Wrestling with the angels.

by Hugh Gilmore

Life and its twists and turns: Back in the summer of 1985 I was divorced and single and living alone at Green Tree Run condos in the Andorra section of Roxborough. My son, Colin, was 16 and living in Fairbanks, Alaska, where his mother had moved to take a job. I was lonely but plodding along, putting all of my energies into my teaching job at Haverford High School in Havertown (Pa.). One afternoon in August, I got a phone call from Colin.

He’d be flying in tomorrow. A childhood friend of his from back here had been in an automobile accident. His friend was coming home from a summer excursion and had been picked up at the airport by his older brother. It was a lightly rainy day and their car skidded out of control on Kelly Drive on the curve just before the rowing judges’ reviewing stand. Colin’s friend died in the sudden crash.

The funeral service was held at the Unitarian Universalist church on Lincoln Drive. I remember nothing about it except afterwards Colin came up to me wearing his handsome blue blazer and hugged me tightly and said, crying, “I love you, Dad.” He was terribly upset, and there was nothing I could do to make the pain he was feeling go away. Only time can do that. No one ever knows how much pain time will suck from your heart. I hugged him and told him I loved him too. That was 1985 in the lobby of the U.U. church.

A year later, I was married again. I’d met a woman at a Sunday night dance held by the U.U. church, in the same lobby, converted on Sunday nights to a dance floor for adults to meet. I married her, and she’s now my wife (Janet, whom most of you know).

Along came our son, Andrew (whom many of you also know) He arrived more than two months prematurely as a two-pound, two-ounce premie. That was September of 1986. Colin still lived in Fairbanks. We lived in Andorra. In January of 1988, Colin left the University of Alaska and moved to Hawaii for a while, wanting time out of school. We still talked on the phone often. He and I tried our best to stay close via telephone calls and the occasional visit. No texting,skyping, email, FaceBook, cellphones in those days.

In May of 1988, May 12, in fact, I came home to our Andorra condo from teaching school. I remember it was one of those days so beautiful it made me happy, but also filled me with longing. As I pulled up, I saw Janet running frantically across the parking lot toward me toward me. Too fast to be good, I thought.

Colin had been in a terrible automobile accident in Hawaii, driving home from his busboy job at a Pearl City restaurant. He was in Honolulu on life support. Bam, just like that. Mere words rise up and bang your ear drum, and your life will never be the same again.

But what could I do? I had to stay alive and alert. I might be needed. I’m a daddy. I should do something to make all this bad stuff go away. Colin was declared gone, but kept alive by machinery till a hastily formed, but loving farewell was arranged. His mother, my Hawaii-living sister and her family, and a few friends sang and talked and cried and saw him off. Then he was gone, at 18, before I could get there.

The last time I ever saw him was to hug him goodbye at the airport after he visited me in January of 1988. I can still remember what it felt like to hug his skinny back and shoulders – if I want to – but that’s not a treat I’m good at enjoying. The secret is to jump into and out of the memory before the urge to scream arises in your throat.

Ever since then, I get more than a little mopey around the anniversary of his death, May 13, and on what would be his next birthday, Sept. 10. Since I have the gift of this column and can sometimes get personal with it, I usually write a column about the experience of being a parent who’s lost a child. More exactly – about being me, losing my son, Colin.

And I wanted to tell you why I began this essay with that sentence about life’s twists and turns. Shortly after we returned from Colin’s funeral service in Hawaii, we felt we should hold our own Philadelphia-area memorial service for him. Such a service was needed, to help his many friends and loved ones say goodbye. But where? I have no formal church allegiance anymore. I could think of only one church that might accept us, the Unitarian Church on Lincoln Drive. They did. The event was solemn, touching and beautiful.

And so there: In that same building I drive by often, I turn and see the room where I held my son when he cried about the death of his boyhood friend. And know it’s the same room where I’d first put my arm about my dear wife in our first slow dance. And it’s the place I’d returned to again, where we’d gather to honor Colin’s spirit, but acknowledge that none of us would ever be able to put our arms around again.

So, what I’m thinking today on this unwelcome anniversary is: Take a look around you and know that, wherever you are, you may be back someday in a different way. One you don’t like so much. Be grateful for the gift of life during the in-between.

Hugh Gilmore’s struggle for perspective after Colin’s death is described touchingly in his new memoir, My Three Suicides: A Success Story. Available in both e-book and print formats.