Twelve Years Gone

             

             This year at this time, the Autumn has advanced farther than it had when you departed.

 

 

    Somehow Daniel, I always feel closer to you each year on the day you suddenly departed for Heaven.  It's as if time is a rotating circle and that each time the circle completes an annual turn that somehow, I might see you again, if I could just jump from one square to another on the constantly rotating circle.  It's silly, but when you lose a child, you think of many things, some of which are nonsensical, and you are aware they are.   This year, my young son who departed for Heaven at age twelve and a half had been gone for twelve years.  Somehow, I thought that the twelve year gone mark would bring some magical insight that it really hasn't.

                Please know that being gone from Earth for twelve years has not erased or even blurred the years that you were here. I still remember the day you were born and the days that followed, with uncanny technicolor precision. I remember things you made and did all through your life and a very young child and as the quasi-adult you became before your departure.  As you know, we had a pleasant Thanksgiving yesterday and your sister was laughing about something you had said. I am lucky that as many remembrances as I have of you, that we have an entire family with their own remembrances of you, and I love hearing them.

               As I mentioned this year on your birthday, you would now be twenty-four years old.   Your bedroom still has many of the items you held dear. This year though, I have begun to give some of those outgrown toys and collections you had to your nephew. He knows all about you, and sometimes borrows DVDs from your vast collection of films and television series. I will still keep and maintain things that were important to you, like your drawings, your computer programs, and other things you did while you were here.

              This year has been a difficult one for many people. As you likely know, a fair number of people worldwide died as a result of a hybrid virus which emerged from China. It killed many people there before spreading across the world and causing unprecedented closings of schools, colleges, businesses, restaurants, government buildings and disrupting the hours of many stores. Almost any gathering has been cancelled this year, including the Celtic Festival we used to enjoy together.  I am relieved that you did not have the endure the challenges of this particular year, here on Earth, though I miss you more than you can know.

            In addition, this year will be remembered as the year in which an organized effort for launched to subvert the presidential election. In some cities, they counted more mailed in ballots than there were total voters registered.  Despite the fact that there are many lawsuits pending with regard to many different aspects of voter fraud, most of the media, both domestic and foreign, have been saying that there is "no evidence of fraud", which is absurd. They are no longer reporting, but are advancing an activist agenda which could destroy our republic.  If we have reached a time in American history where our votes are meaningless, then I am fearful for our family and for your siblings. Other nations also have their own problems and so departing for them does not solve our problems, but simply creates new ones.

             Other than my dad, your Papa Lawrence, I know that there are lots of people you know who now occupy some branch of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Please take good care of the animals that one by one come to you there. I miss them, and you very much. Please send best wishes to my Dad. I am still not pleased that you had to depart from Earth but I am on at least some level, relieved that one of my children will escape some of the obvious and not so obvious trials to come within our country.

              I will always love you, wider than the oceans, and deeper than the seas.