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Tuesday September 7,2010

Saying Our Child's Name

by Jim Balthazor

A couple of weeks ago I took a writing class with an author that does writing about the prairie and how it has affected her life. She uses all kinds of memories for telling about her thoughts and how her life in the Midwest has been shaped by events surrounding the land out here. I took the class because of school, but ended up having a good time writing about Kirk. There was a problem though. After writing we had to read what we wrote. I didn't know if I was going to be able to.

It has gotten to the point that we can talk to our best friends about Kirk and not cry. I can talk to my mother and father, my family, and keep really don't know and mention him without getting emotional. I thought this would be a good chance to see if I had gained any strength. I so want to be able to talk to others about him without getting all choked up because people that are not close have a tendency to view us as basket cases if we mention our kids and get tears in our eyes. I was wanting to relay this story about camping with him without all that emotional garbage and thought that goes along with talking about your child after their death.

I know I have asked this before, but why is it we can have programs and talk about Lisa "Left-eye" Lopez after her death, watch her videos and be enter-tained by them and her talent, love what she stood for and still admire her, yet we can't talk about our children?

Anyway we were given our last assignment and it was to relate a story about the setting we were in and how it reminded us of someplace we had been before and a memory that brought it back. Well we were in an outdoor setting so I thought about Kirk and the times we went to scout camps. This story was about a canoe trip down a river in Arkansas and, the story was quite colorful. It was funny and had to say so much about camping with scouts, so much about Kirk. Some of you might know how that goes.

I was really wanting to read the story and let others know what he was like. It started out so good and I was a page and a half into the story when I got to his name the first time. Try as I might I just couldn't get his name out. Here I am saying that we should all be saying our kid's name as many times as we can and I still couldn't talk to people I really didn't know, about him. I felt terrible, how was I to let them know how wonderful it was to be his father, how was I going to do any talking about him without going all basket case on these people. I just sat there