Grieving Parent

Tag: Richard

St. Patrick

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.

03/17/2010
Sportsaholic

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.

03/13/2010
Richard Introduces Us To Ivy – Sort Of

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.

02/19/2010
Faith

Faith seems to play a big part in dealing with our grief. It even played a part in causing our grief.

Faith in the medical profession was a big factor in Richard’s death. I’m sure the generic seizure medicine caused him to have his last seizure. We believed what they all told us – that generics were just the same as the more expensive name brand drugs. I’m sure Richard believed this. So he didn’t think it was all that important to go to his doctor to see if the switch to the generic was OK. But generics aren’t the same.

We require faith to believe Richard is dead. We never saw him after he died. He’d been dead for several days before he was found, and he wasn’t in good shape. You’ve watched scenes on TV shows where the next of kin come to the morgue to identify the body. Well we didn’t have to do that. I didn’t want our last memory of Richard to be something ugly so I didn’t ask to see him, and they didn’t offer the opportunity.

Who knows, maybe Richard is part of the witness protection program somewhere. But I also have faith that he would find a way to let us know if that was the case.

And that brings me to the real biggy of faith – faith in God.

Our faith that Richard is gone from this earth, but he isn’t gone. Faith that he lives on in the spirit world. Faith we’ll join him there when our time on earth is done.

Faith that God has reasons for taking Richard back.

Richard had a quiet faith. I didn’t hear him going around quoting Bible verses. Didn’t hear him preaching religion to his friends. But he showed his faith with his actions.

On his last day of life he bought a new Bible. It was a large print version. Don’t know why he bought it. He had his Bible – a young adult oriented study version. It was well worn and used looking. Maybe he was going to give the new one to someone. Maybe he somehow knew he wouldn’t be needing it long, and I’d end up with it, so he got one my aging eyes could see better.

Richard was a regular at our church youth group. They went to a ministry camp every summer. The picture above is Richard playing the part of Christ in a reenactment they did his last summer in youth group. Debbie told me she didn’t like that picture. The image of her son looking like that made her nervous. It was too real. But Richard had faith.

And our faith that things we don’t understand have a reason, and we’ll know those reasons someday, is what let’s us keep it together now.

02/11/2010
It Seemed SO Real

Since Richard’s death I haven’t dreamed about him. There was the one weird dream about him making comments on Facebook. But he hasn’t been in my dreams in person.

Until last night.

It was one of those incredibly vivid dreams. The kind that seem so very real. Intensely real. And Richard was there. Alive.

I was standing there talking to him, in what seemed to be a kitchen, but it wasn’t our house.

I remember telling him, “You really shook us up there. You’re kind of important to us, you know?”

And he said, “Yeah… I know.”

I’ve read many accounts of people claiming after death communications with their loved one. A lot of them see the person with maybe only an upper body, or opaque so they can see through them. And most have light radiating out behind them. This wasn’t like that at all. It was Richard in his normal body. No Hollywood lighting effects.

And he didn’t come to tell me that he was happy where he is now and it was OK, like most of the other people have reported. He was just back, and alive.

And I remember hugging him. And hugging him. And then I got Debbie to come over and join in. We had a big old group hug. And Richard hugged back. And didn’t protest. That should have tipped me off right there I was dreaming. Richard would never have gone along with all that huggie-wuggie stuff in real life.

And I felt such intense joy.

I joked with him that he’d have to come visit me in prison because they’d probably lock me up for insurance fraud now that he was alive. And I wondered who or what we actually buried out there in that big oak box anyway?

I told him, “We have to tell everybody you’re back and alive,” and he said, “Nobody cares about that.” I assured him many people did care a great deal, such as his big sister for one.

I don’t remember when Richard left my dream, but I know I dreamed more stuff and he wasn’t there.

And I woke up. It took several seconds to realize I was in my bed. It was dark out. And then I knew it had only been a dream. And I was honestly stunned it had been a dream. It just seemed so incredibly real – the most realistic dream I ever remember having.

I’ve posted this story in the “Comforting Thoughts” category.

Yes, I was very disappointed when I finally realized it had been a dream. And the nightmare of Richard being dead again was disheartening.

But seeing and talking to Richard in my dream, touching him, brought me comfort even when I was awake.

And I don’t understand why.

01/14/2010