THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE OUR SUMMER

Wednesday May 14^th my wife Cheryl and I would have dri­ven up to SUNY Plattsburg to bring our son Kodi home for his sum­mer break. It’s a trip either one of us could have tak­en solo, notwith­stand­ing, we are not that type of cou­ple , no mat­ter what, we would have done so togeth­er. Poughkeepsie to Plattsburg is rough­ly four and a half hours dri­ve. Parents with kid/​s in College under­stand they have to bring all their stuff home, then haul every­thing back at the end of the break.

This Summer would have been extra-spe­cial. our penul­ti­mate son AJ, is get­ting ready to start attend­ing Wesleyan College in Connecticut.

We had made plans with our friend Randy a mechan­ic, to do some prep­ping on Kodi’s car. This was sup­posed to be a sur­prise for him when he got home.

The big plan for the Summer was to get our old­est, Mike Jnr, to come over from Illinois, take some time off and all 6 maybe 7 of us count­ing my nephew Martin, take a road trip to Orlando .

The plan was to rent a big SUV and take turns dri­ving down to Florida. Some mem­bers of our fam­i­ly have nev­er been to Disneyland.

Alas there was no four and a half hour dri­ve to upstate New York for Cheryl and me. There was no need to prep my son’s car, there will be no road trip to Orlando no time soon.

Kodi’s things arrived in box­es shipped to us via UPS, they sit in a cor­ner of the garage, the way they arrived, untouched.

Kodi’s car sits by the side of our house off the pave­ment now, on the grass. No prep­ping has been done. There will be no fam­i­ly trip to Disney world„ not this sum­mer. We have no plans, we don’t know when, if ever.

Today Cheryl and the boys went to Church , I did not. I drove over to the flea mar­ket, walked around dazed, con­fused, in shock , angry, unsure of who I am. This was sup­posed to be a great Summer , our Summer.

AJ would have had his grad­u­a­tion par­ty, Kodi had one. This fall it would be just Cheryl, our youngest Johnathan and me at home. Kodi and AJ would be in col­lege. It may yet be just us three, how­ev­er it won’t be the same, the glue is missing.

Kodi always bragged, he was the glue which kept our fam­i­ly togeth­er, he always asked my wife “what you gonna do when I’m gone ma”? We had no idea what he meant !!!.…can’t see through the tears.…