08/06/2013

   Nothing I'd experienced in my life up to that point had prepared me for what I felt as I drew closer to my son's casket and finally gazed down upon his beautiful face. All my fears and apprehensions which I 'd been harboring for almost a week since Curtis's death seemed to just evaporate instantaneously. I'd expected to feel either absolutely nothing or feel the complete weight of his death bearing down on me at last, crushing me into a puddle of mush. Instead, what I actually felt was a tremendous sense of relief. Here at last was my beloved son. Here at last I could again see his face, touch his body, run my hands through his hair. Here at last I could speak to him face to face and tell him all the things I'd wanted to say since that terrible night. My son looked like my son. I know, I know. People always say something like, "He looks so good," or "Doesn't he look so natural?" or "He sure looks like himself," at times like this. So much of what made Curtis the amazing person he was, was in his eyes and his personality. Of course, these things were gone, but I had spent so much of the last six days fearing that the accident had left my son's body mangled and deformed, that to see him in what looked to be an almost pristine, peaceful state was a colossal relief to me. I now felt capable of enduring whatever the rest of the evening would bring. I never expected to have to stand near my son's casket for nearly the next three hours greeting all the many people who had come to pay their respects to my son and to us.