September 14, 2002

Dear Jamie,

Kevin, one of mom's friends from work, has opened his cabin in Idyllwild for us to stay in for the weekend. We are here for the Whole Being Weekend with a place of our own. Everything is ambiguous. It's peaceful and beautiful here, but then there's no Jamie boy, which makes it all feel less-than-good. Memories of you at last year's Whole Being Weekend fill my head. I see you running around on the rocks outside the dining hall, and playing in the pool, and in the tent with the other boys- so energetic and alive. It is so hard to believe you are not here when in my mind you are so alive. It doesn't sink in, and then it does, and tears fall.

I don't enjoy existing without you. I wonder how long this life will last. I find that I can't shirk the innate will to live. Mentally, I can do it. Some nights I go to bed and wish vehemently to not wake up again. But mornings come with me still here in this body, and you still not in yours.

I recently climbed the big Ficus watkinsiana at the zoo. I've not been up in anything that big since your accident, and many times have thought that I would be a more carefree climber, not caring so much if I fall anymore. I even asked mom recently about the possibility of taking up some high-risk sports. It's not so, though. I still fear height and falling, that self-preservation prevailing against my lack of lust for life.

I think of our new friend, Karen, who lost her son at sea and then, somehow, in a blackout, pulled herself onto her boat and lived. It is an incredible force, the will to live. So many people in this world suffer so profoundly, yet such a small percentage commit suicide. 

Silly thoughts pop into my head and bounce around for a day or two. Yesterday I was thinking, why did we give you a name like Jamie- a perennial child's name? Not James, a man's name, but Jamie. Did we somehow doom you to a short life? And then the obvious aspect enters in. I had argued a little about naming you after mom's cousin, Jamie, who died of a drug overdose, thinking it might be bad luck. But I let that go, and now it's all over. These are, of course, ways my mind tries to make sense of this senseless reality, to give meaning to this terrible accident. It's so trivial. I wonder, if I'm going to assign meaning to these events, shouldn't I pick something grander than a superstitious idea about what we called you? It makes a huge loss into something utterly ridiculous. I must let these thoughts go.

Pines trees cover the hills around me here in Idyllwild, the light of the new day floods over them, illuminating many live ones and many dead ones. I think of the Buddha teaching of annica- impermanence of all. Then I remember that these pines are dying because they are the weak ones. They are susceptible to bark beetles while the stronger pines can fight them off. But you, Jamie, you were anything but weak. You were one of the strongest 5-year-olds I knew. You should not have been the one to go. You should be here with us now, exploring with Demetri and his dragon.

Love,
Daddy