(The following is a guest blog from my father, Lance Hanish. Thanks for this, dad.)
This is not a paternal trait. It is a maternal trait in our family. Never show emotion in front of others because it can only lead to something worse. It’s a German, British, Scottish thing my mother brought into our lives.
According to that unspoken creed: ‘The best thing is avoidance’.
On the day I received the telephone call from my son, instantly we knew we had lost a grandson (Norbie) at birth. Your heart breaks. It was not unlike the day when I received a call from my father while I was in college telling me that I had lost a new brother (Danny) at birth. I never spoke about it to anyone since then.
You heart mends but never heels.
Time tends to do that.
I can only pray to God that both will be brought closer to him for all eternity and that sometime I may join them and get to know them.
To me Norbie is all about balloons and the joy of seeing a butterfly each day on my walk. The butterfly that goes along with me for a few steps each day is the spirit of Norbie as were the balloons hoisted aloft with the soft, gentle winds over the Palos Verdes peninsula on the day of his remembrance. I can see him smiling, although I never saw him, much less saw him smiling. It means to me that he and I will be holding big conversations some day about his dad and getting his insight on what a swell fellow his dad is.
To that we are both very, very proud.
