2000: Dear Paul
2001:  Happy's Adventure
2002:  Tiptoe Thru the Tulips Again
2003:  Random Acts of Collaboration
2004:  Fey-lines
2005:  The Russians Have Landed
2006:  It's Good to Remember--Even the Bad Stuff

IN MY OPINION
"New Kids on the Block"

Books Read in 2007

Updated 4/9:
"Mutant Message from Forever"

FUNNY THE VLOG

"Paul's Memorial #1 --
A Tribute to Lawsuit"


click here to download

Flash version here

Mefeedia Video Archive

8 AND 11

20 April 2007

On this date, Paul has been dead 8 years.

May 18, 2007.  On this date, David will have been dead 11 years.

It boggles my mind.  How can David be dead eleven years???  Wasn't it only yesterday that the call from Ned came to us in New York?  But no, it's been eleven years.  Children will soon be going to junior high who weren't even born the day David wrapped his car around a light post in San Francisco.

This is anniversary season.  The two months you can't really get away from it.

"I guess you never really get over it, do you?" someone asked me recently.

It always seems such a strange comment to make.  Do you ever "get over" the death of a child ... or the loss of anybody you love?  But maybe if you have never experienced a painful death you don't understand that.  Or if you have you're hoping that maybe someone will tell you that you do, eventually, in time, "get over it."

The way I try to explain it is that you never "get over it," nor would you want to.  You loved a person.  To "get over it" seems to be minimizing the feelings you had for that person in life.

But the good news is that it does stop hurting most of the time.  Whatever the "it" is that you never get over gets absorbed into your system and it just becomes a part of the person that you become following the death.  The person(s) you loved are always there with you.  You never forget, but you don't cry forever.  You laugh again.  You have fun again.  You find meaning in life again.  But you never "forget."

That's something else that people tell you when they are trying to be helpful.  "You'll never forget him."  I accept that statement for how it was intended — as a comfort. But part of me has to snicker mentally ... like I could forget two pregnancies and two births and the life of two children who made it to adulthood.

Could I forget sticky kisses and story time and pictures made with colored pasta products?

Could I forget first steps, first days at school, first bikes, first performances, first cars, first jobs?

Could I forget diving and dancing and singing and acting and judo?

Could I forget Egg Nog Galas and "Deck the Halls"?

Could I forget delivering newspapers and making kites?

Could I forget silly haircuts and emotional breakdowns, and talks about love, life and everything else that stretched into long the night?

Could I forget watching babies become toddlers, then children, then young adults, and then adults.

Could I forget getting on the phone with a stranger, 3,000 miles away and telling her she could take the heart of our son and give it to someone else?

Could I forget running my hands through the hair of my son, laid out on a gurney, not breathing...or watching his wife holding his hand in disbelief.

No, I'll "never forget them." 

And on today I remember the day Paul died.  I remember the day all those kids died at Columbine and I think about the parents who are making burial plans for their children who lost their lives in another senseless tragedy in Virginia.

Those parents will never "get over it" and they will "never forget" the children they are about to bury.

But in time, if they are lucky, and if they have people around them who love them and support them, they may be able to smile again, to laugh again, to have fun again, and to be grateful, as I am, that they were able to watch their children grow into the adults that they were at the time of their deaths.

But, oh how I'd love another all-night discussion session with David or with Paul.

I decided that for the video of the day, I would make a video that gave the flavor of Paul's memorial service.  Now, bear in mind that we don't do "normal" memorial services, and this was definitely no exception.  I don't think I'd watched this video more than once or twice in the past 8 years and I'd forgotten what was there.  Walt and I have sat here all evening, alternately laughing and crying.

Even if I let a video go to 10 minutes, it couldn't even begin to give you the flavor, so I'm going to make this "Paul's Memorial Week," and post several different excerpts from the memorial, one a day.  By the end, you might know Paul a little bit better.

I'm taking things out of sequence because the first snip I want to post is a compilation video that was shown at the memorial service.  It was a tribute to the band Lawsuit that Ned (and probably Paul) put together and I just love it.

After that....who knows?  I'm playing this by ear.

PHOTO OF THE DAY 

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