings.”

Oh, I wish I could buy into that. If it were true, you’d definitely have wings, Rachel. You’d have the biggest, most beautiful wings anyone had ever seen. They’d shine alabaster-white in the sun, I know they would. They’d be stippled by iridescent flecks of green and blue that would flash in the sky as you soared above us all. You’d be just as beautiful after death as you were in life.

I don’t believe that, of course. No wings. No angels. No hope for an eventual reunion. I can't believe in all of that. I’ve never in my life so wanted to be wrong about something.

Love,

Dad

Falling Into A Hole

2006-03-08T13:37:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

We just never know when we’re going to get blindsided. I can be doing pretty well and then a song will come on the radio or a young woman your age will walk by and set me off. Lesley and I have talked about this, and I know that she gets hit by it, too. No doubt Amy and Debbie have had the same terrible experience.

This time it was during a business trip to Orlando. I’d gone out to give a speech to a PC users’ group. I like speaking to such groups, getting to meet readers, etc., although I hate the actual traveling: hours waiting in airports, followed by hours crammed into too-small seats on an airplane. (Not to mention the actual flying! Zooming along at 600mph in a glorified cigar holder. Ugh.)

At any rate, the trip was fine, as these things go, until I got up Saturday morning and went outside to have a smoke as I drank my morning coffee. It was then that I suddenly realized: I always called you when I was on these trips, usually in the morning while drinking my coffee and smoking the day’s first cigarette. For some reason you got a kick out of me calling from Florida, Texas, California, Washington state, etc. And I got a kick out of it, too. You’d laugh and say, “So, Dad, where are you today?” And I’d respond, “Let’s see, it’s Thursday, so I’m in Orlando.” Or Seattle or Las Vegas or Dayton or wherever.

But this time there was a hole in my morning—a huge, ragged hole that matched the one in my heart. I was on another one of those trips, but this time I couldn’t call my little girl.

I stood there drinking my coffee and my eyes filled with tears. I hoped no one would walk by and wonder what my problem was.

This is like falling into a murky, gloomy pit. I’ll be going along feeling pretty well, and then I stumble and fall into a deep, dark hole, spinning and tumbling out of control in the darkness. Sometime it feels like I’ll fall forever.

Love,

Dad

Saying Goodbye

2006-03-01T14:47:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

You came into the world so quietly, and so few people were there to greet you: me, your mom, the doctor, and a couple of nurses. That was about it. It was early in the morning, a little after 7:00, and your mom and I had spent the entire night in labor. (Of course, I got off easy.) But you finally arrived, the two of us fussed over you for a bit, then your mom went to sleep and I (foolishly) headed for school, thinking that I could manage to teach my classes after having been awake all night. (I didn’t last long.) It occurs to me now that not many people knew that you had arrived.

What a difference from when we said goodbye to you.

It’s been nine months now since your funeral and I can finally think about it without falling apart. It was a beautiful funeral, as these things go. You had so many friends! We all loved you, of course, but I hadn’t realized just how many people felt that way.

The funeral home was overflowing. The owners had to open up the lobby and several anterooms, and they piped the service out into the rest of the building so that those who couldn’t find a seat could still hear what went on.

Many people came to the podium and spoke lovingly of you, and there were many funny Rachel stories told; we laughed through our tears. (My favorite story was about how when you were pregnant with Shaylyn and your belly was too big to allow you to sunbathe at the beach—which you dearly loved doing—your friends dug a “belly hole” in the sand so that you could lie on your stomach in the sun.) Amy spoke long and lovingly about you; she was very brave, crying the entire time but still managing to tell those gathered how you and she had become stepsisters who were closer than many (most?) real sisters. Others stepped up and talked about how you were always there for them, how you refused to give up when life placed obstacles in your path, and how you encouraged them to do the same. There were young people in that crowd who would finish college largely because you showed them that it could be done.

Finally, your mom spoke. She was amazing. Whereas I couldn’t have said two words without falling apart, she stood up there and talked about you and about her love for you for several minutes. She cried, but she was composed and coherent, strong and beautiful. (She finished by inviting those in attendance back to the very house where, only three weeks earlier, many of us had celebrated your college graduation.)

There were VIPs in attendance. Many of your professors from both TCC and Old Dominion were there, as were the head of your department at ODU and the dean of the school. (In fact, I recently heard from one of your TCC professors. He was kind enough and thoughtful enough to drop me a line just to say that you were a wonderful person and to note what a great help you were when he took you and your fellow students to Russia.) The admiral in charge of the base at Norfolk sent an aide to represent him, since your mom works for the Navy. Most surprising of all, I thought, the president of ODU was there. That was a very nice gesture for one intelligent, dedicated, and accomplished woman to make to another.

But as beautiful as it was, nothing could alter the fact that we were there to say goodbye. That’s a terrible thing to have to say to someone whose life was really just beginning. It’s so hard to find anything positive in such a tragedy. I try, though, I really do. I think about some beautiful lyrics I’ve been hearing lately:

I probably wouldn't be this way,
I probably wouldn't hurt so bad;
I never pictured every minute without you in it,
Oh, you left so fast.
Sometimes I see you standing there;
Sometimes it's like I'm losing touch;
Sometimes I feel like I'm so lucky to have had the chance to
Love this much.

And I am thankful, truly thankful, to have had the chance to love you. But I would give anything and everything I have to see and hug and kiss you just one more time.

Love,

Dad

Growing Up With Grams

2006-02-22T15:18:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Like many teens and pre-teens, you were kind of a brat and probably a little too smart for your own good. You were often sullen and self-centered, occasionally demanding, and once in a while just plain rude. In other words, pretty much a normal teenager. You seemed to have a problem with authority figures, especially female ones: You were always fine with me, but constantly at loggerheads with your mother, and sullen and sometimes downright nasty with Lesley.

You grew out of that, of course, as most kids do. We’ve often commented on the fact that, seemingly on the day you graduated high school, you somehow instantly became a nice person and a fine young woman.

But I knew it was coming long before that. I knew that there was a good person inside of you several years before you graduated.

During a summer visit when you were around 15 years old, we all went to meet my mother at the airport: you, me, Amy, and Lesley. Grams hadn’t been doing well; her health was failing, and in fact she had only another year or two to live. A lifetime of diabetes and heart trouble had worn her down. You hadn’t seen her in a while and, although we had told you that Grams wasn’t doing well, you weren’t really prepared.

They brought her off the plane and down the jetway in a wheelchair. She looked pale and wan, gray and old, and she peered about myopically, trembling and nervous, almost completely blind and barely able to hold her cane across her lap.

She was sickly-looking and when you saw her you burst into tears. The hardy, ebullient, robust Grams you loved so much was obviously gone, replaced by this frail, fragile, old person who needed a wheelchair to get around and who could no longer see well enough to identify her own grandkids.

You lagged behind as we started off toward the baggage claim area, and Lesley and Amy took care of Grams while I turned back to see if you were OK. You weren’t, of course. You were sobbing, tears streaming down your face; your makeup running all over. I hugged you and patted you on the head and made nonsensical Dad-noises that nonetheless soothed you. You looked up at me and said with a catch in your voice, “Grams is very sick. She’s gonna die!”

I don’t remember what I said to calm you down. No doubt it was something along the lines of, “Well, honey, everybody dies; Grams has lived a long life, and besides, she’s still got a few years in her.” Whatever it was that I said, you quieted down and stopped crying, and we were able to get everyone home. But you stayed very close to Grams during that last visit.

That’s when I knew you were going to grow up just fine, were in fact already in the process of growing up. I realized that you were thinking about someone other than yourself, that someone else’s pain was touching you. That you had suddenly encountered the notion of mortality and that you found the plight of others moving. That’s the mark of an adult.

Love,

Dad

Losing The Future

2006-02-17T16:30:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Today is your birthday. You would have been 25 years old. You should have been 25 years old, a recent college graduate, just starting out. (That “would have been” really hurts. I have a real problem dealing with tenses these days.)

This is the time when you should have been jumping into your career, eager to get going with your life, ready to take on the world. This is – or would have been – the point in your life when you finally start to see some rewards for all that hard work you put in at school, when you’d be able to look at the world with stars in your eyes and an endlessly optimistic vision for your future. Who knows, perhaps you would have changed the world.

You did change my world, of course. And Lesley’s and Debbie’s and Amy’s and . . . well, countless other people’s. And always for the better.

The grief counselors point out that when one loses a parent, we grieve because we have, in effect, lost the past. When we lose a spouse, we grieve for the loss of the present. But when we lose a child, we grieve because we've lost the future. And that's the most painful loss of all.

I miss you. I miss you every day, of course, but even more today.

Love,

Dad

Homesick

2006-02-13T15:36:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I'm home sick today; a nasty cold that I thought I'd managed to kick last week. But it occurs to me that in addition to being home sick, I'm also "homesick." Not for some other place, really. I love Nebraska and I love our old house; there's really nowhere else I'd rather live.

I think what I'm homesick for is that life I used to have, the life we had together. I want that old life back. I want you back.

But I can't have you back, and that's why it just doesn't quite feel as if I'm really home. I'm so happy to be here in Nebraska, to be with Lesley, and to be doing what I do for a living . . . . And yet, it's not quite right. The Earth is skewed, tilted wildly on its axis, and nothing's quite the same any more.

I think that's what upsets the griefstricken so much. We look around and everyone seems to be living their normal lives, and the sun rises and sets, and dogs bark, and kids play in the street. It's as if nothing were wrong. We want to scream, "Damn you people! Don't you see it? Can't you feel it? Don't you know that the Earth is spinning out of control? Don't you even know that the end of the world has come and gone?!"

The world ended, and almost no one noticed.

Love,

Dad

Learning To Fly

2006-02-10T14:15:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

You (and Amy, too) learned to fly at an early age. That is, being shuttled among sets of parents fairly regularly (summer visits, etc.), you both soon became familiar with airports, with finding the correct terminal and gate, whom to ask for help, and all the rest. By the time you were seven or eight, you were a seasoned traveler.

And every time Les and I took you to the airport for that trip back to San Diego (and later, Virginia), I got another few gray hairs. It wasn’t so much saying goodbye to you, knowing that I might not see you again for months, although that in itself was painful. I just hated seeing that plane take off with you on it. Some 75 tons of complicated airplane (with about a million rivets, each one supplied by the lowest bidder) would roar into the sky carrying you away from us and toward . . . well, toward home, we always hoped.

I almost couldn’t watch. I’d beam my thoughts to the pilot: “Look, you’ve got my little girl in there. You watch your ass. I don’t care if you were out late last night, whether you’re having trouble with your wife or kids, or anything else. That’s my baby sitting behind you. She’s just a kid, and I love her more than anything. For God’s sake, please be careful!”

And he—or sometimes, as the years went on, she—was careful. You flew a million miles, never got stranded, never had a problem. You were as comfortable in an airport as most kids would be at the local skating rink. For you it was a chance to read a book or magazine, get some sleep, do your nails, and listen to some music. (And in years to come you flew to Europe, South America, and Russia, all without a problem.)

For me, it was agonizing. I worried about you from the time you left your mom’s until we met you at the gate. Then, on the return trip, I’d worry about you from the moment you boarded the plane until we heard from you or Debbie that you were home safely.

All those hours of worry for nothing. How terribly, tragically ironic.

Or maybe it’s not really irony after all. Maybe it’s just plain old fear, the same fear that every parent battles when sending a child out into the world, into the unknown. Of course, as it turns out, it’s all unknown, even the parts you think you know well.

Love,

Dad

A House Is Not A Home

2006-02-02T16:23:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I’m pretty sure we’d talked about the man who owns the house next door… He doesn’t live in it; actually, no one does. The house has been empty for at least 20 (some of the neighbors say closer to 30) years. It just sits, dark and brooding, with no occupants other than an occasional squirrel that manages to find its way in through an attic vent.

The house is showing its age, but it isn’t dilapidated or unsightly. Mr. S. comes by every day to check on it, and a crew arrives every couple of weeks to mow and trim. Every year or so a painter paints the fence—our side as well as Mr. S’s side—and every few years the entire house gets painted.

I have to admit that it’s nice having such quiet neighbors.

Mr. S. is a bit odd, of course. After all, why would someone hang on to an empty house? It’s a very nice house in a wonderful neighborhood; if you’re not going to live in it, why not sell or rent it?

But he won’t do that. The house is a shrine of sorts to his son. Many years ago, Mr. S. bought the house for his son—I don’t know whether he’d intended it as a loan, or whether it was a wedding present, or whether there was some other arrangement involved. In any case, the son died of cancer before he could even move in.

Since then, the house just sits. Mr. S. won’t rent it out, he won’t live in it, and he won’t sell it. He simply keeps it more or less tidy, driving by in his old Caddy to check on it every day.

Until last May, I didn’t understand Mr. S. at all. He was obviously a little odd to begin with, and the death of his son (and then, years later, his wife) seems to have put him over the edge. He’s not crazy, but he’s more than a bit off-center. When you and I spoke of him and of his house, I’m pretty sure we just decided the guy was “weird but harmless,” and let it go at that. After all, how could someone let a death drive him to such a state? People die. It’s terrible, of course, but it happens. “OK, it’s sad,” we were saying in so many words. “Now get on with your life.”

I guess it’s easy to come up with quick, facile judgments when you’ve never felt the pain of the person you’re judging. I understand Mr. S. a little better now. There is no pain like this pain. If he wants to keep an empty house as a shrine to his son, then let him. I can understand how he feels.

Love,

Dad

Inconstant Memory

2006-01-31T15:34:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I keep forgetting that you’re gone.

I’m not senile (not yet, anyway). It’s not as if I actually think that you’re alive, it’s just that every once in a while—and only for a fraction of a second—I forget that you’re dead.

I’ll look out the window and see that it’s snowing and I’ll catch myself thinking, “Oh, snow! I hope it’s still snowing when Rachel visits; she loves the snow!” Or I’ll run across some cool gadget and think, “I’ll call Rachel about this. She’d love it.”

Once in a while, I’ll even think, “God, I miss Rachel. I should give her a call.”

So I’m calling. Can you hear me?

Love,

Dad

But Not Real Death

2006-01-25T16:04:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

We are a culture enamored of death, I think. We read novels about serial killers, we follow the real-life horror stories in the newspapers, we go to movies in which murder and mayhem play a substantial part. For some reason, we’re wired to be entranced by violence.

Until it hits too close to home. When it's for real, when it strikes someone we love, when we see too much of real-life death (an ironic phrase, I suppose) up close, we quickly discover that we don’t have the stomach for it that we thought we did.

You never met Lesley’s cousin George, although he lives not far from where you lived. I was always impressed with—and perhaps saddened by—him. A retired officer (a Major or a Colonel, I think), after he came back from ‘Nam, he no longer hunted or fished. He said he’d seen enough of death to last him the rest of his life. I’m not sure he even eats meat any more. What horrors must he have seen to have had such an effect on him? I hope he sleeps soundly these nights.

Since you were killed, I’m finding myself feeling a bit like George. I’d always loved serial killer movies, whodunits, war movies, police procedurals, and the like. (Oddly, I could watch with no problem a movie in which some creep bursts into a school and machine-guns a kindergarten class. On the other hand, if a dog got hurt, I would be in tears.) Now I’m finding that I have to be very careful about what movies I watch and what books I read.

I’m still OK with crime books and movies, even if they deal with violent crime—as long as the solution, not the murder, is the focus. If the writer dwells too much or too long or too explicitly on the murder itself, I find that I have to put it down or turn it off.

I found this to be true even of books that I wouldn’t have thought would bother me. I just read the new biography of Truman Capote (wonderful book) and figured I’d reread “In Cold Blood.” Couldn’t do it. Had to put it away for another day. (Or possibly another year.)

I keep discovering new wrinkles to this, new ripples, ramifications that hadn’t occurred to me. I wonder if the man who shot you knows how many people he really killed that night, how many of us suffer still. I’d imagine that he’s suffering, too. But not enough for me.

Love,

Dad

The Sun and The Moon, and Also The Stars

2006-01-19T16:16:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Your mom asked for a few words for the upcoming LifeNet memorial booklet that's given to the survivors of organ donors such as yourself. I tried my best.

Sun-and-moon decorations still adorn your room,
Gaily they dangle from light fixtures and hang on the walls;
Your favorite motif in royal blue and red and gold,
Dappled, almost alive, as real sunbeams scatter
Through the window and spray the walls.
The design meant so much to you that
You had it tattooed on your back.
Back then, we laughed and rolled our eyes;
How apt, as it turns out, because you meant the sun and moon to us.

Love,

Dad

Getting Through The Holidays

2006-01-18T16:17:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Sure glad the holidays are over. Everyone said they would be tough, and everyone was right.

Lesley and I just got back from Virginia, where we spent several days with your mom and Shaylyn. How Debbie manages to keep up with a rambunctious 3-year-old I’ll never know.

It was great seeing both of them, but staying in that house was very painful. Everywhere I look there are photos of you and items that remind me of you: gifts that Les or I had sent, the sun-and-moon motif wall-hangings you loved (so much so that you got a sun-and-moon tattoo on your back!), Wizard of Oz memorabilia, and on and on. And in a place of honor in the hallway, a huge frame that contains your degree from ODU, along with your tassels and the invitations to the graduation.

God, it was hard looking at that stuff. I don’t think I could live in that house.

Which makes me think about all of those folks who—having gone through something like this—decide to make major changes: they leave spouses, quit jobs, move to another state, and so on. I’m not tempted to do any of those, but I can understand the impulse. It’s a way of starting over, and perhaps a way to say, “I can’t handle this, it hurts too damned much. I’m going to reinvent myself, and the new me won’t hurt like the old one did.”

But the new me would hurt just as much, I think. Maybe I’d be in a new house or a new state or a new job, but I’d just be hurting in a different place. There’s no running away.

Love,

Dad

Making Everything Out of Nothing

2006-01-02T11:24:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

The other day I found myself laughing and joking with a friend. I still do this—tell jokes, smile, laugh—but I often wonder how I can laugh now, in the face of your absence. In fact, I may do a bit too much of it. Sometimes I think I’m a little manic, maybe trying too hard to convince friends and colleagues—and myself, perhaps—that I’m OK. “See? I’m alright, really. Things are fine. I can still be funny; I can still laugh and joke. I’m still the same man I was.” But of course I’m not. Not really.

In the middle of talking and joking with my friend, I was suddenly struck (once again) by the horror of your death, and by the enormity of our loss. It was a bright moment suddenly turned dark, as if a solar eclipse of the soul had arisen in the middle of a sunny day. It’s not that I had momentarily “forgotten” about your death; I never forget that, not for a moment. But I had insulated myself, temporarily, from the pain. I had shoved it into the background where, apparently, it lurked quietly, waiting to spring upon me.

One must do so, of course, if one is to function. Sometimes the pain has to be put aside, the bitter memories momentarily ignored. To discover that one were forever unable to push the pain into the background would be to set off on the road to madness.

So there’s still some smiling and joking and fun; but the laughter’s hollow now, and the pain is always waiting for me.

Paul Valéry, the French poet and critic, once noted, “God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.” Perhaps it’s when one notices the nothingness that the pain returns.

Love,

Dad

If I Only Had A Heart

2005-12-28T13:59:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I keep thinking about your favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz. You were such an Oz freak. You had Oz memorabilia all over the place: random piles of Oz figurines, plates, and key chains; posters old and new depicting Dorothy and Toto and their friends; Wizard of Oz games and wallets and coffee mugs. You had the books—original editions and countless reissues—and you even had (and had pretty much memorized) a copy of the script. We always knew what to get you for Christmas: more Oz stuff.

This Christmas there’s no Oz stuff in the house.

Oddly, after all these years, I finally know my favorite line from the movie—or at least the line that means the most to me: When Dorothy and Toto discover that they’re leaving—indeed, that they could have left at any time—Dorothy turns to her new friends and her eyes fill up with tears as she suddenly realizes that when she leaves Oz she’ll lose those she has come to love so very much. “Goodbye, Tin Man,” she says. “Oh, don't cry. You'll rust so dreadfully! Here—here's your oil-can. Goodbye.”

In response, the Tin Man says, “Now I know I've got a heart—'cause it's breaking.”

And now I know that I, too, truly have a heart, and I know it for exactly for the same reason.

Love,

Dad

Candy Land Revisited

2005-12-27T15:23:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Lesley and I opened a few of our presents yesterday. Usually we wait until you kids can be there (early January, generally), but we figured we might as well open the ones that came from family. (As if our family hasn’t already done enough for us this year!)

As we sat there unwrapping our goodies, I couldn’t quite manage the joy and excitement we used to feel. There was no fun in it this year, not that I really expected that there would be. As we sat there amidst the colorful wrapping paper and ribbons, I thought back to happier times when we would all gather together and unwrap presents, some beautiful, some handy, some just silly. It was always so much fun watching you and Amy! I suppose it’ll be a while before I feel like that again.

I guess I took those happy times for granted back then. Things have changed now, of course. As Joni Mitchell said, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”

I hope I never took you for granted. I hope I gave you what you needed. If ever I was too busy to talk, to help with a school assignment, to play catch or Monopoly or Candy Land, I wish I could apologize for that.

Yes, even Candy Land. You loved that game. I suspect that, like many kids, it was the first board game you learned to play. I hated it; any adult of sound mind would. It was boring, pointless, overly simple, and repetitive. So, naturally, you wanted to play it for hours. Back then I’d just as soon have a root canal as play Candy Land. Now, I would give anything just to play it with you one more time. I’d even let you win.

Love,

Dad

By The Pie Safe, With Care

2005-12-23T16:23:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Your stocking was hung with care, but not “by the chimney,” as the old poem has it. Actually, it was hung with care, and love, and with more than a few tears.

As always, we hung all the stockings—yours, mine, Lesley’s, and Amy’s—not by a chimney or on a mantel, but on an antique pie safe in the dining room. We’re nothing if not traditional, you know.

Your stocking is small and beautiful and elegant—it’s much like you, in fact. (Mine is huge and old and all stretched out of shape, so I’m not sure what that says.) Your stocking is also sadly, devastatingly, empty this year and it will remain empty this year and every year from now on.

I don’t know how to take that, how to handle the painful welter of emotions that batter and buffet me when I glance over and see that stocking hanging there limp and unfilled. I’m not sure that I would have put it out this year, but Lesley felt it would be best. Either way, of course, we lose—have lost, in fact—what we held dearest in all the world.

Not to put the stocking out would somehow be a repudiation of you and of all you accomplished, of all the love you gave to us and in turn received from us. How could we ignore you? How could we pretend that you simply never existed?

But letting it hang there empty amongst the others reminds me so shockingly, so brutally, of our loss.

Ah, but what should a Jewish kid from Chicago care about Christmas, anyway? That’s what I keep telling myself, but it doesn’t work, of course.

Love,

Dad

We're All Immortal, But Only Briefly

2005-12-20T14:22:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I used to think you spent an awful lot of time “burning the candle at both ends,” as they say, and I’d worry about you and how long you could keep up with your dizzyingly busy schedule: work, mom-stuff, school, out with friends, more mom-stuff, internship, more school, more work, and on and on. I hoped you’d have enough sense to slow down before you burned out.

Now that metaphor no longer works. If I need a candle metaphor, I think instead about the “candle in the wind” comparison. A beautiful metaphor, really. It expresses perfectly both our fragility and the transitory nature of our existence. (To paraphrase Neil Peart: We’re all immortal, but only briefly.)

I wish that syrupy, cloying Elton John song hadn’t ruined the metaphor. Still, when “Candle in The Wind” first came out in 1973, the phrase—although already familiar to most of us—hadn’t yet been overused to the extent that it would be after we’d heard those opening lyrics (“Goodbye, Norma Jean. Though I never knew you at all….”) the first 1,200 or so times.

At the time, I thought the lyrics were beautiful, actually; haunting and poetic and true. But I never realized just how fragile it all really is until last May. Who knew the wind would blow so powerfully, and who knew it would rage so mercilessly? Who knew it would begin to blow so damned soon?

Love,

Dad

Christmas Party Redux

2005-12-19T16:19:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Lesley and I went to another Christmas party this past weekend. Unlike the first party, this one turned out OK. Not too sure why we got through this one so much more easily than the last. Maybe because it was only six very close friends, all of whom have been there the entire time for us. They’ve made an effort to be available and to be supportive, even though I can tell that it makes a couple of them a little uncomfortable to talk about your death. In fact, they’re pretty much like family, and—just as our real family has been—they’ve been there for us when we needed them.

I wonder if one of the reasons that parties make me uncomfortable these days is the fact that the last time I saw you was at a party—your graduation party. I can’t believe I went from proud father to grieving wreck in three weeks.

Then again, I’ve never really liked parties, so maybe that has nothing to do with it.

Love,

Dad

An Ocean of Grief

2005-12-14T14:33:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Sometimes the pain comes out of nowhere, sudden and blinding and unexpected. I can be driving home or sitting at my desk or quietly reading a book and it crashes into me like a rogue wave from which I thought I was safe, having—or so I thought—moved up the beach and away from the water’s edge. It washes over me and I recall how I’ve felt when pummeled by waves at the beach: thrown and turned over again and again, blind and frightened in the cold, roiling water. I find myself twisted all around, sputtering and gasping, spitting sand and salt, completely disoriented, with no conception of where “up” might be. A person could drown in pain like that.

You loved the sea—you loved everything about it: the sun, the water, the sand, the hot dogs and cotton candy from the Virginia Beach boardwalk. When you were an oceanography major, I used to love to hear you talk about field trips, dredging, dragging nets around the bay and coming up with different kinds of marine flora and fauna. (You, who were always afraid of strange animals and disgusted by slimy things!) I could picture you spending most of grad school on a rusty old boat, examining sediment and analyzing tides and tide pools. Perhaps you’d go to work for an oil company or a marine ecology group. (Two career paths that seemed to me to be polar opposites, yet you appeared to have no trouble simultaneously embracing both possibilities.)

Ironically, grief is like the sea and surviving it is not unlike surviving any perilous journey. Those who sail quickly learn that the sea is awesomely powerful: huge, rolling, implacable, and impersonal. It’s not malevolent, but it can kill you. It’s not really the enemy, though: On the sea, greed, stupidity, pride, and sloth are the enemies. The sea conspires to kill the unwise and the unwary. The prepared usually survive. Usually.

This is like being adrift on an ocean of pain. And I have absolutely no control over it; as the old mariners used to say, the sea is so large, and my boat is so very small.

Love,

Dad

Death and the 80/20 Rule

2005-12-11T14:45:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Lesley and I went to a Christmas party last night, where I discovered that the 80/20 rule holds true in death, as it does in business.

We’d been avoiding large gatherings ever since you were killed. Since May 28th at 9:00 a.m., when I received the call from the Virginia Beach police, we haven’t really felt like being around the largely superficial, synthetic happiness that one finds at parties. Mindless, meaningless chatter about golf; kitchen remodels; the Huskers’ chances against Michigan; drunken flirting and obvious, sophomoric overtures to other people’s spouses; and “Where did you get that dress? It’s beautiful!” Just not the kind of thing we really appreciate these days.

Dinner or drinks with a couple of close friends is about all we’ve been able to handle since that awful morning.

But it is Christmas, and Phil and Carlene have been having this neighborhood party for 25 years, and it has been almost seven months now—time, we thought, to see what it felt like to get back into the world.

It wasn’t a good idea. We made it through, but it was awkward for everyone, I think: us, because, as it turns out, we weren’t really ready—and for everyone else because…well, there‘s nothing like a couple of grief-stricken parents to put a damper on a Christmas party. If Santa had come down the chimney, he would’ve yelled, “Ho, ho…uh, ho?,” looked around, and slit his wrists.

OK, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it was pretty uncomfortable.

I did learn, though, that the division amongst friends and their ability to handle what’s happened is about the same at a party, proportionally, as it is at work and amongst our non-work circle of friends.

In other words, the 80/20 rule applies. In business, the 80/20 rule states that roughly 20% of your product line will generate roughly 80% of your revenue. The goal, then, is to determine what products constitute that valuable 20% and concentrate more on those than on the rest; if you can do that, you’ll drive revenue up and costs down. Or so I’ve been told by businessmen, sales reps, etc.

In terms of grief, the 80/20 rule works a little differently. It seems that a small number—about 20%, in fact—of your friends will fall into one of two camps: About half of that 20% will be able to talk about what happened. They’ll confront the issue head-on, they’ll attempt to be supportive; they’ll come to you and put their arms around you and say, “Are you doing OK? I’m so sorry. I know the holiday season must be very difficult for you. Can I do anything? Would you like to just sit down and talk?” And then they do sit down and talk, or listen to us as we talk.

These folks are very brave. We can’t be much fun to be around, especially when the conversation turns to your murder and to how we’re all holding up.

The other half of the 20% won’t talk to you at all. They simply cannot deal with what’s happened—perhaps they have their own losses to deal with, or they can’t bear to consider the possibility of such a loss. It’s a pain that’s not only too great to discuss, it’s too great to even imagine.

To these people, the bottom half of the 20%, the grieving are like lepers of old: We must be avoided, shunned, ignored; if we do travel amongst the non-grieving, we should be required to wear distinctive clothing, our gloomy passage marked by a lamp-bearer who rings a bell and shouts, “Unclean! Unclean!” as we pass by. It would be best, one feels, if there were colonies where the grief-stricken gathered, forced to huddle in amongst themselves; perhaps grief ghettos would serve to protect the normal folk as they go about their lives.

The remaining 80% of one’s friends and acquaintances can and do speak to us, but not about what’s happened. They try to pretend that everything is normal. We’re up and about, after all; we seem to be able to function—and besides, it’s been several months now, time to “get over it.” They can talk to you about just about anything, usually with a bright, chipper smile and a perky lilt to their voices. (Some of them are marketing people, so they can’t help this, of course; “perk” is part of their job description. It might be an inbred thing, I’m not sure.)

Sometimes, though, someone in the 80% group accidentally asks a dangerous question. He may look up and smile as I stand at the office coffeepot. “So,” he says, “how are you doing?” He doesn’t really want to know the answer. You can tell by his furtive, hangdog look that he didn’t really mean to ask that and that he regrets that it slipped out. Like a store clerk muttering “Have a nice day” after she finishes bagging the groceries, it was just something to say, words to fill a conversational void; it was meaningless chatter that was meant to remain meaningless. You can almost hear him thinking, “Oh, crap! Please don’t let him really answer that. I just want to talk about volleyball, or this terrible coffee, or the dress code at work.”

So, at work and at parties and in the world at large, the 80/20 rule seems to hold true. The vast majority of our friends and acquaintances need—for their own peace of mind—to pretend that all is well, that life is normal, that things can go on as they are, that the world isn’t falling apart.

And why not? After all, you and I did pretty much the same thing during the last presidential election.

Love,

Dad

The Holiday Minefield

2005-12-08T20:38:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I lost so much when you were taken from me. And I keep discovering new things I've lost that I didn't even know were gone. It’s now officially the holiday season (a season I’ve been dreading), and I’ve just realized that I can no longer listen to what was once my favorite Christmas song, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

I’m not sure I have a favorite version of this song…. I’ve always liked Perry Como’s version (laid-back, softly crooned, as if the song itself were clad in a comfy sweater like that worn by the singer), but I also enjoyed versions by Sinatra, Crosby, and even slightly “countrified” takes on the song by Kenny Chesney, Martina McBride, and others.

In the end, I doubt there’s a version of the song that I wouldn’t have liked. (Unless Neil Diamond did one, of course. Or possibly The Muppets. And if I had to choose between them, I’d take The Muppets.) But I can’t listen to it now.

Of course, this particular song is just the tip of the musical iceberg. I’ve found that there are dozens—maybe hundreds—of songs that I can no longer listen to. (I can’t listen to any Judds song, in fact—you were such a big Judds fan as a kid.) The radio has become a minefield, and I never know when I’m going to stumble over that emotional tripwire and blow my heart to bits all over again.

Of course, movies are no different. Nor are television shows. Or magazines or conversations or phone calls or…. Well, I guess life is just a minefield now.

I lost so much, but I need to keep reminding myself of the things I didn’t lose: friends, family, my beautiful wife, my other lovely daughter. I lost a lot, but I didn’t lose everything.

Love,

Dad

Maybe It Just Doesn't Pay To Worry Too Much

2005-12-06T14:39:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Last night I drove home in a blinding snowstorm—whiteout conditions most of the way, car sliding all over the road. When I turned on South Street to head home, I couldn’t even tell if it was really South Street.

It was a mess, and it reminded me of a telephone conversation we’d once had. You called while driving through a snowstorm in Virginia, mainly just to tell me how interesting it was to be driving in a snowstorm. Naturally, I was worried. You shouldn’t have been talking while driving, especially not in a snowstorm. (You knew that, of course, but you were 23 and indestructible.) I got you off the phone as quickly as I could and made you promise that you’d call me when you’d reached your destination.

You called 30 or 40 minutes later, but until I heard from you, I was terrified that you’d gotten in an accident.

We parents agonize about so many things. Will she get that report finished on time? Will she drop that jerk of a boyfriend and find somebody who treats her decently? Will she drink and drive? Or ride with someone who’s been drinking? Will she study for that test? Will she find a job? Will she quit that terrible job? Will she remember to call her mother? Her stepmother?

And on and on and on. There’s no end to it, even when the child becomes a young adult. The worries change, of course, but they don’t end.

I worried with the best of them, I’d say. But I worried about the wrong things. I never thought to worry that someone would someday put a gun to your head and pull the trigger. It just wasn’t something that occurred to me.

Sometimes it’s the things we forget to worry about that get us in the end. I wonder, is that something I should have thought of? Is there something I could have/should have done?

I guess that even though you’re gone, the worries continue.

Love,

Dad

Winter Is Here, But You're Not

2005-12-01T16:28:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

When I awoke this morning, the temperature had dropped to 16˚ and the neighborhood huddled beneath a fresh blanket of snow. It was beautiful, of course, but cold. (Of course, in Nebraska, 16˚ is deemed merely “chilly.” It’s not cold unless there’s a negative sign involved. Or so say the natives.)

Standing out on the porch with my morning coffee and cigarette reminded me of when you and Amy would visit during Christmas, you from Virginia and Amy from Texas. For the week or so you kids were there, you’d be wrapped in blankets and afghans, and you’d curl up on the couch, wearing warm PJs and fleecy robes. One of you would ask, “So, tell me again, why do you live here?” and then the two of you would look at each other and roll your eyes. Neither one of you could understand why we liked it here in Nebraska, and it was always fun to poke fun at us “rubes” who didn’t know enough to live where it was warm.

I miss that so much: the bantering (“Hey, at least in Virginia we don’t get stuck behind a tractor on the freeway.”), the whispering (“You talk to him while I sneak down to the basement and wrap the present!”), listening to you and Lesley talk like the old friends that you had become (rather than the wary stepmother and surly stepdaughter you were at the beginning), the bleary-eyed opening of presents on Christmas morning. (“Can we at least have some coffee first?!”)

I can’t believe that this Christmas will come and go without you here. I haven’t had a Christmas without you in 24 years. I’m so glad that Amy will be here. I hope I don’t get all mushy and cry. Or maybe that’s OK, and we’ll all cry together.

Love,

Dad

Things Accomplished, Things Left Undone

2005-11-30T16:05:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

There are so many things I’d looked forward to doing with you that now I’ll never get to do: I wanted to walk you down the aisle, give you away at your wedding, and embarrass you by crying. I had hoped to get a call one day asking my advice about graduate school. I wanted to watch you watch Shaylyn win a track meet or kick a goal or demolish a debate opponent. I was looking forward to snickering quietly and looking innocent as you complained about how Shaylyn was “very bright, but soooooo lazy!” and asking how to motivate her to do better in school. (Apparently this bright-but-lazy thing runs in the family.) I wanted us to go to one more baseball game together. I had thought that one day during my retirement, I’d be sitting around tying flies or something, and wondering why I hadn’t accomplished more with my life; and then you’d walk in and seeing you would remind me that I’d accomplished quite a lot, really.

I thought I’d get to do all of these things, and many, many more, but I was wrong.

Still, there are so many things I did get to do with you: I took you to your first major league baseball game. (“Dad,” you said at four years of age, while looking over the immaculate field at what was then Jack Murphy Stadium, “Why doesn’t our yard look like that?” So we had our first—and last—discussion about what a groundskeeper does.) I got to bait your hook the first time you went fishing. (“Eeeew!” you said. “And we hafta do this every time?!”) I got to watch you change (almost overnight, it seemed) from a gawky, surly teenager (dragging your hair through your spaghetti as you ate while looking down at your plate) to a beautiful, kindly, sweet-tempered young woman. I got to hold your baby girl in my arms when she was only a few days old. (You were the best mommy I’ve ever seen. Lesley and I were amazed at your patience, your maturity, and your love.) I went to a slew of graduations—pre-school, elementary school, high school, and (finally!) college. (And I cried at every one of them.)

When I’m feeling down, I think about all of the things I’ll miss, all of those “firsts” in which I won’t get to take part. When I’m feeling better, I remember all of the things we did get to share. Today I’m feeling better.

Love,

Dad

Every Blog Has Its Day

2005-11-29T11:57:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

This whole blogging thing is a bit ironic. You and I spoke about blogs and blogging just a few months before your death. Neither one of us could see the point of it, really. I mean, some blogs are definitely cool, and a few are actually very informative, but we both wondered what happened to the essentially private nature of journal-writing when that “journal” became accessible to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. More than that, I think we both felt that, by-and-large, most bloggers just tended to ramble on about things that weren’t really particularly interesting or important.

And now, here I am rambling on, blogging about a person with whom I had only recently agreed that blogs were kind of silly. And who would be interested in this, really, other than family and a few friends?

But I’m going to continue blogging, for now. Right now I need it. It’s how I speak to you, now that I can no longer use a telephone or email, and now that I can’t look forward to your summer and winter visits. I’ve spoken with you pretty much every day—sometimes several times per day—for 24 years. Sadly, I took for granted my ability to do so. It’s a habit I’m not yet ready to give up.

Love,

Dad

Six Months Down, Forever To Go

2005-11-28T20:02:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Today is the six-month anniversary of your death. Odd to think of it as an anniversary. I’ve always thought of those as something one celebrates: the anniversary of one’s birth, of a marriage, of the founding of something. In this case, it’s the anniversary of a profound loss.

In some ways it feels as if we had received that terrible phone call just yesterday. That poor Virginia Beach detective; I could tell he didn’t want to make the call he was making, but he did his job as best he could, knowing all the while that he was about to ruin a whole series of lives beyond the ones that were cut short the previous night in that condo by the beach. I wonder if the man who shot you knew how many lives he was really ending.

In other ways, it feels as if we’ve been living with the awful news forever. Day after day we grind through it, just trying to get by. There seems to be no end to it, and I don’t suppose there will be. We manage, mostly, but almost anything can set us off: a picture, a memory, a song on the radio.

But we owe you more than that. We owe it to you not merely to carry on, but to truly live. We need to rediscover the ability to feel joy, love, and peace. Maybe we can do that some day. We’ll try.

Love,

Dad

I'm OK, You're OK. Pretty Much.

2005-11-26T11:59:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

If I were ever to write a book on grief, I think it would begin with this sentence: It’s OK, you’re not really crazy.

Of course, this is a lie, of sorts. Grief is truly pathological, as Joan Didion points out in The Year of Magical Thinking. If a person thought and felt all the time as one does while grieving, that person would be deemed ill; he would be examined, diagnosed, medicated, and possibly confined. That this does not occur is due only to the fact that we view grief as “normal,” its aberrations accepted as part of the grieving process. Most of us eventually “overcome” grief and our “illness” ends—or at least, we once again become functional. (Some of us don’t. A few of us are permanently damaged and cannot resume something approximating a normal life.)

But, those unfortunate few of us aside, the grief-stricken are not truly mad. We’re all temporarily deranged in some way or ways, yes, but we’re not permanently, irrevocably insane.

In spite of that, those of us with little previous experience grieving feel as if we’re going insane. We have strange thoughts; we’re guilt-ridden, even when we have little reason to be. We’re unstable, disconnected from reality. We think, “How am I supposed to feel? Would a sane person feel this way?” We engage in magical thinking—believing that if we do certain things, act a certain way, our loved one will somehow return to us. We lose ourselves in fantasies of revenge. We carry on stoically—in control for a day, a week, a month, even, and then fall apart for seemingly no reason at all. We feel anger toward our deceased loved one: “Why did he go on that trip? She shouldn’t have been hanging around with those people! He knew better than to…” and on and on.

And then we feel guilty about having such thoughts.

For the grieving, it’s normal to be abnormal. If you’re grieving, you need to know that every strange notion, every unkind thought, every bout of self-pity, every breakdown, every paroxysm of guilt is normal. No matter how bizarre or uncharitable your thinking, it’s what happens when you grieve. The only thing that will heal you is time, and it takes some people longer than others; don’t let others push you into “getting over it.” There’s no rush, and no way to rush. You will heal, although not completely. The open wound will close and scar over, but the scar will always be there, and it will always ache—some days more than others, like a broken and badly knitted ankle that reminds you on cold, damp mornings that you once did yourself serious bodily harm.

The bottom line here is that you’re OK. You, like all of us who are grieving, get (and deserve) a pass.

Love,

Dad

Thanks For The Memories

2005-11-24T20:51:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

The secret to surviving Thanksgiving, apparently, is to keep busy. Today I’m buried in CDs, DVDs, and assorted computer peripherals as I test two new Linux distributions (SUSE and Mandriva) for an upcoming article. I haven’t had much time—haven’t allowed myself much time—for dwelling on the fact that today is the opening round of the holiday season I’ve been dreading.

Yet, I have much to be thankful for: a wonderful wife, family, home, job, and all the rest. So many have so much less. I do appreciate these things; I do know how lucky I am, in so many ways. Still, it's hard to get into the holiday mode, difficult to truly be thankful in the midst of this pain.

Nice, though, that we've received so many calls and emails today. Friends and family just "checking in" to see how we're doing, letting us know that they're thinking of us during what they know will be a difficult time.

Of course, while I no longer have you, I do have memories of you: I remember that you were terrified (although I didn’t realize it ‘til much later) when the old orange Karmann Ghia died on the freeway and I had to push it to an off-ramp and then dive back into the car and pop the clutch to get us going again. I remember that one of your earliest memories (you must’ve been around three years old) was lying about how that paint got peeled off the wall behind your bed. (And how odd that I know this!) I remember playing catch on a camping trip, and how you “caught” the ball with your mouth, knocking out an already-loose tooth. (And how, forever after, you’d put on that sly grin and tell people how “Daddy once knocked out my tooth.”)

So many memories, some good, some bad, but all of them cherished because they’re now all that I have left of you.

Love,

Dad

Good Days, Bad Days

2005-11-23T14:43:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

For some reason, I’ve felt better the past couple of days. Monday was awful—felt very down and depressed; everywhere I turned I encountered memories of you. (I hope that some day memories of you will make me smile, but it’s not happening yet. Right now each memory is a searing pain; I find myself turning away from pictures of you, and then I feel terrible for having done that.) I put it down to the approaching holidays and was thinking, “Man, if the whole holiday season is like this I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

But then yesterday and today I’ve felt better. No tears, no choking up. Even caught myself humming a Christmas carol yesterday. So I guess it’s just more of that emotional rollercoaster I’m riding. I can be up and then down dozens of times in one day.

I’m not looking forward to the holidays, though. They were always my favorite time of the year, but not this time around. Still, Amy’s coming to visit, and she said she’d like a tree and decorations, even though Lesley and I had originally thought maybe we should just skip the whole thing.

I wonder what will happen when I walk into the house and see your special ornament on the tree....

Love,

Dad

Death By A Thousand Cuts

2005-11-21T16:34:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I’ve been searching for a way to describe how this feels, but I’m not sure I have the words for it.

Things are a bit better now than when you were first killed. I no longer spend all of every day in agony, crying or on the verge of tears. (At first, I cried so much that crying came to feel normal. Not crying felt odd.) Now, coming up on the six-month anniversary of your death, I find that I can get through most of the day (most of the time) without too much pain.

That’s not to say I don’t think of you. I think of you always. There’s not a moment when you’re not on my mind, even if it’s just on the periphery of my consciousness while I’m working on an article or speaking with a friend or colleague. But that constant, deep-seated ache with which I had become so very familiar is no longer present all the time.

At first I thought of describing it as a rollercoaster. I can be feeling OK, just sort of vaguely sad, and then—out of nowhere—comes that kick in the gut. It’s not that I suddenly realize that you’re gone; I always know that you’re gone. It’s that the enormity of what’s happened abruptly strikes me. The sudden pain takes my breath away, as I realize—deep down inside—that my little girl was murdered, really murdered, shot dead for no damn good reason. (As if there could've been a good reason.) And it strikes me again, full force, that I’ll never again hear your voice. It’s enough to crush a man.

But describing it as a rollercoaster isn’t particularly apt. For one thing, rollercoasters are fun; people ride them on purpose. (Not me, mind you, but some people.)

This is more like an ancient Chinese torture, really: líng chí, death by a thousand cuts. Each memory slices into me, each realization that you’re really gone takes another piece of me, until eventually it feels like there’s nothing left and I’m left feeling emotionally flayed.

Love,

Dad

Anger Issues

2005-11-17T14:08:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Looking back at my previous post, I suppose I have what psychologists would refer to as “unresolved anger issues.”

There’s no doubt in my mind that they’d be correct. I am definitely angry. In fact, this whole grieving thing seems to be made up of equal parts anger, sorrow, pain, and guilt. And I suspect that this is normal, that most people in my position feel this way.

But the anger outweighs everything else, at least some of the time. When the sorrow gets to be too much, when the pain is more than I can bear, the anger takes over: Instead of being incapacitated by the sorrow, instead of being consumed by guilt, I focus on my hatred.

That’s a terrible (and perhaps unproductive) thing on which to focus, but I suppose that there’s a way in which it’s better than the alternative. At least I have an avenue for my emotions, a focus for my anger. I know who killed you. I can hate him with no trouble at all—I, who’ve never before hated anyone, really—and perhaps that’s better than blaming the whole world, or God, or having no one at all to blame. Your death was not due to illness, or a flood, or a freak accident. It was not just “one of those things” that sometimes happens for no apparent reason and for which no one is at fault. There is fault here, there is someone to blame.

So, yes, I have unresolved anger issues. I don’t see any way to resolve them, really, nor am I sure that I want to. I figure that I’m entitled to them.

Love,

Dad

The Rule of Law

2005-11-16T15:52:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Today is November 16th. You and two of your friends were shot and killed exactly 172 days ago. And today the man accused of killing you has a hearing in Virginia Beach. This will be the first of what I assume will be many hearings leading up to his trial, currently scheduled for next May.

I have no real quarrel with the U.S. system of justice; as flawed as it is, it’s probably the best around. Of course, I try to keep in mind that “system of justice” is probably a misnomer: Judging by the way in which the law is applied, justice is not really the goal of law; order is the goal of law. Justice, when it occurs, is merely a happy accident. And perhaps that’s the way it has to be.

I believe that this man deserves his hearing, and the hearings to follow; that he ultimately merits a trial in which all of the evidence is heard and in which his fate is decided by a jury of his peers.

I believe that, but I have to wonder: When do you get a hearing?

Love,

Dad

Black Magic

2005-11-15T12:20:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

Psychologists talk about “magical thinking,” the idea that one can believe in the manifestly untrue, or that one can invest in certain symbols magical powers. In children, it’s magical thinking that allows them simultaneously to believe in things they know intellectually to be false, but emotionally wish to be true.

I’d run into the term shortly after your death, while speaking to a social worker about Shaylyn. She pointed out that Shaylyn, at three years of age, is perfectly capable of understanding the concept of death; she can—and does—know that her mommy is dead, that you’re gone, and gone forever. At the same time, she’s young enough to engage in magical thinking: The understanding that Mommy is dead has absolutely no bearing on the fact that Shaylyn may still expect you to walk through the door at any moment.

But it’s not only young children who engage in such thinking. I know very well that you’re dead; I attended your funeral, I cried nonstop for weeks, I have your ashes in a box. (They’re all I have left of you, and I can’t for the life of me bring myself to sprinkle them in a forest or on a beach, as was my original intent.) In spite of this knowledge, this absolute certainty that you’re gone forever, I still catch myself expecting you to call, to send me one of your chatty emails, to walk through the door. I still find myself thinking, when I run across an interesting fact or a cool gadget, “Oh, I’ll hafta call Rachel about that! She’ll love to hear about it.” I still see you on the street, or in a shop window, or in the car that pulls up next to me.

I still feel you in my life and it hurts so very much to realize that the feeling is a lie.

Love,

Dad

Me & God: A Failed Relationship

2005-11-11T12:46:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel.

I truly envy people of faith, and by that I mean a belief in anything. Whether it’s faith in God, in a plan of some kind, or a more secular belief in the so-called “goodness of man,” I envy someone who can see a plan, a pattern, some causality in all of this.

I was always an agnostic of sorts; I figured that knowing God—or even knowing that He existed—was pretty much beyond me. I would live my life as best I could, I figured, and let others argue about God’s existence. If He exists, fine, I’d like to think I’ve done my part. And if He didn’t exist, well, there’d certainly be nothing wrong—and perhaps very much that’s right—in still attempting to live a good life, do “the right thing” as much and as often as I could.

But that sort of outlook has to at least admit the possibility of the existence of God, the likelihood—however slim—that there’s a reason for everything that happens. It presumes that the universe might proceed according to some sort of plan. It imposes on the world a rational structure of some sort.

I can no longer presume that this is the case, or even that it might be the case. Whatever tattered faith I might have once had has now been completely ripped away. If God does exist, He and I are no longer on speaking terms.

Ironically, you did have a faith. I gathered that it wasn’t particularly strong, but you did attend a church on a fairly regular basis. It might even have been more of a social thing than anything else, but I know that you believed in God, and occasionally worshipped Him in the prescribed manner.

I know many people who have a strong faith, and I envy them so much, especially now; I’d like to believe that there is a God, a plan, an afterlife. I would willingly suffer in hell if I knew that you were safe and loved in heaven.

But I don’t—can't—believe that there's a reason for everything, so I’m not sure what to do or how to resolve the anger that I feel. Perhaps the only right thing to do is to determine that, even though God doesn’t exist, we must live our lives as if He did.

Love,

Dad

Brave New World

2005-11-09T14:52:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

It’s a different world now, the one in which I live. It’s not as bright, nor as beautiful, and certainly not as benign. I used to view the world as a kind of palette with which I could paint: I could color it, affect it, change it; with some creativity and determination I could create in it a place for myself and my loved ones. Sometimes I saw the world as a giant tool chest: If I worked hard enough, if I learned enough, I could reach in and grab those tools, and I could then use them to build whatever I needed—a product, a career, a life.

Now it sometimes seems as if the world is simply something that happens to me. I exercise no control over it, I just exist within it and it washes over me, doing whatever it will. It acts upon me rather than me upon it. It’s a different world, and I’m a stranger in it.

But that’s silly, really; the world can’t have changed. It must be me that’s changed. I’m no longer as trusting, as joyful, or as confident as I once was. I no longer swagger or strut or stride through life. Instead, I shuffle like an old man, bent under the terrible weight of his years and the pain he’s seen.

I don’t want to be that old man. I’m not yet ready to be tired and beaten. I want my confidence back; I want to feel joy again. Maybe someday.

Love,

Dad

Hard Lessons, Quickly Learned

2005-11-08T11:15:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

You were so very, very bright. Sharp enough at five or six to carry on a conversation about paradoxes inherent in time travel as we drove home on one of those endless San Diego freeways. Smart enough to skip the very grade that I failed. (As you never tired of reminding me. Warning to parents: Never keep a box of your old report cards sitting around where your child can find it.) Clever enough to zip through high school without really having to work very hard at it. Smart enough to get great grades in college in spite of working 20-30 hours per week and raising a baby.

You were scary-smart. And because of that you gloried in those classes you were taking during your last few years in school. You’d call for no other reason than to talk about sediment, or some marketing concept, or to explain how the tides worked, or why algae blooms weren’t necessarily a problem. It was amazing what you’d learned.

But I’ve learned, too. With your death, here are some important lessons I’ve learned:

> There’s nothing in the world more important than family.
> If you don’t have a great, close family, do your best to marry into one.
> Some good friends will drift away; they don’t know how to handle death, don’t know how to love someone who’s grieving. It’s not their fault.
> Some people who were formerly just acquaintances will step up and become good friends; they know there’s no good way to help someone handle grief, but they’ll try anyhow.
> A few truly good friends will continue to be truly good friends.
> When you think you’re over it, you’re kidding yourself. There is no “over it.”
> People who say, “She’s in a better place now” don’t deserve your time; they’re not even worth your anger. There was nothing wrong with the place you were, and we all want you back.
> The death penalty may in fact be cruel and unusual punishment, but sometimes it’s not quite cruel enough.

In the end I suppose the most important thing I’ve learned is that the person you love most in all the world can be taken from you in an instant. So we need to make sure that the people we love most know today that they’re deeply, unreservedly loved, because one of you may be gone tomorrow.

Love,

Dad

Simple Acts of Desperation

2005-11-04T15:18:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I’m surprised at the number of people who think that it takes “courage” to get through all of this. Some talk about being “brave” enough to do this blog or write the magazine column I wrote some months ago. Some comment on my being (and on Lesley’s being and Debbie’s being and Amy’s being) “courageous” enough to “go on” in spite of your death.

I don’t think it’s courage at all. What choice do we have, really? What can we do but go on? You’re gone and nothing we say or do can bring you back. But we need each other, all of us who are left to carry on. Lesley and Amy need me; I can’t just shut down, leaving them to find their way without me. And, of course, I need them, too. Perhaps I need them even more than they need me. What would I do without Lesley, who loves me in spite of my flaws, and who is stronger and braver and smarter than anyone would have thought? (She’s beautiful, but she’s so much more than that. I wonder how many people look at surface beauty and then, failing to look beneath that surface, decide that there’s no depth there.) What would I do without Amy to poke fun at me, and to remind me (again) that life goes on and that scrawny, bratty little girls sometimes turn out to be beautiful, smart young women? She’s the daughter who reminds me that there are still things to live for, that the story’s not yet over, that I need to watch her—and help her, if and when I can—grow up. (I’m so glad you two were so close, calling and emailing each other constantly, sharing secrets, giggling and hugging like the good friends that you were, more like friends than sisters, in fact. Certainly no one expects stepsisters to become such good friends.) And of course, I need to be around—want to be around—to watch Shaylyn grow up and become a young woman, a lovely, lively echo of her determined, beautiful mother.

At any rate, I’m not sure that courage has much to do with it. Sometimes living is an act of desperation.

Love,

Dad

Lost & Found

2005-11-03T10:53:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

I realize that I’m being hypersensitive, but it really hurts when someone consoles me on having “lost” you. “I’m sorry to hear of your loss,” they’ll say. Or, “I heard that you lost your daughter; I’m so sorry.”

And they are sorry, and they mean well, I know. But when I think of “losing” something, I think of car keys or a coffee cup or a paperback book: something that I might have put down and then rushed off, forgetting where I left it. If I stop and think about it, if I retrace my steps, if I ask for some help, I can find that cup. It’ll be right where I left it, on the telephone table or perhaps on top of my dresser.

But I can’t find you. No matter where I look, and in spite of the fact that I see you everywhere I look, I can’t find you. No amount of help will bring you back to me, nor will hours of searching. I know because I’ve tried, and I’ve asked for help, and I’ve retraced my steps a thousand times.

I didn’t lose you. You were taken from me. You were unexpectedly and brutally ripped from my grasp, but you’ll be forever in my heart.

Love,

Dad

Pride & Prejudice

2005-11-02T12:02:00.000-06:00

Dear Rachel,

You were always so proud of me; I’d like to think I deserved it, but I often wonder. When I was developing software you’d lie in wait at B. Dalton’s or Egghead and pounce on the unwary shopper who picked up one of our software packages: “My daddy made that!” you’d say with a smile. “You should buy it. It’s really good.” Perhaps you were bucking for a commission.

You were a bit older when I became the editor of a computing magazine, so you were a little more subtle. You’d just drag your friends over to the rack at Barnes & Noble, grab a magazine and point to my name on the masthead: “See that? That’s my dad. Pretty cool, huh?” Maybe “subtle” isn’t the right word.

I suppose every little girl is proud of her daddy.

But I hope you knew how proud I was of you. You turned out to be a wonderful, bright, witty, kind person. The day you finally got that college degree—just a few weeks before you were killed—was one of the happiest days of my life. We were all so proud of you for sticking it out: me, your mom, Lesley, Amy, and all the grandparents, too. We knew how tough it was, what with having to work, go to school, and raise a baby at the same time. It would’ve been so easy to quit, but you didn’t.

You never got to hold your actual diploma; you and all the other graduates marched across the stage holding a sheet of paper that looked like a diploma, but we got to see the real thing. Someone from ODU came by after your memorial service and dropped it off with your mom. I was reminded at the time of an honor guard presenting the flag to a fallen soldier’s mother.

Like the soldier’s flag ceremony, it was touching, and very kind of the university to make sure we got the diploma. But I wondered what those mothers really think when they’re handed that tri-folded flag. No, that’s not right; I know exactly what they think: No, thank you. You’re very kind, but you can keep your flag. I’d like my child back. Please. I’d like my child back. I’ll give you the flag and everything I own. You can have anything I’ve ever owned, and anything I might ever own, if you’ll just give me back my child. Will you do that for me? Please?

Love,

Dad

Forget-Me-Not

2005-11-01T11:49:00.000-06:00

I’m terrified that I’ll forget you.

It’s an irrational fear, I know—and one that the literature says is not uncommon—but I find myself worrying about it nonetheless. What would happen if February 17th rolled by and I didn’t realize that it was your birthday? Is it possible that I could forget that you were murdered on May 28th? What if, recalling your face, I were to find that it had become progressively fainter and less well-defined, until finally it had turned into a vague, murky watermark that bore little resemblance to the real Rachel? What if I forgot to love you?

Intellectually, I know that this is silly. I’ll never forget you. Neither will Lesley or Debbie, nor your friends. And we’ll make sure that Shaylyn, as young as she is, never forgets her mommy, either.

In the end, I suppose I don’t really have to worry: You’re the last thing I think about when I go to sleep at night and the first thing I think about every morning. And since I think about you so often during the day, I guess what it boils down to is that I’ll always think of you, more or less constantly, and I’ll always love you.

Which, now that I think about it, isn't really so different from when you were alive.

Love,

Dad

The Absence of Pain

2005-10-29T10:29:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

It’s been five months, almost to the day, since you were killed. It’s interesting, the phases of grief one goes through. Numbness strikes first: You feel nothing, not even any real pain. You go through the day with no affect and without taking note of the world around you, except to wonder why things appear so normal. How could the sun rise, you wonder. How could the wind blow? Why is the earth still spinning? You get through the day, doing what you have to do, but wondering all the while: How can I get up and get dressed? How can I be brushing my teeth when such a terrible thing has happened?

Then comes the pain. Agonizing, gut-wrenching spasms of aching loss that feel as if someone is tearing apart your heart even as it continues to beat. At the same time, you feel guilty: What should I have done differently? Could I have done anything to save her? Was I a good enough father? Did she know how much I loved her? This is when you begin to understand why some people shut down completely or dive into a bottle, why a bereaved parent might go over the edge and never quite make it back. Or how a person could be so crushed by a loss that he feels the only way out is to take his own life. I never understood before how someone could hurt so much that he might feel that suicide is his only recourse, but I understand now. When the pain is so great, when the sense of loss is so overwhelming—and when there appears to be no end to it—one must wonder, “Why do I bother to go on? If this is what it's going to be like, if this is how I’m going to feel for the rest of my life, then I can’t handle it. I’m not strong enough. I need to find a way out.”

But that feeling doesn’t last forever. Eventually things ease up just a bit; I find that I can now get through the day feeling mostly okay. Busy with work or visiting a friend, spans of minutes can go by without thinking of you, and then the minutes become an hour. Imagine, an entire hour without feeling any real pain. Sadness, yes; I guess you’re never completely out of my mind. But that searing pain has abated, and I find that I can get a certain amount of enjoyment out of some things: writing an article, joking with a friend (Who would’ve ever thought that I could joke again?), getting a subroutine to work correctly, cleaning up an old motorcycle that I recently (and foolishly, I know) bought to mess around with.

I wonder, though, if I’ll ever again feel true joy. You know, the kind of goofy, unbridled enthusiasm I used to feel when playing the drums or coming up with a way to improve the magazine or putting together a new computer and watching it boot up for the first time. Or the happy wonder of suddenly realizing (again!) that I have a fantastic wife, two beautiful daughters, a challenging job, and a great life.

Maybe I will. I wouldn’t have thought so at first, but I’m now feeling better for longer stretches of time, so perhaps there’s hope. It occurs to me, though, that the absence of pain is not the same thing as the presence of joy.

Love,

Dad

Harsh Reality

2005-10-28T15:03:00.000-05:00

Dear Rachel,

No one will read this blog. Well, maybe some family and a few friends, but other than that, who would really care? I’m a middle-aged magazine editor—nothing too exciting there, and you…well, you’re dead.

That’s kind of harsh, isn’t it? Sort of cold, maybe? But I find that I need to be blunt with myself about this. I need, sometimes several times a day, to remind myself that no matter how much I cry, or wish, or hope, or offer to deal with God—no matter what I do or think, you’re not coming back to me. There will be no more late-night tech-support phone calls (“Daaaad, why won’t my printer print?!" "Dad, what’s wrong with my modem—it won’t, uh, ‘mode’ any more!”); you won’t be coming through the door in a rush, dragging a car-seat, a diaper bag, and a sleeping baby; you won’t show up (as you did once) unannounced at the airport while I sit through a layover in a strange city.

None of that will happen, and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. I need to make sure I know that. I mean, I have to really know that. I have to learn to accept your absence, as I once gloried in your presence. Otherwise my heart breaks whenever the phone rings or the doorbell buzzes, or whenever I see a young, dark-haired woman walking down the street. And a heart can only break so many times before it’s completely shattered.

So, why a blog? Mainly I’m hoping that these letters will prove therapeutic; perhaps addressing some of these issues will provide that "closure" I keep hearing about. Also, maybe this blog will serve as a communicative (I remember how much you loved that word, “communicative”) device to keep our family and friends apprised of how we’re doing. And if anyone does read this, maybe these entries will chart a course toward some kind of recovery (I won’t say “healing”; I’m not sure we’ll ever really heal) that might be helpful to others in a similar situation.

We did so much together, you and I. We hiked and camped; we worked on cars (well, at 4 years old, you mainly fetched tools and smeared oil all over the place); we spent so many evenings in deserted newsrooms finishing up articles and setting type; we played countless games of catch with baseballs and footballs and Frisbees and who knows what else; and sometimes we did nothing, just sat on the couch watching TV or reading—but we did it together.

I suppose that this is the last thing we’ll do together, so I hope we do it well.

Love,

Dad