 His legacy |
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Gentle Boy - By Mary Withers
This one's for the gentle boy
Who wrestles with his pain,
His easy-bruising tender heart,
And ever-active brain.
He feels much more than others do,
But then he tries to hide,
With laughter or bravado,
The gentle boy inside.
With wit and style and artifice
His secret's kept so well.
Who dreams the brave facade you see
Conceals some private Hell?
Meanwhile, the brutes live on and on
Their unexamined lives.
The low, the stupid, and the cruel,
The sluggish idiot thrives.
To fill the world with empty talk
And greed and hate and noise,
To breed, carouse, and make life Hell
For all the gentle boys.
Some gentle boys grow heartsick
And tired of this charade.
They blow themselves right off the Earth,
Or fight, then fail, then fade.
If you should love a gentle boy
There's little you can do.
If he decides his time has come,
He'll leave the Earth and you.
He cannot see that if he goes
You'll never fill that space.
You'll spend your whole life searching
For that laugh, that kiss, that face.
How can the gentle boy not know
You love him beyond death,
You'd help him any way you could,
Unto your dying breath?
Someday when justice reigns on Earth
We all may greet with joy
A world where it won't hurt so much
To be a gentle boy.
In Loving Memory Of William Ellery Weiss
December 9th, 1970 - March 14th, 1996
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In The Light - Author Unknown
A shadow of joy flickered; it is me.
I told you I wouldn't leave..
My spirit is with you.
My memories, my thoughts are imbedded deep in your heart.
I still love you.
Do not for one moment think that you have been abandoned.
I am in the Light.
In the corner, in the hall, the car, the yard --
these are the places I stay with you.
My spirit rises every time you pray for me,
but my energy comes closer to you.
Love does not diminish, it grows stronger.
I am the feather that finds you in the yard,
the dimmed light that grows brighter in your mind,
I place our memories for you to see.
We lived in our special way,
a way that now has its focus changed.
I still crave your understanding and
long for the many words of prayer and good fortune for my soul.
I am in the Light.
As you struggle to adjust without me,
I watch silently.
Sometimes I summon up all the strength of my new world to make you notice me.
Impressed by your grief, I try to impress my love deeper into your
consciousness.
As you should, I call out to the Heavens for help.
You should know that the fountain of youth does exist.
My soul is now healthy.
Your love sends me new found energy.
I am adjusting to this new world.
I am with you and I am in the Light.
Please don't feel bad that you can't see me.
I am with you wherever you go.
I protect you, just as you protected me so many times.
Talk to me and somehow I will find a way to answer you.
Mother, father, son or daughter it makes no difference.
Brother, sister, lover, husband or wife, it makes no difference.
Whatever our connection-friend or even foe-I see you with my new eyes.
I am learning to help wherever you are, wherever I am needed.
This can be done because I am in the Light.
When you feel despair, reach out to me.
I will come.
Our love for you truly does transcend from Heaven to Earth.
Finish your life with the enthusiasm and zest
that you had when we were together in the physical sense.
You owe this to me, but more importantly, you owe it to yourself.
Life continues for both of us.
I am with you because I love you and I am in the Light.
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When Tomorrow Starts Without Me - Author Unkonwn
When tomorrow starts without me,
and I'm not there to see;
I wish so much you wouldn't cry
the way you did today,
while thinking of the many things
we didn't get to say.
I know how much you love me,
as much as I love you
and each time you think of me
I know you'll miss me too; But when tomorrow starts without me,
please try to understand,
that an angel came and called my name
and took me by the hand,
and said my place was
in Heaven far above,
and that I'd have to leave behind
all those I dearly love.
But as I turned to walk away,
a tear fell from my eye,
for all my life, I'd always thought
I didn't want to die. I had so much to live for
and so much yet to do,
it seemed almost impossible
that I was leaving you.
I thought of all the yesterdays,
the good ones and the bad,
I thought of all the love shared
and all the fun we had.
If I could relive yesterday,
I thought, just for a while,
I'd say goodbye and kiss you
and maybe you would smile. But then I fully realized
that this could never be,
for emptiness and memories
would take the place of me.
And when I thought of worldly things
that I'd miss come tomorrow,
I thought of you, and when I did,
my heart was filled with sorrow.
But when I walked through Heaven's gates,
I felt so much at home.
When God looked down and smiled at me,
from his great golden throne, He said, "This is eternity
and all I've promised you.
Today for life on Earth is past
but here it starts anew.
I promise no tomorrow,
but today will always last,
and since each day's the same day,
there's no longing for the past.
But you have been so faithful,
so trusting and true.
Though there were times you did some things
you knew you shouldn't do.
But you have been forgiven
and now at last you're free.
So won't you take my hand
and share my life with me." So when tomorrow starts without me,
don't think we're far apart,
for every time you think of me,
I'm right here in your heart.
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Please Forget Me Not
Please Forget Me Not – A Likely Letter from Our Son to His Family
By Joan Watson
07/21/01
I’m sorry I had to leave so soon
I leave you with this thought
I loved you so despite my gloom.
Please forget me not.
I’m sorry I simply lost all hope
My mind was overwrought
I’m sorry I simply could not cope.
Please forget me not.
I would have preferred to stay
But my pain would not stop
I wish there had been another way.
Please forget me not.
I know it’s really hard to understand
The despair that finally brought
Me to end my life by my own hand.
Please forget me not.
I’m so thankful that I had all of you
For the loving ways I was taught
They had nothing to do with my being blue.
Please forget me not.
I lost my ability to change things
And had let myself get caught
By only the negative things life brings.
Please forget me not.
I’m sorry I didn’t stay to grow old
I really tried, I really fought
Hopelessness, pain and despair untold.
Please forget me not.
I went to sleep forever just as you awoke
Inflicting a grim onslaught
Of pain on you, that I cannot revoke.
Please forget me not.
So please hear my heartfelt loving plea
Accept my apology for sorrow fraught
From your disbelief and your missing me.
Please forget me not.
I wish you peace from all your grief
And I know you cry a lot
But I’m now at peace and have relief.
Please forget me not.
I love you so and ask that you forgive
My leaving, and please dread-naught
For your memories of me forever live.
Please forget me not Be happy; enjoy your remaining time
Take your sorrow and let it drop
Into the healing places of your mind.
Please forget me not.
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The Courtyard
Sara Behnke wrote this beautiful poem for Ben just following the tree planting ceremony at MIHS. Thank you so much Sara.
I stood in the courtyard
with a handful of friends
while my heart shattered.
On a day when the absurdness
of going to class was too much to bear.
On a day that I needed to cry
and sit
and think
and be angry
and numb
and hurt.
On a day when I didn’t know what to do
I stood in the rain-
let it wash the tears from my face
the sorrow from my heart
let it mix with my warm saltwater tears
let it cradle me,
comfort me –
cleanse me.
I stood in the courtyard
with a handful of friends
with two new saplings
planted in fresh dirt.
I stood as we planted
remembered
and mourned.
I wept as we shared our stories
and our pain
trying to find a way to heal each other
attempting to glue the shattered pieces
of our hearts together.
But the pieces were jumbled
so each of us pieced together a new heart
one filled with fragments of each other.
We would not lose each other again
for we shared our hearts.
And I left the courtyard
with sun dried tears
fresh on my face
and a patchwork heart.
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When Someone is Too Bruised to be Touched
By Fr. Ron Rolheiser
July 7, 2002
A few days ago, I was asked to visit a family who had, just that day, lost
their 19 year-old son to suicide.
There isn't much one can offer by way of consolation, even faith consolation,
at a moment like this, when everyone is in shock and the pain is so raw. Few
things can so devastate us as the suicide of a loved one, especially of one's
own child.
There is the horrific shock of losing a loved one so suddenly which, just of
itself, can bring us to our knees; but, with suicide, there are other
soul-wrenching feelings too, confusion, guilt, second-guessing, religious anxiety.
Where did we fail this person?
What might we still have done?
What should we have noticed?
What is this person's state with God?
What needs to be said about all of this:
First of all, that suicide is a disease and the most misunderstood of all
sicknesses. It takes a person out of life against his or her will, the emotional
equivalent of cancer, a stroke, or a heart attack.
Second, we, those left behind, need not spend undue energy second-guessing as
to how we might have failed that person, what we should have noticed, and
what we might still have done to prevent the suicide.
Suicide is an illness and, as with any sickness, we can love someone and
still not be able to save that person from death.
God loved this person too and, like us, could not, this side of eternity, do
anything either.
Finally, we shouldn't worry too much about how God meets this person on the
other side. God's love, unlike ours, can go through locked doors and touch what
will not allow itself to be touched by us.
Is this making light of suicide? Hardly.
Anyone who has ever dealt with either the victim of a suicide before his or
her death or with those grieving that death afterwards knows that it is
impossible to make light of it.
There is no hell and there is no pain like the one suicide inflicts. Nobody
who is healthy wants to die and nobody who is healthy wants to burden his or
her loved ones with this kind of pain.
And that's the point: This is only done when someone isn't healthy.
The fact that medication can often prevent suicide should tell us something.
Suicide is an illness not a sin.
Nobody just calmly decides to commit suicide and burden his or her loved ones
with that death any more than anyone calmly decides to die of cancer and
cause pain.
The victim of suicide (in all but rare cases) is a trapped person, caught up
in a fiery, private chaos that has its roots both in his or her emotions and
in his or her bio-chemistry.
Suicide is a desperate attempt to end unendurable pain, akin to one throwing
oneself through a window because one's clothing is on fire.
Many of us have known victims of suicide and we know too that in almost every
case that person was not full of ego, pride, haughtiness, and the desire to
hurt someone.
Generally it's the opposite.
The victim has cancerous problems precisely because he or she is wounded,
raw, and too-bruised to have the necessary resiliency needed to deal with life.
Those of us who have lost loved ones to suicide know that the problem is not
one of strength but of weakness, the person is too-bruised to be touched.
I remember a comment I over-heard at a funeral for a suicide victim.
The priest had preached badly, hinting that this suicide was somehow the
man's own fault and that suicide was always the ultimate act of despair.
At the reception afterwards a neighbour of the victim expressed his
displeasure at the priest's homily: "There are a lot of people in this world who should
kill themselves," he lamented bitterly, "but those kind never do!
This man is the last person who should have killed himself because he was one
of the most sensitive people I've ever met!"
A book could be written on that statement. Too often it is precisely the meek
who seem to lose the battle, at least in this world.
Finally, I submit that we shouldn't worry too much about how God meets our
loved ones who have fallen victim to suicide. God, as Jesus assures us, has a
special affection for those of us who are too-bruised and wounded to be touched.
Jesus assures us too that God's love can go through locked doors and into
broken places and free up what's paralyzed and help that which can no longer help
itself.
God is not blocked when we are. God can reach through.
And so our loved ones who have fallen victim to suicide are now inside of
God's embrace, enjoying a freedom they could never quite enjoy here and being
healed through a touch that they could never quite accept from us.
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