Justin Leroy Kissel

It's been twenty-two years now. Richard is up there with you now. I miss you both so much.

It's been a week since Christmas, and I still don't know how to express what I feel. Good Lord, 20 years, you would have turned 41 this year. What might life have been like, would you have married, become a parent. What would be differant? I'll never know. In many ways I feel blessed. I am alive, sober, retired, fairly comfortable and still married. I know some marriages don't survive the death of a child, so I am fortunate, that my knees are the main source of my pain these days. A funny...

We did the White Elephant gift exchange last night at Elaine's. It was fun to get together and have a few laughs. But as usual there was something missing, you. As it always does the conversation got around to the things you "kids" did, and how you were the primary instigater. The laughs, the jokes, the songs. The memories, the love the devotion you and your cousins created. 19 years ago was the first Christmas Day I woke up without you in the house, and it is still as chilly and as quiet as...

It's been nineteen years and I still miss you.

It's another Christmas for Linda and I without Jeff and another Christmas for you and Richard without Justin, Sharon. It never gets any easier. I still use the china set that Jeff gave us as his last present to us on every holiday. We share in your grief but also in your memories of your son who was taken way too early as was Jeff! Love, Pat and Linda Dirlam

You lost Justin the same year we lost Jeff. It still hasn't gotten any easier and probably never will. Maybe they found each other in the afterlife!

Merry Christmas Justin