March 2007: GRIEF

As I write this, over a month has passed since it happened, but I still find it almost impossible to say: my son, my first born, my Peter is dead. He died on February 9, 2007. The word is so final, so absolute.

For the first time in my life I understand the euphemisms so popular for death . . . passed over, passed on, departed, even we lost him, as though this person, despite all our love, has been temporarily misplaced.

My dear daughter-in-law, Katy, was with him when he died. That consoles me, that she was with him. His oldest son, Connor, said good bye the evening before. The younger two boys stayed at home, struggling to remember their father whole. And I waited, hundreds of miles away, for the news. When it came, we had all been waiting for so long that at first I could locate no tears.