I hope you had a happy Easter Chris, and I hope they have Easter baskets in Heaven.

Miss you always...

P.S......The art is also haunting. An overweight younger man exposing only his left eye. When I see this drawing I have to wonder.....on some level did Chris know his fate?....Would he know an overweight younger man....blind in his left eye and self proclaimed brain damaged as the result of a brain tumor kill him?.......It does make you wonder.

Another great grin. Chris was a kind spirt, he would often say that everyone was his friend. I do believe that he meant it. I also believe that the world is diminsihed due to his absence, his jokes, art, smiles and kindness are now gone forever.

Chris was on the border of greatness, his art soke to his teachers who were eager to see what was next to come. Chirs was a hard worker, that combined with his talents would have allowed him to reach his goals and excell. But he was not allowed to do so due to the fact that one family thought that to drive was a "right" that everyone, even the half blind and brain damaged, should enjoy.

Miss you always...

Today's photo is of Chris in his PJ's ... What a grin!

Today's art is a pencil sketch. What is missing in all the facial parts? A left eye.

Miss you always...

Today's photo is of Chris skateboarding in the neighborhood. Years after his death I think of him each time I hear a skateboarder.

Miss you always...

Today's photo is of Chris at the Franklin auditorium hanging out with friends.

Today's art is part of a work we call "Einstien" what you can't see is the left eye. On the original work the left eye is deformed.

Miss you always...

Opening Day......It always makes me remember opening day 1998. Adam was a senior in high school and I let him skip school to attend opening day. Chris thought that was terrible. If Adam was allowed to skip school then he should be allowed to as well. So I made him a promise...I promised him I would let him skip school on opening day of his senior year, 2002.

Never in a billion years did I ever think that Chris would already be gone for almost two years by then. I miss him every day but days like this I miss him even more....What would he be doing now? What would he look like? What would he be? And the questions can go on and on and on..............

Today's art is another of a left eye. I wonder if it is as blind as the drivers left eye?

Today's phote is of Chris clowning during home coming the year before he was killed.

Today's photo is of Chris and friends in the Franklin high school auditorium.

Today’s art is of a “stressed out” man in a turtle neck with many things surrounding his head. Words faintly appear in the air surrounding him… I’m sure more words can be seen on the original art work… But you can’t help trying to read the ones that are there.

Miss you always…

Miss you always...

miss you......

Today's photo is of Chris at a Tigers game! Very appropriate considering opening day. We had almost as much fun people watching as we did watching the game.

Today's art is a painting of several heads hooked up to a light bulb, I guess it will light up when they get an idea. I would like to ask Chris about this - but I can't.

Every year I am shocked by Spring.
Here it comes suddenly, like a curtain
Made of colorful print material,
Dropping, transforming the land.

Each year
I feel like I haven't been paying attention.
One morning I wake and my world is
Gaudy with color...like
Someone shook the champagne and
It spilled; It's effervescence waking
The flowers early, drunk and in love.

The brown corn that stood in the
Fields of Fall and the crunch leaves
Are forgotten.
The clean smell of fresh turned earth
In our garden promises summer
Vegetables and flowers.

There is no memory of Winter's howl,
The wind has pushed on.
I don't know where, nor do I care.
I'm glad it's gone.
It had become a guest who stayed too
Long, a bore that chases me to my room.

Each year when the azaleas bloom I
Remember another Spring.
That one wore a pall.
The rain would not stop.
It poured into the open grave of my son.
It poured deep into my heart.
I was sure it would never stop.
It did.
Though I sometimes wished it hadn't.
I was stuck between forgetting and remembering.


Remembering won.
Now I see his face in the azaleas.
They bloomed that Spring
While he died.

I no longer hold it against them.

The folloing was printed in our April Compassionate Friends newsletter. It sounds a lot like me...for that matter, I think it sounds like any mother who has lost a child.

For the Newly Bereaved

For a long time after my daughter's sudden death, I went from despair to disbelief and back to despair. I didn't want to face the day. I feared the huge waves of guilt, anger,and sheer raw hurt that would come crashing over, and over and over again.

Never again was there going to be any purpose or joy in my life--not ever. I too wanted to die. But I didn't because I had one surviving daughter. And so, with great reluctance, I started on my "grief work." And work it was-- hard and long and often unendurable.

I started a journal in which I wrote in daily, pouring out whatever needed to come out. I cried, I went to counseling and worked through my anger and blame. And I cried. I read extensively: on suicide and grief and mourning, on God and afterlife and reincarnation and near death experiences, on the nature of death and dying. I read poetry, and I cried. I spent many hours near my daughter's grave, sitting, wondering, weeping. I attended TCF Friendship Nights and found that I was not alone. I worked for hours in my garden and in my house, without really doing anything. I paced the floor for days and nights. I sat and rocked myself while trying to stay in one piece. I still cried, but gradually the bitterness lessened.

I let myself feel the loss, the hurt, the sorrow- at times when, perhaps I could have pushed them away. I dreaded- -I dread- -falling into the deep emtional ebyss with darkness, panic and fierce hot pain all around and inside me. In that hole I am totally devastated and utterly alone. I just know that I am going to shatter into tiny fragments because my body cannot contain such terrible grief.
But I learned that I did not break, that I would crawl out again. I learned that suppressing my anguish and sorrow would only make the next hole so much deeper and wider.

After a hundred "holes" -or maybe ten thousand- I dimly sensed that it wasn't taking me quite as long anymore to get out. I became aware that the "holes" were further apart and that they were not always so deep. I learned that I would get out.

Recovery may lie in the experiences we fear, because slowly- very slowly- and almost against my wishes, I began to heal. At first , it didn't seem much like healing: an afternoon without tears, watching the clouds and the sunset, a half smile when looking at photographs, a faint interest in matters outside of me. Occasionally, I discovered myself thinking about the following week or the next year. There would be small pleasure again in simple things like listening to music, reading a novel, eating chocolates, going for a swim.

.....as I am healing, I started to let go of my dead daughter. Or, is it the other way around.....

I am adjusting to a life without my daughter. I have lost my fear of death, but no longer do I want to die. I still need reminders to take care of myself. I feel very fragile and need stillness inside and around me. I spend much time watching the grass grow and the beatles eating the new growth...

Do I still cry, you ask. Oh yes, I cry. I cry because I miss her so terribly: there is this dreadful longing inside of me to see her, hear her, touch her. I grieve for myself, for words unsaid, gestures not made, for not knowing whether she is still around for my vulnerability....Yes, I cry

And I ache when I hear of parents who have just lost a child- like you, my friends- because I know what lies ahead. I also know that there is no way around any of it. All I do is show you me, as I was then and as I am now- scarred forever by bitter grief, but healing.

Eva Lager

Dianella, Australia

Today's art work is a close up of Captain America's mouth from the art of the day before. Chris usually had a little hidden extra in his work. In this case it was the fire in Captain America's mouth.

Today's photo is of the boys in the backyard of our old house. Captured up in the tree was a helium balloon that they had released. In the background was the play structure that we build. A "tree house" with a rope ladder and trap door. Two swings and a sand box completed the structure, many happy days were spent there.

Miss you always...

Today's art work is a close up of Captain America's mouth from the art of the day before. Chris usually had a little hidden extra in his work. In this case it was the fire in Captain America's mouth.

Today's photo is of the boys in the backyard of our old house. Captured up in the tree was a helium balloon that they had released. In the background was the play structure that we build. A "tree house" with a rope ladder and trap door. Two swings and a sand box completed the structure, many happy days were spent there.

Miss you always...

Today's photo is of Chris's first Easter. Adam had a "bunnie" and Chris had his "paci" as we called it for short.

Yesterday as I was driving home I passed an older car. I realized that it was a Mecury Topaz. We had one which I had planned to give to Chris. For this reason I "kept it up" with repairs ect. Chris had always said "Take good care of that car Dad". After he was killed I drove it much longer than I had intended. When the car needed too much repair, I traded it in. It made me very very sad to see it go. Another part of Chris gone forever. I tried to keep it running Chris but it just got too old.

Miss you always...

Today's photo is of Chris Easter morning enjoying his Easter Candy.
In the backgroung you can see Adam's paws as he steps into the photo.
Chris has an Easter egg on the rug next to him, he appears to be taking a
candy break during the easte egg hunt.

Today's artwork is another crumpled pencil sketch that Chris had discarded.
We had found many sketches in a bag in his room after he was killed. I know he
would be upset that we put them on the net because he had put them in the trash.
After he would toss or give his art work away he would say "Its okay I can make
more".

But now he can't.

Miss you always...

A photo of another Easter morning, Chris was a "happy camper" involved in the day's activities.

Todays art is a pencil sketch Chris had done, perhaps for a comic.

Miss you always...

"Basket Check" during the hunt...

Dad