Dear Universe,
Fuck You. Give him back.

Helen: My heart keeps breaking and my eyes keep filling with tears for you and Terry. Don’t know how to make this go away for you or to turn back the clock. My love and my arms are wrapped around you as so many others are. No matter what is said this will never be right. Keep the beautiful memories tucked safe in your hearts. Hugs hugs hugs

Rakefet: They say we are only here until we learn our lessons…maybe he was ready to teach others and watch over us. Doesn’t make it any better. We are all with you both.

My heart keeps breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. How will I ever get them back together again?

Marcus: Your heart is like a mirror, a reflection of your son…and even if it is now broken into many pieces, these pieces will all reflect him a thousand times more.

David: “It is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man [or a woman], all unprepared, can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live. There is but one reasonable explanation for it. The intellect is stunned by the shock of it and but gropingly gathers the meaning of the words. The power to realize their full import is mercifully wanting. The mind has a dumb sense of vast loss – that is all. It will take mind and memory months, and possibly years, to gather together the details and thus learn and know the whole extent of the loss….It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he [she] truly know the magnitude of his [her] disaster.” – Mark Twain on the death of his daughter Jean.

Kate:  Mine, too, Ed. Jake and I talked a lot about people dying young- especially after Austin’s passing- and he told me that it were him instead of Austin, he would want people to celebrate how much fun and love he had during his life. It’s a lot easier said than done, though, but I can’t stop remembering Jake saying that.

Bob:  “One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.”

Originally posted on Facebook December 30, 2013