On Having a Pure Heart

      Daniel,    

                I thought you might enjoy this soulful new song by John Clark Blackwell


      

Daniel, I think you always had a pure heart.

Congratulations, Al Yankovic

               Daniel, Yesterday, August 27, 2018, your friend Al Yankovic finally got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Yes, it is surprising that he had never received one before.  He was apparently very excited about this. I knew this would please you too.  Of course, when it came time for him to speak, he asked that people didn't attack it with a pick axe as they had the one for President Trump, which incidentally simply keeps getting replaced.
               Al continue to work, satirize and interview in the manner in which you recall him. As we both commented at his concert, he certainly has a great deal of energy!

The Best Review

     

                          This book was released in the Autumn of 2012, and was the story of Daniel's life here on Earth, and of his sudden departure from it.  I wrote it for many reasons. First, I had a strong desire to share what a special person Daniel was while here on Earth and unless someone from my family told the world, then no one would know. Secondly, I had a strong desire to write down everything about his life and about his passing before I somehow forgot any of it. The memory is a strange thing after the death of a child. Some incidents are brushed with gold afterward, and other periods of time may be forgotten until years afterward. I was taking no chances. I also had a desire to help those who also were grappling with the sudden and unexpected loss of their own child, or who were navigating grief.  Lastly, I suppose I must have written for the simple catharsis of  it. There was relief sometimes, after a chapter at a time was completed. Sometimes there was also a feeling of closeness to Daniel as I wrote.

                        I did not experience great book sales with this book, but there have been plenty of letters or e-mails from all over the world in which people told me how touched they were by the book and how they feel they know Daniel.  One family, had a beach funeral and remembrance for Daniel where they said a few words about his loss, and tossed beautiful orange flowers into the ocean, and then wrote to tell me, including the photographs they took.  I have also heard from other families where their child had died of Sudden Unexpected Death in Childhood (SUDC) or of Long QT Syndrome, which is also a potential consideration in Daniel's passing.  The world's response to this book has helped me to feel tethered to the world and to my remaining children here, rather than to want to simply evaporate in order to go to find Daniel. I will always be grateful for the contacts from these people.

                        This Autumn, the book will have been available for sale for six years, and Daniel's passing will have been ten years ago. However, the book and the experience are still giving to me, and I would imagine, to others as well. This week, the very best review the book has received was posted on Amazon.
 (Link to the review below:
 https://www.amazon.com/What-Learned-Daniel-Jane-Alexandra-Krehbiel/dp/1479752657    )

 

The tragic account of Jane-Alexandra Krehbiel and her family's sudden, tragic and completely unexpected loss of 12 1/2-year old Daniel goes well beyond a sad and tearful account of loss, grief, and the search for catharsis, understanding, acceptance and healing.

This little man was particularly bright and insightful, having a soul and a spiritual connection to the hearts and minds of those around him. He was kind almost to a fault. He had an uncanny understanding of science and technology, the terms of which he used to draw parallels to the brokenness he observed in other people.

I don't think the author wrote this account without the fear of what the sense of vulnerability can do when you open every thought and emotion for anyone to read and react to. Jane-Alexandra Krehbiel takes us into the innermost otherwise secret chambers of little Daniel and the family's love and reverence for the dozen years they were allowed to enjoy such a precious gift from God.

The book should be read by anyone who suffered a loss and feels the grief that accompanies an event that cannot be changed or reversed. But I recommend it too to anyone who loves to peer into the souls of others...if you value the visceral dimension of our human condition, and cannot seem to find much beyond the typical accounts of people you cannot relate to, I urge you to buy this book. It will be food and sustenance for your heart and your spirit...I promise.         Rodd Mann

 

               Daniel, I think he understood. 

 

 

 

Daniel, I Still Have a Gift

            

Wherever you go, you are likely to run into someone who is famous, what you do with that, is up to you, but I recommend you do not follow my lead.

         When Daniel was still here on Earth I remember telling him about a "gift" I appeared to have. It wasn't songwriting, writing books, singing or anything else I once did.  It's a more unusual gift than that.  I have the gift of either offending, insulting, injuring or annoying famous people.  I assure you, it's not deliberate.

                 I can't remember how long I have been this way, but I know I was this way in college.  I remember hanging up the coat of Eric Weissberg (of "Dueling Banjos fame) when he came to a recording studio very late one night to work on a project a friend of mine was producing. It was very late and I was tired.  Eric handed me a very heavy down coat that had tiny feathers protruding from the fabric. I made some joke about it that fell flat, and he groaned at me, as I hang up the coat.

                 I think it was about a year later, that I was invited to the apartment of a close friend in New Jersey, in Plainfield, and he was having a party. He introduced me to a fellow in a wrinkled blue shirt and told me he was a prince from Saudi Arabia. I was younger than my college friends and I didn't want to appear gullible. I also thought that no self respecting prince would go to my friend's red carpeted curried apartment, and so to appear not so taken in, when introduced to the prince, I said, "Nice to meet you. I'm Princess Grace".  The Prince was gracious, but my friends looked at me strangely.   Years later, while pregnant with one of my children, and sitting in a doctor's office, I saw the Prince again, in a picture in an article about him in People Magazine.  So he really was a prince, I thought.

                 Once, while we were moving from a suburban home in Virginia to a rural one, we made a stop at a full service gas station with restaurant just off the interstate. The kids and I were moving boxes of toys and gardening tools that day, and we were all dressed in work clothes. We stopped at the gas station in order to stop for ice cream. Daniel was only about one. I noticed a man, dressed in casual black a couple of tables away, eating a large portion of chicken strips without any sauce staring at us. I am sensitive to the gaze of others and I wondered why this person was watching us so intently as I talked to the kids. He continued to stare, and I started back, as he ate his chicken strips and I ate my small chocolate cone. He looked familiar, but not in a way I could place.  Finally, my son Matt, who was about seven said, "Did we pack my copy of Edward Scissorhands?"    "Yes, I'm sure we did", I responded.  With that, the man in black pulled his black ball cap down over his head a bit farther, and stopped his stare.  It took me a couple of seconds to realize that he was indeed Johnny Depp, though he was thinner and smaller than I had imagined he would be.  The kids had recognized him, but I had not. Apparently our family had been interesting.  Then, he got up and got cash from the ATM, and went out to his rental car with a Louisiana plate, and drove off.  The kids could have told him hello and told him they enjoyed his work, but I was simply noticing that someone was watching my kids.

                Once, when we lived hear Richmond, Virginia, I took the kids to the Borders Books and Music Store.  As I pulled in to the parking space, Tim Kaine who ran for Vice President in the last election, walked across the parking space. I hit the brakes with both feet in order not to strike the man I recognized as the Mayor of Richmond at the time. He realized that I nearly hit him, and he waved an apologized.  I nearly killed or maimed Richmond's mayor, the future governor and Hillary Clinton's presidential running mate, all in one fell swoop.My family and I ran in to him a couple of times afterward in Charlottesville, and if he remembered our near miss, he never said anything.
 
                 Later, when Adam was practicing as a speed skater, in Richmond, Virginia, a young woman was watching him during practice. I said to Adam quietly, "Wow, that woman looks like a smaller version of Oksana Baiul."     She apparently heard me, and scowled.  Later that afternoon, we learned that she was indeed Oksana Baiul. I had done it again!   Adam later left speed skating as a consequence of Crohn's disease.

                I am afraid I have not changed my ways. I spent a couple of hours this week, on and off talking to Zac from the Zac Brown Band, on twitter on it's direct message feature.  It was a great conversation but I really believed that I was talking to someone assigned by Zac's publicist to talk to fans.  Eventually, I think the man became a little annoyed because I didn't believe it was actually him.  Finally, we resolved that I should ask him a test question. I had remembered on an interview that he had a favorite dish to serve at the "Meet and Greet" before certain concerts. I asked it, and he knew at once. Okay, I have to concede that the person I spoke to, probably was Zac Brown.

               I think there is probably only once when I was as gracious to a famous person as I should be, and that is because she seems to be as nice and as gracious as her voice would imply, and that would be Alison Krauss.  But I suppose I still could inadvertently annoy her next time.

               As a writer of now, six books, I do still occasionally make contact with famous people. There is a down side to this. Some of them are very nice people and deserve the accolades they have. Others, are not nice people at all. I am learning that one can admire the work of certain people, and realize quite completely that some of them are pond scum personally !