It wasn't the first time but it will be the last time. For you see, with every weekend visitation for all the years he was growing up and with each time he came to visit or vacation with me his leaving was to me as if he was dying each and every time.
To look at him was to look at me. To talk to him was to talk to me. I never tried to mold him in my image and in fact encouraged him to grow up to become his own man but that man was just like me. Only better. He even wore his hair and beard long like I do which tortured his mother to no end. She often complained that even though she divorced me when Jason was only 2 years old she still had to live with me every day of her life.
As far as I was concerned that served her right for stealing what was such a big part of my life but hell, she never gave a damn about anything other than herself so why did I ever expect more? Why even today, at the last minute she tried to move his funeral ahead by an hour while most of my family and friends were still in route, many almost a full hour away. It was a very good thing the funeral director approached my mother before anyone approached me. Otherwise we would have been reading about a massacre in a big church on the west side of Greensboro in tomorrow's News & Record as I'm really quite sure that would have pushed me well over the edge.
It's probably not like she meant to hurt anyone, she's just like so many people who are used to having their way, she simply thinks the world revolves around her and no one else is in pain.
But for me he died a thousand times or more. With every visit I never made it home without having to park my car on the side of the road and cry like a child, sometimes for hours before I could gather myself together and continue home. It was because of my fear of having another child ripped from my life that I avoided relationships with women who had children or women who wanted children even though a stable home, wife and children were my every dream.
When he turned eighteen I tried to convince him to come live with me. Times were good for me then. I offered him free room and board, a nice car, spending money, my classic Harley and a lot fewer rules than his mother required but being a loving and dedicated son he told me he feared his mother would kill herself if he left so he turned down my bribes and lived his entire life with her as she drove two other husbands away after me. He was more the man than the 3 of us who married her combined.
So with the ending of each and every visit I lost my son. Yes, there were things I could and should have done better but judges looked at child custody differently back then and to be honest, I wasn't enough of a man to stand up and fight for my rights as a father nor did I know how. For that I am to blame. But today, while his mother is mourning his death for the first time, I lost him a thousand times or more and mourn his death for the last time.
Finally, I'd like to thank you all for the gracious outpouring of support my family and I have received these last few days, the cards, letters, e-mails, Facebook comments, telephone calls, those of you who came to Jason's funeral even though some of you had never met him... I'll never find words to express the gratitude I have for you and the compassion you've shown me and my family. Thank you all.
