Chapter 17, PART 1

In a picture, a two-year-old Logan sits atop a brightly colored surfboard. He wears light green pants and a vest with a long-sleeved brown shirt that one of his grandmothers had made for him. I picked up the picture and tears flooded down my cheeks at the sight.

I still try to make sense of this phenomenon. At twenty-five, when he died, the two-year-old Logan had been part of the past for over twenty years, so why didn’t I burst into tears when I saw pictures of my son when he was older? It would only seem logical that the memories that would hurt are the latest ones, but in my experience the younger ones have greater poignancy.

Chapter 17, PART 2

Even before the funeral, my father maintained his aplomb until he saw a black-and-white photograph that he had taken of Logan around eight years old. That brought my father to tears. Why is it that these memories, long gone anyway, should have this effect?

During his service, the pastor spoke of Logan and I listened, but the minute he said “from the day he was born,” I began sobbing. This caused a ripple effect behind me. The memories of his first day were upon me and no matter what the speaker said about his life of the present Logan’s surfing, his laugh, his smile, I saw and felt a 6 lb. 12 oz. infant in my hands with whom I had already bonded in the womb. This part of the service shattered me more than the rest.

Chapter 17, PART 3

I’ve tried to logically puzzle this out. One friend suggests that all memories of Logan are built upon the earlier memories, so the oldest memories might have more emotional impact than newer ones which haven’t been incorporated as thoroughly into the tapestry of the mind. This makes sense, but also I consider in order for these memories to be vivid, they must have an emotional impact behind them. The body uses emotions to fix a memory in the mind. Any younger memory brings up this well of emotion.

Besides the emotional aspect, a younger version (of any of us) represents hope for the future, of growing, of creation. Death instantly erases that future and pictures of the past remind one of the times when his life teemed with possibilities.

Chapter 17, part 4

I can only imagine that with a child who dies from a terminal illness, up until that moment of death, hope still exists for a cure or a miracle. This might be even harder to accept than accidental deaths because you do not have to live every day hoping that something will remove the nightmare you see unfolding before your eyes. In an accidental death, fate has snipped the thread immediately; in a long illness, the thread unravels slowly before your eyes.

Chapter 17, part 5

Perhaps these memories exacerbate the feeling of being alone because not even one other person shared all of these moments with you. Usually, only one parent at a time gets up with the young child, so each of us carries around private moments that belong to only us. I remember the day we took the picture of Logan on the surfboard. His father died before Logan, so no one else remembers the time he ruined the stylus (needle) on the turntable. No one else remembers the time I cut his hair and he refused to go to school because it was so short, so I made him stay in bed all day. The next day he went to school and, incidentally, within two weeks every kid on the block had his hair cut short like Logie’s.

Chapter 17, part 6

Yesterday, a small, dinged-up pickup truck passed me and it sported a frayed bumper sticker saying “Fugazi,” a band that Logan enjoyed. When my younger son, Nathan, had beta fish quite a few years ago, Logan named the first one Fugazi, and as one would die and it would be replaced by another, we then had Fugazi Two, up until the death of Fugazi Four. A simple bumper sticker was enough to make me cry, but somewhere inside I felt a glimmer of a smile at the thought. I cannot wait for the day to come when it becomes a family special joke, “Remember when Logan named all of Nathan’s beta fish Fugazi?”

Chapter 17, part 7

You can share these memories with others, but they will not have the same experience as you did, just as unless someone has also lost a child, they do not know the feeling. This lack of knowledge by someone who has not lost a child often leads to either misguided advice or just plain lack of tact with no intention of hurt.

Chapter 17, part 8

ACTIVITY

Write down a memory of a time that was special between you and your child. It will hurt, but it might bring some pleasure as you think of the time you spent and be grateful for this memory.