Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Learning Not To Cry

Monday, November 8, 1965, was a gray, cold and damp day in Manhattan. It was school day, reason enough to want to turn over and seek the refuge of more sleep, an impossibility, but a lovely thought . Even the greenness of Central Park was dulled by occasional sprinkles and a blanket of thick mist in the chill of late fall in the City. Cold and uncomfortable, windy enough to penetrate the layers of clothing I wore; like a skilled lock-picker, that wind blew in strong, seemingly purposeful gusts through the cross streets and managed to make its way around and through those layers and into my bones.

Standing at my locker, I changed into dry clothes and thought about food. As was the case most days, I was looking forward to going home and getting something to eat. I tried to recall if Ellen O’Hara would be there when I arrived. Ellen was a model of all that is to be loved in the Irish people. The kindest woman ever to grace God’s Earth, probably in her mid-sixties, she lived to serve us and with her ever present smile and warm alacrity, would spare no effort in preparing whatever I came up with as an after school snack request. Her tuna salad was legendary, utilizing sweet onions, chopped into tiny perfect pieces, lots of mayonnaise and the secret, magic ingredient: chopped sweet baby gherkins pickles – with a bit of the pickle juice added for flavor. My mouth, as I stood to empty the last of my clothes from my locker, watered just thinking about it.

I had returned with my classmates from athletics, still wet and filthy from the soccer game we’d played on the Great Lawn in Central Park. I loved soccer and was good at it, always used on the front line and because I was a left-footed kicker, either as center forward, left inside, or left wing. I enjoyed the athleticism that the game required, I was very coordinated and used this to my advantage. I loved the occasional contact, the intensity of a long drive downfield, the race with the opposing team to reach the ball, the trickery and deception that one could employ to one’s benefit.

It was pouring by the end of the scrimmage and I’d been covered in mud and soaked through and through. As I tied my shoes, Mr. Dryzga’s voice called from across the locker room, with what I sensed was an almost sing-song tone that masked urgency. He addressed me with brows furled, a serious look on his usually friendly face.

“Kerry, Mr. Hume would like to see you in his office.” That tone concerned me, as did the look on his face, which, although giving nothing specific away, alerted me. That tone hid something significant, something not rooted in a discipline issue, Dryzga spoke with an agenda couched in words spoken just a bit too softly, his eyes giving away a hint of something nearly sad, but something he couldn’t betray and that I had no way of knowing. But I sensed there was more.

“Yes sir.” I managed; mentally reviewing the normally sizeable list of recent transgressions, searching my memory for what it might be that would cause me to be summoned to a personal audience with the chief.

The hierarchy consisted of the principal, David Hume, a large, generally likeable square-jawed administrator who had three sons in attendance at the school. Chris, his eldest was a classmate and casual friend of mine; the two of us would later be expelled together for using teacher’s editions to math books that Chris, good friend that he was and living in the school building as he did, had gained access to.

Peter Clifton, the Assistant Principal and Hume’s preferred henchman was in charge of any and all heavy-handed discipline, think of him as the Herman Goering of St. David’s with a little Dirty Harry cool thrown in. It was he who I was most regularly called upon to visit and who, more than any other administrative figure, I feared.

Dick Dryzga, the bottom man of the top three, was the head of the upper school.

In the dim interior of Clifton’s office, across from his desk, strategically placed just to the left of the well-worn spot on the oriental rug in front of his desk where students stood while hearing the charges against them and awaiting their fate, Clifton had what appeared to be a porcelain golf bag. Inside this vessel of terror was an assortment of long sticks and switches used for nothing but disciplining wayward boys who were brought to him. These intimidating implements of pain were used to punish students who had committed infractions that warranted an order of severity that fell outside the purview of the ordinary classroom teacher. Transgressions for which a “time-out” fell far short of the disciplinary mark (and, it seemed, all too often that mine did).

Clifton’s preferred modus operandi was to bring the guilty student, by now usually worried, perhaps even shaking or possibly wetting himself - before Clifton’s desk. Once inside the office, door shut firmly to discourage any attempt at escape, Clifton would begin the agonizing process of reviewing the facts of the case. As if in some Kafka-esque nightmare, all aspects of the infraction were reviewed in slow, painstaking detail.

Then, if the crime was so suitably punishable, he would take a deep breath, letting it out with an almost sad form of sigh, as if to imply: “Well, son, as you can plainly see - you leave me no choice…” and then send the boy over to the golf bag to choose the dreaded implement that was to be used in his own thrashing. This sadistic added touch served to both intimidate and thoroughly degrade the offender with a delicious combination of Dickensian discipline and mental cruelty, coupled with giving Clifton the personal satisfaction of whipping the daylights out of a delinquent (and in my case – a repeat offender).

But it was rare to be invited to Mr. Hume’s office. This had to be big. But what?

As I slipped on my blazer with its embroidered StD on the breast pocket, and closed my locker, Dryzga said: “I’ll wait for you, Kerry. We’ll take the elevator”. Once again - that seemingly sad flavor in his voice, he turned and walked from the locker room.

St. David’s, located 89th Street, between Madison and 5th Avenues, just around the corner from the brand new Guggenheim Museum. The school, almost exactly one mile north of our house, was likely originally built as a private residence for a wealthy family, probably in the late 1800’s. It was replete with all of the requisite amenities of the wealthy, including marble staircases with burnished bronze fixtures spiraling up to the higher floors, high ceilings under crown molding, chandeliers and crystal lighting fixtures, polished mahogany furniture and of course, as in my own house, a small, excruciatingly slow Otis elevator.

Oh, God help me, I thought. The elevator ride. This is really bad. What did I do? “Okay sir.”

To ride in the elevator – strictly off limits unless your name was Hume (and even then, absolutely verboten during a school day) – you either had to have sustained a significant injury that left you unable to traverse the stairs, or you were walking the St. David’s equivalent of your final stroll to the gas chamber.

I finished my shoe lacing, collected my school bag and belongings and joined Dryzga in the tiny, mahogany paneled elevator. My fear grew as the elevator slowly lifted us towards the fourth floor where the administrative offices of the big brass were. I had to ask.

“Sir, did I do something?” I asked timidly. I would be surprised only if I hadn’t done something. It was with great regularity that I visited the principals office. The weirdness here was that I was being called to Hume’s.

“I think Mr. Hume just needs to have a word with you about something.” was his reply, frustratingly inadequate and inconclusive. Panicking now, my heart rate rising with the elevator, I tried hard to breathe evenly.

Okay, I thought. we’ll see.

Dryzga slid the brass accordion gate open and held the outer door for me and we exited the elevator on the fourth floor. We walked down to the principal’s office, where Mr. Dryzga said. “Just sit in the waiting room. He’ll come out and see you in a minute.”

“Okay, sir”

I went in and sat on the wooden bench in the familiar waiting room, outside Hume’s office. Leaning against the wall, clasping my hands, I noted that the secretary that was usually here, a stand-offish and matronly, highly efficient woman named Mrs. Neighbor was absent. I realized that the school day, and therefore probably her day, too, was over. The bench where I’d sat before, was hard under my ass, looking back now, it must have been a strategy intended to incite the feeling of waiting in uncertainty, being sidelined during the game, warming the bench. On a few previous occasions, I’d committed acts of sufficient egregiousness to land me on this bench. I associated it with nothing but impending punishment.

The door to Mr. Hume’s office slowly opened and his face, wearing a small, forced smile, peaked around the jam.

“Come on in, Kerry”. He extended a welcoming arm.

“Yes sir”

“Have a seat, son.” Hume said in a pleasant, almost fatherly tone. I chose a hard, ladder back chair across from his desk in favor of the large, maroon pillowed one next to it. Why get comfortable now?, I thought.

“How’s life treating you, Kerry”, he asked casually, throwing me off.

How’s life treating me?, I thought. Strange way to start a scolding, if that’s what this was. I couldn’t grasp where he was going with this.

“Okay, sir. Pretty good, I guess.”

He paused. Then looked deeply into my eyes, and said:

“Kerry, your mother died this morning.”

I looked at him. He looked back, saying nothing more.

“No.” I said. I attempted a smile, as if maybe I could bait one from him, exposingthe truth – that this was a joke. Or a test. This could not be something that could really happen.

“I’m sorry, son” he added.

“No.” I repeated. The smile had pulled itself back, the elastic of my facial muscles knowing better, wanting nothing to do with it.

Hume stood and, holding out his huge arms, invited me over into his embrace. Hume was a large man. Football huge. Probably six-three with broad shoulders, a giant block of a man. His arms seemed to reach across the entire width of the room. Numbing now, I stood and walked toward him, not knowing what else to do. As I reached him, his arms enveloped me, leaning down, me reaching up.

An unfamiliar slip from reality began in the midst of those huge arms. I was lost, knowing neither what to do, nor even how to feel. Are there things to do at this moment? What are they, please, someone help me with this.

I felt as though I should cry, but there was some unseen resistance to this thought. It was not a conscious thought that I should buck-up and take this thing like a man. It was, rather, an inability, a loss of some primal connection that I felt I should be able to tap into, but could not. I could feel the absence of something inside me that was palpably missing, it. I needed to know how to cry at that moment but there wasn’t enough room in my head to somehow accept that my mother was dead and to figure out how to cry simultaneously.

Hume’s’ big arms squeezed me lightly. I stood there silent, stunned, wondering what to think.

Hume finally let his arms slip away. He stepped back and looked down at me pityingly. I looked up at him, searching his eyes for answers, seeing nothing useful there and tried to imagine what to do next.

“Someone’s coming to pick you up” he said sadly.

We took the elevator down to the lobby and there was a chauffer already waiting. He took my book bag and I followed him out into the rain.

When I arrived at the house, Ellen met me with a wounded look and a heartfelt hug. She offered me anything she could do and together we went upstairs. In the elevator, on the way to the third floor, she said:

“Your father’s in bad shape, Kerry. Just give him a little time.” This, as it turned out, was a sage warning, a wise predictor of what was to follow. This day would mark the beginning of the end of my respect for my father.

Ellen and I rode the elevator in silence, her right hand resting gently on my shoulder. I loved this woman as I loved my blood relatives, yet I could not yet find words, no questions, no statements, nothing.

As I entered the black room on the third floor, I sensed, even from behind him, my father’s misery. He sat as he always did, perched on the right side of one of the pair of black, silk-covered loveseats, his shoulders stooped and rounded, elbows leaning on his knees, the fly of his pajama bottoms pinched open enough to make us all avert our gazes, hovering over a beer. He sipped one after the other; Ellen was sure to be working hard today, keeping plenty cold and at the ready during this mourning period, glasses of Heineken one after the next, two empty bottles on the table next to the coaster that held his half-full glass.

“Hi Dad” I said.

Nothing.

“Dad?” I watched as he continued to stare ahead, seeing and saying nothing, feeling his pain somewhere else far from here. I walked slowly around the table and touched his shoulder with my hand, squeezing gently, hoping for some, any response.

Nothing.

“I’ll be upstairs, dad.”

I backed away from the table, turned and walked from the room. Again, I felt the swirl of feeling, thoughts, emotions and confusion filling my head. I went into my room and shut the door, dropping my book bag on the floor near the foot of my bed. I sat on the edge of the bed and thought.

I went upstairs and sat on the edge of my bed, thinking.

I wondered what my father was thinking about. I wondered why he wouldn’t talk to me, particularly in this time of death and sadness. Didn’t one comfort their child when times were hard? Did he not care about me? Or was it, perhaps, that he hurt so deeply, that he couldn’t find the words or even some gratuitous gesture. Could he not come out of himself long enough to offer a hug to his eleven year old son who had, after all, just lost his mother?

I didn’t feel angry at my father about this, but, rather, wholly confused and saddened. I didn’t attempt to rationalize his lack of empathy for very long. I simply took it as a sign that our family was going to crumble without my mother and that I would have to be strong. I couldn’t allow myself to whine about this, maybe I couldn’t even speak about it. Maybe that’s what happens when your mother dies. Everything falls silently to pieces. But you don’t get emotional. You don’t rage or cry or emote, at least in any outward way. You suffer silently and get through it. And so I did.

I remember thinking I’ve got to be strong here. Dad is really messed up. I have to just be really strong and I can do this. Then I thought about crying again. Should I cry? Yes, I thought, I should. So I tried to cry, but it was too late. No tears would come. I had apparently shut that door very tightly.

Of course I later saw that my father was simply a very weak man, now wounded and made weaker and more vulnerable by the loss of his wife, a woman who had given him so much. Who had given him virtually everything he had.

At the moment his eleven year old son came home from school, having just learned from a near stranger that his mother was gone forever, my father was immersed in the self-absorbed world of his personal tragedy, so self-absorbed, in fact, that he had no room in his heart to offer so much as an embrace to his also-grieving child.

Sadly, looking back over the years from the viewpoint of being a father myself, that my Dad also missed the potential value that lived in sharing this anguish with and comforting his son, that this experience, shared with each other, could be a of the deepest and most profoundly healing nature, a tool for rebuilding our already sadly deteriorated relationship before it was too late. The opportunity for a new beginning, even as we faced the most painful of endings, might have given us a new chance at a healthy life. But there was no eye contact, no hug, no words at all.

I think of my daughter, Molly and what I would do, how I might respond if a similar event occurred and Maureen was lost to us. Although at the time of this writing, Maureen and I have been separated for several years, my love and respect for her as a woman, a mother and one of the strongest human spirits I have ever encountered remains firmly rooted. Her loss would be heartbreaking, for me as well as for Molly and her three siblings. My grief would undoubtedly be difficult to bear, of that I feel certain. But the thought of leaving Molly, who thankfully is as yet unacquainted with the loss of a family member, to cope on her own, seems wholly unimaginable. Any child, innocent of the emotional armor that adults find with time, age, and multiple experiences of the loss of a close friend or relative, deserves the depth of support that that they can only find, if at all, with those who they love and who love them the most. To experience the intimacy that comes on the wings of death, through the pooling of tears a shared grief, has the broader benefit of character strengthening, spiritual deepening and the opening of hearts to other hearts.

I don’t feel unforgiving toward my father for ignoring me or the opportunity that was missed when my mother died, just somewhat sad, even still. Sad that he missed so much love with his children. So much love, so many great experiences that he could have shared with us all. Perhaps.

And for the rest of my childhood and well into my adult years, but for a couple of times that I was in excruciating physical pain, I never cried again.

I spent years, decades, silly as it may sound, grieving for the grief that I never let myself grieve. Sucking it up, as it turns out is not the way to go. Holding back the tears will, as Simply Red put it: “get to me sooner or later”.

Surely, sooner or later – and in my case, both.

Our education seems as invested in avoidance as we ourselves are by nature, offering no mechanisms, through any educational curriculum, in how to simply cope when the world hurts us. As a result of having no education in this regard, we never seem to realize that when we’re toughing it out, pushing away the pain and believing that it’s a permanent solution, it’s just the illusion of avoidance. But there is no free lunch. Somehow our past, not dealt with, always finds a way back in and returns to haunt us. Call it karma or what you will – the piper gets paid every time.

Remarkably, my tears never went too far. They stayed, tucked away in their little ducts behind my falsely smiling eyes, for decades, and, when I’d manage to break my life into pieces, damaging my relationships with many of those around me irreparably and fleeing no further from the source of my pain than before I’d wreaked the havoc, the cost of their forbearance having wrought its toll on my life, those tears were more than glad to fall from my eyes in abundance. It was if I’d never forgotten.

Now I cry with regularity. When I’m on the phone with a close friend, freaked out by what I think of as the depressing mess that I’ve made of my life. Sometimes, when teaching a class and discussing the grim realities of violence against women and children – I have to stop and compose myself. Watching Sara McGloughlin-soundtracked “Adopt a pathetic abandoned puppy” commercials. Movies like Saving Private Ryan”. The time I lost with Molly for having screwed up my marriage and the pain it caused her. I cry about these things.

And it finally feels good.

A footnote:

Certain events in one’s life hold more weight than others. The events of a particular day can bend the course of a life significantly, severely, and permanently. For example, as in the case of blunt force trauma that shows no visible abrasion or bruising on the outer skin but may cause serious, even life-threatening internal hemorrhaging, the effects of some emotional wounding can take time to fully surface. Unlike physical injuries, the response that we choose and the repercussions we feel around an emotional assault can be postponed, pushed away, and often, at least for the time being, cleverly avoided.

With all of our amazing complexities of personality and ego, our defenses seem poised at every moment to come running to our aid. We have evolved, or maybe better put – devolved – into a species that is able to disengage from unwanted realities at will, using tricks and aids, sometimes temporarily pushing them back from our attention, often burying them so deeply and completely that we never come back around to find and explore, let alone heal them. For some, this may seem to be for the best. But perhaps it is to our detriment; in as far as we skillfully rip ourselves off of the experience of that very personal, meaningful and important experience. Consumed by the intense pain that accompanies traumatic experience, we frantically swim up and away from the depth of our suffering. Yet we are also fleeing the potential growth that it may lead us to, and in so doing may be rejecting a substantial component of the fullness of our own human experience. Lessons are everywhere. In the larger picture of our lives, were we to open ourselves fully to the process of living, we might find that it may not be for us to choose which lessons we should learn from.

14 comments:

  1. To post a comment, click on the Comments (5) icon at the bottom of the article. (It may say Comments (0), but you get it, right?)Box comes up, you write something in it. I come a lookin' later and read it. Simple.

    Thanks for your feedback. It helps me in a significant way.

    Kerry

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    1. Kerry,

      Did you having any stills of you and Annette taken from Pajama Party? If so, can you post them?

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    2. You ought to be a writer, you have a gift for it. Do not give up writing. I only wish I had your skill. I am sorry for your loss of your mother at such a young age and the hurt you experienced from your father. My father was an alcoholic and abusive, which left it’s mark on myself and my siblings. It’s so unfair for children to go through such things. I wish you were still writing your blog, you won’t read this of course but after being so pulled in by what you wrote, I had to leave a comment.

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  2. If there are already comments, there will be a "Post a comment" line over an empty box. Fill in the box with your comment. Thanks,
    Kerry

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  3. Thanks for writing this, and for directing me to it, Kerry. Your prose is as beautiful as ever, and you are gifted with the ability to recall and describe details in such a vivid way that reading about your life becomes a genuine shared experience. I have trouble crying at appropriate moments too, and I'm not sure why. I'd keep a stiff upper lip, more out of some sort of delusion than bravery, about most awful things that could happen to me, and it would come pouring out later in some other way, for some other reason. Bravo for another excellent essay, and I hope you continue to write these in between other things.

    EVS

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  4. Dearest Kerry,

    I don't know how often you read your comments, and I don't know if you will read this one, but I feel compelled to make the potential contact.

    I am so sorry to hear that you and Maureen are no longer together. You were such a beautiful couple, as were we once upon a time. Sadly, my marriage to Mike also fell apart a few years ago.

    I'm somewhat surprised to learn that you are still living in Georgia. I guess I just expected you would move back to New York someday. I have ended up in Phoenix, Arizona.

    Reading your blog brought back memories and I clearly recall the beauty that was always evident, to me at least, in your heart. I never stopped loving you, but I knew that we were both in emotional places too dark for mutual benefit. I have always hoped that you would be superbly happy in life, and I still wish that for you.

    It seems odd to me that after so many years I have sort of rediscovered you. If you are so inclined, I would appreciate hearing how you're doing these days.

    Christine

    P.S. I've always wanted to know: when did Buddy die?

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  5. Hello, Kerry. I assure you your mother's death did little to crush the sense of humor that you inherited from her. It didn't erase the darling Irish quality that is genetic in your family.

    After reading "Learning not to cry" as well as the heartbreaking tale of Elder, I note yet another quality you have in common with your mother: an approach to new people that combines naivete, curiosity and suspicion. As you explained, you don't have to be suspicious of any animal but the human. An approach to animals is very different from sizing up new people. I don't know if that can be genetic.

    "Learning not to cry" describes, whether or not you realize it, the strange bureaucracy of an all - boys Catholic school. A system was already in place before that Monday in 1965. It was a system that provided for a particular school official to inform a student of a death in the family. I suspect it also came in handy if an 11-year-old Catholic boy had an older sister who was a novitiate at a convent, she flunked out and St. David's didn't want the boy to know why she flunked out. Someone had to tell the boy to expect her at his next Thanksgiving dinner and to expect a lot of evasions and euphemisms in the dinner conversation. Maybe inviting the priest to Thanksgiving could lighten everyone's mood. Father Fitzgerald knows Thanksgiving didn't originate from the church, but he also knows persecuted Catholics owed a lot to the United States. And the St. David's staff have to account for this.

    I've noticed the comment from Christine on this page. Noting her reference to "emotional places too dark for mutual benefit," I refuse to believe that you are destined to be a loner, Kerry. There are so many ways you can meet new friends and a potential girlfriend. A mutual love of walking a dog is one way.

    When you reveal to a new acquaintance that you are divorced, that person won't think any less of you. No, he/she won't. No!

    Facebook doesn't attract anyone who emulates Charlie Brown. No, it doesn't. No!

    I refuse to believe that a Frisbee offers a baby boomer a glimpse of too much freedom. Oh, no, it doesn't. No! I refuse to believe that the prosperity of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s combined with genetics put the whole sky in some baby boom heads. Oh, no, they didn't. No! No, I shall not believe Kerry loses. No! I'm going to have a little talk with the science of genetics. A loud little talk. I'm shouting at the zygotes: "Stop! What do you want? When you gave me laughter, you were not putting on a false front. No, you weren't. No!"

    William Randolph Hearst Sr. is quoted by Bartlett's Familiar Quotations as saying the following to the photographers he sent to Cuba in 1898: "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." My version of that is (pretending I'm Hearst and Kerry is the cell phone documentarian): "You furnish the dog and I'll furnish the hot young Asian lady who isn't afraid to act like Barbara Woodhouse."

    I mean, really. Preventing another dog from ending up like Elder requires TV commercials with Asian ladies saying, "If you love your furniture a lot, then don't get a dog. It's okay to fantasize about getting revenge on your parents, as long as your fantasies have furniture to sit on. Develop a Sony Playstation game in which Gary Coleman fires darts at his parents. Sit in a comfortable chair or on a couch while you develop it. To hell with owning a dog!"

    A final note for you, Kerry. If ever you hesitate to go along with a hot young Asian lady's bedroom fantasy, please remember a wise old man's proverb: "If the Asian lady says it's okay, then it's okay." It also applies to a guy who hesitates to gamble at a blackjack table where the dealer is a hot young Asian lady.

    Take care, Kerry, and please laugh.

    Your friend, Charina

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  6. Hey Kerry I've always thought about you and our friendship in NYC when we were newly budding teenagers and put together our first RnR band. We had a lot of fun..running all over that City. It's been so long you might not even remember me...but I just read your blog and I send you good thoughts and love from a very long time ago buddy. Cheers, Bryant Fraser

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  7. Kerry

    I didn’t know your mom but I know that she was an exceptional person. Judging from this blog, she would be very proud of you.

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  8. Thank you, Kerry, for sharing your thoughts. Your experience of loss helps to remind me that we are all human and that we can better endure, heal and overcome with the loving support of compassionate souls, whether they be family, friends or simply those who are willing to listen and understand. Life is indeed a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. From what I have read and learned about your mother(THE REPORTER WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and DENIAL OF JUSTICE), she was a remarkable human being who gave birth to a strong, wise and courageous son.

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  9. Today marks 55 years since your mother's passing and I just wanted to let you know she's not forgotten and continues to inspire people -- especially me. You obviously got a lot of her writing talent -- your post was very moving. I'm sorry to see you stopped writing here but hopefully continued it elsewhere?

    I have no idea if you'll this comment oh-so-many years after you stopped blogging but if you do, I hope it finds you doing well, having found a kind of peace that you can accept and embrace.
    Do take care,
    Diane

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  12. Only a few months ago I followed suggested videos on youtube - I may have previously watched a video of someone famous and then 'What's My Line' popped up. The black and white thumbnail and someone of interest, presented your fabulous and clever mother to me. I know that I had watched several clips and enjoyed the respect between the panelists and host - I later saw that they were great friends. Then, of course, because the 'internet' is chasing our data, I saw a video suggestion about your wonderful mother's passing. As one who deals with criminal law enforcement, judiciary & Gov support staff, I was infuriated and disgusted that your mother was victim to the gutless abuse by those enabled by the Gov's most authoritative. In the early hours of this morning, and many months after I learned of the loss of your mother, another thumbnail appeared which reassured me that I was going to learn more about those fighting for justice on your mother's behalf. I assure you that I know the feeling of great loss and your most beloved being taken from you, and also of the drive that can be a burden, as one stays on task to address and rectify the ability of the influential and authoritative, to seemingly abuse as they please - including abuse of the young and vulnerable directly, or the harm caused through abuse of those they love.
    I am always concerned for the safety of those who speak up against the reliably weak who abuse to elevate and retain their position, because such gutless mutts do not proceed without the wrongdoing of the most authoritative.
    I will assume that you know of Mark Shaw, but please also know that your pain since the morning you lost your dear mother, was shared by all who loved and respected her. My heart aches for you as such a young boy, because your pain and broken heart could not be eased by the immense support and floods of tears from strangers who were deeply saddened by the loss of your mother - while angered by her obvious murder, actioned by the weakest of human beings who do continue to have the most authority/influence. While you had the quality of mother that good and decent people aspire to know and be, those who took her from you will surely pay a hefty price. I guess it's unfortunate that I don't waste forgiveness on the weak who are sinister and abusive of the vulnerable - look at the gutless way they took her from you all.
    Best wishes.

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