I slept poorly, then came to work. I had a break and played basketball. I had a bite with two friends, then came to work and watched this video while I waited for a student who didn’t show up. For some reason, it made me think of my sons, one of whom is dead.
I think about Fisher every day, and every day I think of something or other that I’ll do to memorialize him. Maybe I’ll get a tattoo, maybe I’ll write his name on the Brooklyn Bridge, maybe I’ll write a book about him. But I don’t ever do those things, because none of them promise to do justice to my feelings for my son.
Fisher never left the hospital; he never saw New York. He never spoke. His twin, Truman, rascals around our home all day. For that my wife and I are exceptionally fortunate and grateful. But it will always feel as if there is some gap, some tiny emptiness in every day. That’s not to say that our lives aren’t full of joy; our lives are joyful and funny and sad and everything else. It is only to say that I miss Fisher, whom I knew for the tiniest fragment of my life and for all of his.
The point is, I guess, that if you are someplace alone reading this and thinking of how you wish that someone who is absent were present, you’re not alone. In offices all over the city, someone is crying about someone whom they barely knew, but loved beyond words.
I miss you.
