08.31.06
Posted in Memories at 5:26 pm by JudiMom
Lucas being the youngest of four must have sometimes felt like he got the hand-me-downs for his whole life. He never minded that and was always glad to get stuff from older brothers and sister. In reality he got more one-0n-one attention the last four years of high school 3 at STJ and one at L’ville from Jerry and I than he could stand because he was the only child left at home by then.
I had time to make a picture dedication in the STJ year book to him…. as shown above… as I tried to make him feel special even though he was the youngest.. And we went to every single L’ville football game the year he was there… I remember thinking… “Poor Lucas thought he was getting away from mom and dad this year” and we would show up every weekend for the football game…
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08.23.06
Posted in Memories at 11:17 am by tara
I remember going to the Galleria for the day in 5th grade with Lucas and Summer Weaver. We had so much fun. The three of us went to the pet store to look around, and Lucas decided it would be a good idea to buy a little white mouse. So they sold a 10 year old child a mouse in a little cardboard house. We were so excited, until the truth set in. Lucas said, “What was I thinking? My parents won’t let me have a mouse.” Now, all of a sudden, we were in a predicament~ pet stores don’t take mice back. “Oh, no!” We thought. I think the pet store employees felt bad for us, so they decided that he could return it, but just not get his money back. Good enough for us, and the parents were none the wiser.
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08.02.06
Posted in Memories at 12:40 pm by Tarlie Harris
Over the past year I have had many, many dreams of Lucas. Some give me peace and some border on nightmarish. But on the whole, I feel lucky to have gotten many warm hugs, big smiles and I love yous from Lucas in my sleep.
One dream in particular has had a profound effect on me. Last October, as I lay sleeping in Gabe’s guest room with my mom in the bed with me, Lucas came to me. He was smiling and silly and so completely himself. After the big hugs and I miss yous, I asked him if he regretted his decision to leave us, and he said that yes, he did. But he just had that old Lucas attitude of well, yea, but that is the way things are now. I guess what I mean is that he didn’t say it in a rueful way and I didn’t get an sense of sadness from his answer that way you might expect. Then I took him to this room to show him all the things that I was keeping to remind me of him. I showed him various things like his nite-nite that he nodded at in acceptance and then I got to this wooden hand that went up to the mid-forearm. I told him that this reminded me of him. Now, in my psyche, I know what this hand represents, so let me explain. I read this book several years ago called “I Know this Much is True” where the author’s twin brother was in and out of mental hospitals for schizophrenia and at one point he chopped his right hand off at the mid-forearm. So I feel sure that this is where this symbol came from in my dream. When I showed Lucas the hand, he was adamantly against me keeping this hand in the room. It was the only time in the dream where he had a serious, straight face on. He said, no, you can’t keep this in here because I am not broken.
I awoke from this dream with such a sense of peace and a sense of what the human soul means to me, and I guess to Lucas, because I feel like the idea came partly from him. The idea that all people are connected, alive and dead, and that in itself is the Divine. And that Lucas is not, in fact, broken. I carry him with me every minute of every day and I have to remember to look inside myself for Lucas when the sadness is overwhelming and see that he is in there, complete, even though at the same time he is beyond my reach when I am awake. But not, thankfully, in my dreams.
As this year has passed, sometimes it has been very hard to have the total faith in that dream that I woke with that October morning, but I try. And I constantly look forward to more dreams to come that will give me the same fleeting glimpse of understanding that that dream gave me.
I hope that maybe some of you have had a similar experience over the past year. Or if not, that the beauty of my experience can somewhat be passed on to you, even though I know that you all would like a big Lucas hug and grin all for yourself.
If you think this is completely nutty, I understand, but I have to tell you that Lucas rarely has a shirt on in my dreams, he seems to be constantly hanging around in khaki shorts alone, so that has to give you some idea of how realistic these dreams really are!
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Posted in Memories at 10:49 am by rdurden
You & your family are in my thoughts & prayers today.
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