To my Dear Friends-
Your messages of condolence and support have been of immense comfort to my Family and me...
A week has past now and I have spent a lot of that time reflecting on Ben's life and all we have been through as a Family... hours have been spent at my keyboard answering the many condolences we have received, and marveling at how far my Son's love had reached in such a short life and how many people have been deeply saddened by his passing.
I am still awaiting confirmation of Ben's cremation...even in Death, the bureaucrats cannot resist one last humiliation, and force us to wait for their permission to complete Ben's final wishes, where a burial could have been completed without any delay.
I am too numb to fight this time...
I have remained at my post aboard ship...Ben was always adamant that when the time came, there would only be a 50/50 chance I would be at home...and that if was deployed, I was not to rush home, since in his words, once dead; "...l'll be happy to wait for you ..."
Ben often declared his revulsion with funerals and wanted nothing to do with them....especially his own.
The rhythms of daily life on the ship, and having 85 or so people depending on me for their health-care keeps me busy, and focused on the needs of the living...
My Shipmates and Colleagues have been wonderfully supportive and I am keeping in close touch with Home...my Girls are doing OK as well, the have great support from our many friends and family back at home.
When I do go home early in April, we remaining three will take a nice long road-trip...we are one of those rarest of families that can tolerate each others presence in confined spaces for extended periods without killing each other...our family road-trips were Homeric...he best of memories....
It will be a good time to hit the road too...for those of you who have not had the pleasure, spring in Texas is a riot of wild-flowers...and with our State laws limiting billboards, the open vistas along the highways running thru the Hill Country will take your breath away.
We will rent the biggest, most comfortable, gas-guzzling, global-warming-gas-spewing, tug-boat of a car we can find, and p!$$ off all the "Prius-Hippies" in Austin as we head West...to San Antonio...where we will set up at our favorite hotel right on the River Walk and have a well-earned break.
Then we shall then wander around the Hill Country awhile...and decide what we would like to do with the rest of OUR lives...
That is part of Ben's legacy....after spending so much time seeing to the quality of his life, we get to re-invent our own.
Not many people get that chance and Ben would be very upset with us if we squandered it.
One of Ben's friends asked me to spin a "Ben Story" for her...so please enjoy it as well...
Some may view it as a bit morbid right now, but my current favorite "Ben" anecdote was regarding his lack of a fear of Death;
I was in Iraq, and Ben and I were chatting via IM when my base came under a particularly heavy rocket attack....after clearing the crew out of the Clinic, I continued typing from the bunker next door as we waited out the attack and monitored the radio for calls for our ambulance....after a lull in the conversation, he asked me if I was afraid of dying....
I told him I was too busy worrying about other people to really give it much thought...when I asked Ben if HE was afraid of dying, he said that Death had visited with him so often, with all the surgeries and such, that they were on such good terms, he had told Ben his first name....
...and it was hard to be afraid of someone named "Bob".....
That was VERY "Ben"....
I had a new chapter of " An Old Goat Ranch in Texas" in the works when I got the news....I believe I will finish it up and get it posted.
Ben would be upset with me if I didn't complete what I started up there....
Go tell someone you Love them....
Terry
