Richard and I were often told how much we were alike. I’m sure that didn’t bother me near as much as it did him. But it was true. In fact, I came to think of him as the new improved version of me.

One example of the apple not falling far from the tree – Cutco.

Back in the caveman era when I was attending the University of Kentucky I saw an ad in the Lexington paper offering a flexible good paying job to college kids. To find out more you had to attend a meeting at a local hotel. I went to the meeting.

Turns out the “job” was being a salesman for Cutco Cutlery.

Cutco makes kitchen knives and gadgets. They’re really great products. They’re also very expensive. They’re the kind of knives your kids will fight over when you pass on.

One of Cutco’s marketing models it having college kids sell their products. The salesperson went to the prospects house and gave a presentation. When it came time to talk price they always wanted you to quote the price on a weekly basis. They setup payment plans. The full price for a set of knives and kitchen accessories would cause sticker shock.

If you got good at selling knives they promised to move you up to the waterless cookware division where the money was better.

I signed up to be a salesman.

I have no idea why I did that. I was very shy. Going out and talking to strangers about expensive knives was way out of my comfort zone. The demonstrator set I bought was the only set I sold.

Imagine my surprise when Richard came home and asked us to buy some knives from him. Yep, he had signed up to sell Cutco.

He was much better at than I was.

The first step they teach is to make a list of all your relatives, friends, and acquaintances. This is your “warm market” – people that know you and will be more likely to listen to your presentation.

Richard did as instructed. He gave a lot of presentations. He sold something to just about everyone he talked to. He sold to the parents of his friends, his teachers, and people from church. I don’t think he hit the family members too much.

We would get reports back from people we know that bought knives from him. They were amazed at his professionalism. He was well known for his rather “casual” style of dress. He wore shorts and a t-shirt to church, even in the worst of winter cold. Having him show up in dress clothes and a tie was a shock for them.

This was one of his jobs during a summer break from college. I don’t think he ever sold a full set, but he sold something to just about everyone.

Seems like he got about a 10% commission. So spending an hour to sell someone a $70 knife didn’t make him rich. He did end up with a full set of knives and several kitchen gadgets – many of them prizes for high sells.

I was proud of him for overcoming his shyness and doing a hard job well.

Richard was a Boy Scout.

His troop was very active. They did a lot of fun things, and of course camping was big on the list.

One morning Debbie was fixing breakfast. Frying bacon.

Richard came into the kitchen and asked, “Mom would you make some of the bacon black?”

“Why?” she asked.

“We had some like that at camp last weekend and it was really good.”

So Debbie burned some of the bacon for him.

At breakfast Richard dug in. He had a bit of a funny look, but he ate his black bacon.

He later told Debbie that it hadn’t tasted as good as it had when he was camping out.

And thus Richard learned one of life’s great lessons. Just about everything tastes better out in the open air. This is especially true for breakfast cooked over an open fire. There’s just something about the great outdoors that’s a flavor enhancer for food.

He never asked his momma to cook black bacon again.

Today is St. Patrick’s Day.

Pictured above is my uniform for the day. They were Richard’s clothes.

One of the sacraments in the Catholic church is Confirmation. When we were babies our parents chose to have us baptized into the Catholic church. When we get older, usually middle school aged, we confirm that we choose this faith for ourselves. One element of the Sacrament of Confirmation is choosing a Confirmation name. The young person picks the name of a saint to be their patron.

Richard chose Patrick as his confirmation name.

We are having today’s mass offered for Richard.

We also bought some shamrocks to plant at his grave. But not knowing how cold/frost tolerant they are, we’ll wait for warmer weather to actually put them in the ground.

This is a prayer composed by St. Patrick, also known as “St. Patrick’s Breast-Plate.”

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today
God’s Power to guide me,
God’s Might to uphold me,
God’s Wisdom to teach me,
God’s Eye to watch over me,
God’s Ear to hear me,
God’s Word to give me speech,
God’s Hand to guide me,
God’s Way to lie before me,
God’s Shield to shelter me,
God’s Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.

I invoke today all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ in the poop [deck],
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity,
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

We need no special days to remember Richard, in fact we think of him every day. But this is a day to honor his memory and his spirit.

And to miss him.

I was often told that Richard was just like me. While not always true, one area we were in sync was our love of sports.

And Richard was a sportsaholic for sure.

Richard wasn’t a gifted athlete (sorry kid, but it’s true). But he had a big heart.

He loved to compete. And I think he really enjoyed being on a team and just hanging with the guys.

He’d play just about anything.

This is the inside of the trunk of Richard's car. He was always ready for a game - no matter what the sport.

As the picture above shows, he was always ready for a game. Missing from the picture are his racketball gear and his golf clubs.

In high school he was on the power weight lifting team, the ultimate frizbee team and he did shotput and discus on the track team.

He never could make the basketball team. But he played intramural basketball every year, often hunting down guys and starting his own team.

At one of the Compassionate Friends meetings Debbie went to, she had to bring in something that was important to Richard.

Richard’s state championship ring from the track team was one of those things. He was really proud of that.

This is Richard's state championship ring.

This is my first “March Madness” without Richard here to talk over the games with. You can bet he has his brackets filled out for the tournament.

The early rounds of the tournament have late games. It wasn’t unusual for a game to still be in progress when I got home from work at 12:30am. Debbie would be in bed sleeping and Richard would be sitting there with no lights on in the house watching the games. He would be updating his bracket.

We would watch the remainder of the games together and he’d update me on the games I missed. We’d usually get in a debate about who we thought would win the next round and why.

I’m really going to miss that.

He breaks his first board. I think it shocked him that he did it.

His first rodeo. OK, just kidding, but he was just too cute to pass on this picture.

Richard competing at shotput.

Throwing the discus.

Many times Richard and I were told we were just alike. One of our shared quirks was not liking it when someone was watching over our shoulder. We like our privacy.

When Richard was in his late teens and early twenties he didn’t often share what was going on in his “private life” with us – unless it required money from home. This didn’t bother me much because I knew Richard wasn’t doing anything bad and I understood him.

In October 2007, Debbie got a call from Richard’s roommate Drew. He was panicked because Richard was having a seizure. She told him to call an ambulance and have Richard taken to the nearest hospital. She called me at work and told me where they were taking him and we met at the hospital – St. Joseph’s.

He had a massive seizure. The emergency room people had a hard time calming his body down. He had to be put in restraints. They had a tough time getting an IV in him. Every time they tried to insert the needle he’d convulse, his muscles would tense with powerful contractions and the vein would collapse.

It was a long, tense time, but finally the drugs stopped the seizure activity and Richard slept.

It seems most people that have seizures come back around as soon as the seizure activity is over. They’re sleepy but alert.

Not Richard. His seizures were totally consuming. When the seizure was over he was out of it. The doctors and nurses couldn’t get him to respond for hours.

So we waited.

The afternoon pressed on into evening as we waited by his bed in the emergency room. As we sat there worrying, a little blond girl walked into the room. She glanced at us, went over to Richard and took his hand. She stood there with his hand in hers, gently stroking it with her other hand.

I looked at Debbie, she looked at me, both puzzled. Who was this person?

Finally we said, “Hi, we’re Richard’s parents. Who might you be?”

Her name was Ivy. Turns out she was Richard’s girl friend. And we’d never heard of her before.

Hell of a way to meet your kid’s girl friend.

We chatted during the early evening hours. We took her out to eat when it became obvious Richard was going to be out of it for a while.

She stayed with us for a long time that night. It was a comfort to have her there.

And when Richard finally woke up in the ICU the next day, having her there kept him from being depressed about having another seizure.

Ivy made Richard happy for the last couple of years of his life. We like her.

We just wish he’d have introduced us in a more conventional manner.

But that was Richard.

Of our three children, Richard probably looked most forward to Christmas.

He was four months old on his first Christmas. After we put the tree up we brought Richard into the room and put him on the floor in front of the tree. He lit up just like that tree. He just squealed and laughed. He wriggled and pushed those little arms and legs, trying with all his might to get over to the tree. He loved it.

As he got older he would always like to go over and lie down under the tree and look up at the lights from below.

He also loved the little snow globe that we set out at Christmas time. He would shake it up and watch the snow swirl around Santa over and over again. He’s holding one of these in the picture above.

Last year Debbie bought him a really nice snow globe. It has a wood base and a glass globe. And a music box built in. It was on the desk in his apartment when he died.

This snow globe was on Richard's desk in his apartment.

Richard insisted on following our family traditions. Wouldn’t hear of changing things.

We still had to put up his stocking every year. Always had to have country ham for breakfast.

The kids bedrooms are upstairs. When they were young they always had to stay upstairs on Christmas morning until we said it was OK to come down.

They might wake up an hour before we did, but they had to just wait on the old folks. They’d gather at the top of the stairs and try to peek down. Often we’d just lie in bed and listen to them. They’d be whispering to each other.

“Are they up yet?”

“I don’t see them anywhere.”

“Can you see any presents?”

“No, it’s too dark.”

Little by little their volume would increase. Finally they’d give up and start yelling at us to wake up.

I’d drag things out to tease them.

“Can we come down now?”

“No, we have get the tree lit up first.”

“Hurry up”  “Can we come down NOW?”

“Nope, I have to get the camera ready.” And on it would go.

Last year Richard was 22 at Christmas. He still waited at the top of the stairs for the all clear from mom and dad.

The holiday season has arrived. And for us that means family gatherings.

My siblings, our children and our dogs meet at “The Farm” – my dad’s place.

The Farm is 153 acres of rolling hills surrounded by creaks. There are ponds for fishing and plenty of woods to explore. The kind of place you can let the kids and the dogs go free. Where they can let their spirits soar. The kind of place you can reconnect your soul to the universe.

There is a also the house. It’s always been big. But since mom died in 2000 my dad has been expanding it. I guess that’s his way of dealing with grief. It could now serve as a small hotel. Heated with wood stoves, it’s the perfect place for a nice nap after a big holiday meal. Spots on the two couches in front of the stove fill quickly after dinner.

And speaking of big meals.

Our family gatherings include plenty of food. Dad usually provides a turkey and at Christmas a ham. Each of us kids bring several dishes as well. From appetizers and snacks to salads and casseroles to desserts, there is something to eat the entire time you’re there.

Over the years each of our families has taken certain dishes as their assignments – bringing them every year.

One of our “assigned” dishes has been fruit salad. I usually get the job of cutting up the fruit. This is an assortment of apples, white and red grapes, bananas and mandarin oranges. Debbie then mixes all these together in a big bowl and stirs in some salad dressing.  We might add some pecan pieces if we have any in the house.

It tastes good. But it doesn’t age very well. Something about that mix of fruit, salad dressing and time doesn’t work. As the day wears on it sort of liquefies and darkens. It gets ugly. Still tastes good, but no one wants it.

Richard used to complain about it.

Last year Richard told us he’d make the fruit salad. In addition to the our usual ingredients he added pineapple, kiwi and strawberries. Instead of salad dressing he squeezed the juice from two fresh lemons and poured that over the fruit and mixed it together.

It was good. It was pretty. And it stayed pretty. People liked it.

So we assigned Richard the role of fruit salad chef for all future family gatherings.

This past Thanksgiving we had to do the fruit salad again. We tried to use Richards recipe.  It turned out pretty good.

But it was missing an important ingredient.

Richard was a big fan of Halloween. So we had to do a little decorating around his tombstone.

One tradition at our church has been a Halloween party for the kids. As part of this celebration there was often a haunted house – if there were enough older kids to run it.

When Richard was in Youth Group there was never a problem getting a crew for the haunted house. He loved running the haunted house.

Among the stuff still in Richard’s room are his props for Halloween. There is the ragged Dallas Cowboys t-shirt. Full of holes, with no sleeves, and adorned with dried fake blood, he wore it for years. There is all his makeup for creating cuts and bruises. And his big bottle of “blood.”

And of course the big plastic skeleton. He had it for years. It’s gotten in pretty bad shape. Richard had to duct tape it back together in several places.

I wanted to take it to the cemetery and sit it up against the headstone. But I didn’t want someone to come along and steal it.

There was no haunted house planned for this years church party.

But it would be really cool if Richard showed up and staged one of his own. A real haunted house this time.

With one very special ghost.

Here’s a quick tip for you.

If you miss a call on your phone, and don’t recognize the number, and when you call back they answer, “Fayette County Coroner” – your day is about to go in the toilet.

Mine did.

It got worse.

After apologizing for breaking the news to me over the phone, the coroner lady told me they had the sheriff stopping by our house to inform us of are sons death, but no one was home. My wife Debbie was at a class in Louisville that night. I didn’t want her coming home to have a deputy sheriff waiting for her in the driveway. I knew I had to be the one to tell her that her baby was dead. So I called her.

No wonder I hate phones.

Our son Richard was 22 years old, would have been 23 at the end of August had he lived.

Three years before his death, Richard got sick. The whole story is long, but the short version is he had a sinuous infection that broke through his skull in the area over his eyes. It then abscessed into his brain.

This required two brain surgeries to remove successfully. His doctors decided to not return the part of his skull that formed his forehead because of possible infection. He had to have another operation after all the infection was cleared to replace this bone with a plastic replacement plate.

The operations left him with scare tissue in his brain, just as a cut leaves scar tissue on the skin.

This scar tissue was a place that could trigger seizures.

He had seizures on two occasions. The first time he wasn’t on medication. It’s believed he was being lax taking the medication on the second time.

Both seizures were massive. They caused his entire body to convulse. They came nonstop. They were medical emergencies and he ended up staying in the hospital for several days after each.  A couple of days in intensive care after the second seizure.

But he was taking medication – Kepra – and things were going well. He had been more than a year and a half seizure free.

Richard was a full time student. He had a part-time job. He lived in an apartment by himself. This of course made us pretty nervous. We knew that if he had a seizure in his apartment alone, the outcome would be disaster.

Richard was very close to his cousin Hannah. They grew up together and went through all of our family big events together. Hannah was graduating from college. Richard should have been too, but he lost a couple of years school work during all his medical adventures. He told Hannah he had brain surgery so she could have a graduation party all to herself.  We were having a family gathering to celebrate her accomplishment on a Saturday afternoon. My wife Debbie talked to Richard on Friday night and he said he couldn’t make it to the party because he had to work. But he might come home on Sunday.

I sent him a text message on Saturday night to see if he was coming home. He didn’t answer. That wasn’t too unusual – I didn’t know what hours he was working. He didn’t make it home that weekend. I sent him a message early in the week to see how he was. I got no answer. That made me anxious. But there had been another time he didn’t respond to calls or text messages. I got concerned then. It turned out his phone had quit. He was using cheap Walmart phones and they didn’t last. So I tried to stay calm.

On Thursday evening I sent him another text message from work to see how he was. No answer. More nerves. Then about 10pm I got a call over my radio at work to come to a phone. I looked at my cell phone and saw I’d missed a call. I didn’t recognize the number. But it was from Lexington where Richard lived. I thought maybe his phone was dead again and he was calling from work or a friends place to touch base. I called the number.

And the nightmare that never ends began.