man found at tropicana

(click on link in title, above)

this may be bruce's only obit.

i found out last night from the pastor he lived with that his family isn't having the same reaction to his death that his friends here are mostly, i suppose, due to the life he led *back in the day* as compared to how he lived over the last almost three years. he burned a lot of bridges, but they never gave him a chance to redeem himself.

he had gone to visit his father last spring in virginia in an effort to start mending some fences. i remember him saying during these visits that the balance of his family didn't come to see him, even though it had been years. his father subsequently came out to visit in august and if we search for a definitive moment in time where bruce started to decline, it was shortly after his visit then. imperceptible to us because he didn't fully let on to his disappointment, his being shattered by his father's lack of acceptance; but in talking this the pastor last night, i believe they are correct when they say he never regained his father's respect, regardless of how remorseful or contrite he was, or how he was working full time and going to school - none of it mattered to dad. not one bit of it.

"failure to thrive" is a condition were infants start out healthy and then start losing weight, become irritable, listless, and may have a host of medical causes for their condition; in some cases, however, when doctors are unable to pinpoint a specific cause, it is found that parents' attitudes or behaviors are causing the failure to thrive - some parents restrict the amount of calories they give their infants. they may fear their child will get fat or put him on a limited diet similar to one they follow. other children fail to thrive as a result of neglect: the parents simply do not feed them enough. it is my belief that they also fail to thrive because of lack of affection and attention.

like those poor infants, i believe bruce had *failure to thrive* just when you think you are above receiving the approval of man, approval of parents, it really does have a devastating effect when it is withheld, mainly for selfish reasons.

it is my understanding that his father had his remains cremated. it is further my understanding that he (dear ole dad) wanted to have "the county take care of it and bury him in a pauper's grave." his mother, who he was also estranged from, is coming on tuesday to pick up his ashes and take them to virginia. burial will be private at the request of the family; they don't even want us to have so much as a memorial service for him here. the pastor has asked mom to think about it, but she is pretty resistant.

*sigh*