Happy Birthday son...

[JoeRaisin <joeraisin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sunday, June 8th 2008 would have my son?s 20th birthday and it is,
almost to the day, a year and a half after his death.

Has it gotten any better?  I would have to say that, for the most part,
my days aren?t as difficult as they were a year ago.  There are still
some bad days but not as much.  There are some songs on the radio I have
to turn off (Tears in Heaven, for one) and sometimes there is guilt and
a feeling of emptiness when I realize I am doing something that he would
have liked as well.

It has been tough lately as we close in on his birthday.  Thinking of
all the things that could have been but will never be, the unrealized
potential, the wedding we won?t witness, the grandchildren we will never
hold.

His friends still post in his online guestbook:

http://www.legacy.com/Record-Eagle/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=20256145

His brother wrote and recorded a song for Chris? funeral ? I added some
pictures and a few video clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD7XSGpFvso

This is a song that he wrote and recorded ? again, I added a few
pictures and a lot of video: (btw ? if any of you are fans of the
hip-hop genre I would appreciate knowing if it?s any good? I think it?s
good ? but then I?m an old rock-n-roller who may be just a bit biased)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j6ghp1o4Ig

I love this one, he?s trying to ?walk the dog? with a yo-yo but it?s
being stubborn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCIAa9IacZs

One of the things that helped me through the last year and a half is a
poem that Chris wrote:

I sit staring at a blank dark wall
The hole on the upper corner looks as if a fist had punched thru
How that must have hurt
Like losing part of your skin
It seems this wall has encountered many battles
Its lost part of itself, but it has kept the pieces that hold it together
The paint is peeling, the color fading away
Yet it refuses to fall
People hardly notice this ruined wall, but it doesn?t care
It stands because it wants to
The chipping and breaking over the years have barely even phased it
It is still standing
To you, it is a wall that should fall
To me, it?s a wall that refuses to fall
Refuses to die
Everything it has lost, are but pieces it did not need
No matter how big a piece went missing, the wall made it through
Stood up to another day
What we could all learn from this wall
Is something we can only teach ourselves



Rest in Peace my son.

Christopher Ricardo Lackie
June 8, 1988 ? December 9, 2006