The Emerald Rose

As you all know our youngest son , James David (Jay) Corcoran, Chef extraordinaire, Father extraordinaire, and a dozen other “extraordinaires”, passed away on Valentine’s Day after a very short three day battle with bacterial menenghitis. If you scan back in my blogs you will find one called “The Jaymeister”, which I penned a few weeks ago, on  February 23, 2017, nine days after he passed away.

This past week my wife and I flew to Salt Lake City, Utah to be part of a “Celebration of Life for Jay. It was mind blowing for me, in that 125+ folks crammed into a small Pub with 20′ ceilings and a ladder behind the bar to climb up and get the “Top Shelf” booze, a 15 foot tall glass window frontage overlooking the only Ski Tow Chair Lift in the middle of town on Mainstreet. Except for the circumstances, I could have sat there with a pint of Guinness to just watch the folks ski down, pop off their ski’s and snowboards, and walk the twenty five feet to the Pub, (Called Butcher’s Chop House!) for some “anti-freeze” before the next run.

But I was……. soooooo …….impressed with the number of folks who came. And all the great stories and rememberances of our son that they shared with us. It really was one of the best things I’ve ever gone to, again considering the circumstances. It was a real “family affair” as a lot of folks brought their children, and a little foresight had provided for crayons, drawing pages, cut outs and enough stuff that they had a ball and we barely heard a peep out of them.

As an Irishman from Boston, I’ve been to my share of “wakes”, both “Irish” and the others. They are usually very somber things which because everyone gets on their “Sunday best”,…..well at best it’s a little surrealistic! Personally I hate them, that’s no way to remember someone, and relay your rememberances of them to others and listen to new rememberances from others.

As I said in a blog several days ago, you will find most folks are en “enigma”, or a mystery. But you usually don’t know it until they pass, and for the most part that is a fitting way to remember them.

To all who came, “a heartfelt THANK YOU!” And a confession that just as I told you a few things about “Jay” as a young man growing up, from you I heard stories and comments about what he did , for you , with you, and for others. We, his Mom and I, both left Park City , Utah with a new and joyous vision of “the Jaymeister” , the man he turned out to be, the husband he was, and the Father of our Grandchildren, Ana, and Jimmy! No words can adequately express those feelings, but it speaks for itself!

Life is a “Celebration”, and that’s what we need to celebrate for anyone who passes! The religious side of a passing is one thing, and as a “religious thing” it is a restrained celebration,….because it is “the eternal everafter”. Personal grief is just that, a deeply personal and a singularly personal experience,….but the joy and thanks you see at the “Celebration of Life” for the memory and experience that is shared,….well like the commercial says , it’s “PRICELESS”.

Thank you all, and I await your stories and rememberances so I can share all of them amongst all of us , his parents, his family,  his close friends, his caring friends, who made his life both a memory, and a REAL celebration of the “life well lived”.

I referenced a song by Annie Lennox from “The Lord of the Rings” entitled “Into the West”. That is how Jay will be remembered, and how all of us felt, and would also like to be remembered by our world!

Traversing to the “other side” is a  human soul’s journey alone  for all of us, over which we have no choice but to make at the end of our life. Until then my new friends, breath the air of freedom every day, share the heart’s joy of love, and the memories, and bond of friendship which ONLY we can give.

Love as well as memories don’t really exist, ….until we give them away!!

Farewell and Safe Journey my Son,…..we’ll miss you so much.

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