Steven R. Maynard (Rico)
1985 - 2008
"There you stood on the edge of your
feather, expecting to fly.
While I laughed, I wondered whether I could wave goodbye,
Knowing that you'd gone."
Vehicles were lined up from one side of the town to the other for your funeral, and that was with people carpooling to make room to park at the cemetery. Your father spoke about you and your family, and quoted a passage from the Bible which so well described how many of us were feeling. Your friend Isaac read a tribute to you while Alan, Robbie and other friends stood beside him. Your family is overwhelmed with grief and desolation. We are all dealing with a pain which is unlike any other.
My mind is stuck in the memory of my last goodbye to you. I can’t get past the fact that you were standing right next to me just before you left. It would be the last time I ever saw you. I want to turn back time and make this turn out to be nothing more than a horrible nightmare. It is going to hurt so badly in the days ahead, to wonder when you are going to walk through the door, or show up for a party, and realize that you never will. It hurts so badly and I don’t know if I want it to stop hurting because that pain is so delicately intertwined with my memories of you.
"By the summer it was healing, we had
said goodbye.
All the years we'd spent with feeling
Ended with a cry."
You were my son’s friend, and you were like family to us. There are several young persons whom we consider our children, and you were one of them. We loved you and will continue to love you. I’ll never forget how you and your circle of friends would be working on a project, and someone would wonder out loud how much something like 18.375 divided by 12 would be. They would be astonished when after a few seconds you would quietly respond, "It’s 1.53125." With my love of math, I still had to look that up on the calculator just now.
"I tried so hard to stand as I stumbled
and fell to the ground.
So hard to laugh as I fumbled and reached for the love I found,
Knowing it was gone."
Your death is a tragedy with no possible remediation. I’m going to miss you every day, and it hurts me that missing you every day is the best I can do. I’ve shed more tears over the past six days than I have in a long time. I wish it would rain down hard, and for just a while, that I could become a part of the raging storm. I want to make the sky scream out in protest of this wrongness.
There will be no more visits from you. I told you that I loved you like a son, but I can’t ever tell you how much you will stay in my heart forever.
You will never read this.
Words in italics: "Expecting to Fly" by Neil Young