Dear World. This will be my final “Shane Letter” posted on my Facebook page. Beginning in January, I will post them on my new blog & on the Society Website (info coming). Thank you for your patience & kindness regarding my ongoing letters. So many of you have been openly supportive, and for that I am grateful and humbled. Letter #16 from a Father to His Son Shane, Dad. It’s been a year and a half since you left this world. This letter will be a collage of brief excerpts from all of my previous letters. #1 (9/13) – “When I play, I feel your soul breathe through my instrument….. I miss turning around during a song, smiling at you, and giving you a thumbs up”. #2 (10/13) – “When you were 3, you were hit by a car & got a concussion. That week each night I slept with you on my chest so I could feel your heartbeat. But 22 years later I was laying on top of you feeling for a heartbeat, and this time there was none”. #3 (11/13) – “Tonight at the jazz show I was overwhelmed with all the unforgettable memories of making music together— father & son—on that very stage. I missed having you on the drums. All I could think of—all I could say as I walked off the stage after the show was, ‘I want my son back’”. #4 (12/13) – “I asked God for a sign to know you are in Heaven. That’s unusual for me. I looked up to see the sunrise, where just moments before the sky was clear. And there it was – a long narrow ascending ‘cloud’ in the shape of a beanstalk…the one you wrote about in your ‘beanstalk’ poem, that you would someday climb to get to Heaven”. #5 (1/14) – “On Christmas morning there was an empty chair at the table…a vacant spot on the couch where you sat last year…a ton of presents under the tree, but none of them for you. I wondered how other families got through this kind of thing”. #6 (2/14) – “A parent can sense the trust of their children. We are their childhood heroes & we don’t want to let them down. I tried so hard to help you become the man God desired for you to be. But I can’t help wondering if somehow I let you down. Me, your childhood hero, yet I couldn’t save you from a parent’s worst nightmare”. #7 (3/14) - “Playing gigs. There are times I don’t think I can do it…times when mom has to take over on piano because I’m crying so hard that I can’t even play. It’s the ability to sense your presence that will sustain me during these times”. #8 (4/14) – “I remember finding my typically lengthy ‘to do’ list a few days after your funeral. The numbered list, complete with highlighting and asterisks…all so meaningless now. You were gone. That’s all that mattered”. #9 (5/14) – “How sad it would be to lose a child and regret that you didn’t continually tell them you loved them and were proud of them. I don’t have to live with that regret”. #10 (6/14) – “I’m sorry. They could not revive your son. He didn’t make it”. “I didn’t cry at all for the first 2 weeks. I couldn’t. That would mean I had accepted reality, and I wasn’t ready to believe you were gone”. #11 (7/14) – “I had a dream. It was the BEST of dreams. You were back home. Life was good, and my heart beat once again to the soundtrack of a complete family. It was the WORST of dreams. I woke up and you were gone”. #12 (8/14) – “I walked you to class on your 1st day of kindergarten. I drove you to Chaffin Jr. High on your 1st day there. I was there for your 1st day of high school. I was on campus for your 1st day of college. And yes, there were tears in my eyes each time. Milestones, all rekindled in my heart as we begin a new semester at UA Fort Smith”. #13 (9/14) – (1988) “It’s a boy! Shane. So perfect, lying there. Look, he’s got my eyes! Oh the things I will teach him. The places we will go……..(fast-forward - 2013) A man, a brother, a son. Shane. So perfect, lying there. Look, you’ve got my heart! Oh the things you taught me. The places we did go”. #14 (10/14) – “Just a few of the things you breathed into my life: * Don’t complain……* Don’t judge. Anyone. Ever….. * Love trumps all other things * Be humble………………………. * Live your passion #15 (11/14) – “ For those who will be experiencing the emptiness of their 1st Christmas without a lost loved one: Please know the Baileys, along with others who have walked this walk, stand with you as you reflect, mourn, pray, cry for, and remember your loved one. We encourage you to keep breathing, living, and loving, because I believe that’s what your loved one would want”.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 22:32:22 +0000
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