Saturday, December 27, 2014

I Have Lost My Son and Do Not Know What To Do

  I have recently lost my son, the author of this blog, and only recently I have gotten to know him. I do not know how, if any, many people read this blog. It is obvious to me that he put a hell of a lot of work into this. I cannot understand his motivating factor for writing this blog without knowing if anyone would read it. Maybe it was his way to cope with the bad deal he got handed to him. Not long after he joined the Air Force he had a patient who had asked him to put him out out his misery. He was in terrible pain. Many times David would call me on the phone and struggled with a decision that I believe ended his life way to short. He told me of a patient that he has by the name of Col. DeBarge. I have not changed the names that he entered in his posts for fear of confusion. My memory is not what it once was.
  It took many months to read this blog and I am still not sure I have grasp the enormity of it. My son was a very bright child and I believed he would have done great things. He must have had a very hard time trying to decide the fate of the Col. I am not gonna pretend to believe that I would know what he was going through because his mind worked in a way that I find impossible.
  MY YOUNG SON
  David was born on May 5th, 1959 in Gadsden, Alabama. He had two older brothers, one 3, the other was 15 months. I worked at Siemens Corporation so the daily childcare went to my beautiful wife, Kathryn Thomas Riley. She must have enjoyed those infants because we had another boy in 1962. I think Kap, my pet name for my wife, was fairly lax with punishment but when the boys got out of control I handled it when I got off from work. Those boys were so afraid of their Daddy, just the mention of Mom telling Dad of any misbehaving is all it would take. That is how she kept the boys in line. They were terrified of me and when I got home the boys paid the price of misbehaving. Needless to say they were well behaved little young men. Seemed better than the Wrath of Dad 
  THE MIDDLE SCHOOL YEARS
   Now this is the time that their curiosity about the outside world really peaked. I failed to mention we had a new younger son that was born in 1962. I honestly do not know how my wife and I kept our wits about us from 1955 - 1962. That is 4 boys born in 7 years. I would not do it, again. That's for sure. We were, however, greatly awarded with a beautiful baby girl in 1966. It must have been the dogie style that got us that girl, I haven't a clue. It was  fantastic until time to get kids in school. I do not know how my wife did it. I would leave for work at 5am and let her work her magic. My kids were always in school, on time and prepared for the next days assignment. My wife was a amazing woman! Thanks to her determination and hard work my children would have spent the majority of their youth in an Alternative School. I guess you haven't a clue what an alternative school is. It is where the trouble makers are kept away from the other students to give those students a chance at learning uninterrupted. The kids were not allowed to disrupt any part of the classes. Those that showed some promise and made a real effort got to go back to the real school. Some made it, others were chained to their desks. They were gonna make a concerted effort to get the children to make it back to their school. The middle school years were the best times of my life. Coaching my sons baseball team and football team allowed me to spend many precious hours during the time when my sons were not afraid to give me a hug in public.
  My second child was born with a deteriorating hip condition. He was forced to wear a brace that held his left leg up and use crutches. It was not long before he abandoned one crutch so he could get around better. He even played little league baseball and was pretty dang good at it. That crutch did not slow him down, at all. As I said. he was the second child but we named him after me. He looked more like me than the first one so he got the name. He was called Bubba by the other kids when they were young but the name stuck. He was Bubba until the day he died. That, my friend, was the absolute worse day of my life. 
  

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