It was a confusing phone call. My wife had been in a traffic accident earlier, and I had just picked her up from the hospital. A friend of my son called and said Robby had been in an accident. I had just picked up my wife Ricci, and I was confused and said I had just picked her up from the hospital. Manuel explained ... no, not Ricci ... Robby was in a serious accident and was in the emergency department of University Hospital.

You know, we have words for a child who loses his/her parents, we have a word for a husband or wife that loses their spouse. We have no word for a parent that loses their child ... it is just that awful to contemplate. We have no word.

My son was never going to the thought a saint. He and I were often at odds because he seemed to reside in a universe with different rules ... no matter what my wife and I came up with for limits or discipline. If you get mathematical set theory ... there was his world, our world, and the intersecting set was rather small.