The last few days I have been taking apart family albums and scanning pictures of my son, Tod, to make a kind of photographic tribute of him and his life. I plan to have it published and gift it to family members this Christmas. The photo above was taken Christmas 1984.

I am only as far as 1994 with the pictures, and with a few exceptions, am focusing of pictures of him with family members so that they will always remember how much a part of each other's lives they were. This has been difficult for me, and in a way, also therapeutic. I was unable to look at pictures of him until now because it just hurt too deeply.

I went through a box of Tod's stuff that never made it out of my house when he left home. One of the things I found was an autobiography that he had written in 1995 when he was in therapy. (Tod was always a troubled young man.) In it he talks about his family; me and his brother, Michael, who was jealous of him since the day he was born. Tod knew this but he loved his brother anyway and tried almost all of his life to gain his brother's acceptance. He never did.

He loved me deeply but always felt badly about how much pain he brought into my life, as if it were his fault that his father rejected him; as if it were his fault that I had to frequently intervene when his brother was needlessly cruel to him. He assumed guilt and blame for so much that happened. While that is what children frequently do, he just got stuck in that mode of thinking even as a young adult.

I don't know what is going on with his widow. She will not return my calls and has not recently talked to other family members either. She must be coping with her own demons right now.