Home | Page One | Page Two | Page Three | Page Four

Robert (age 14) and Claudia in 1986

About 7:00 that morning, Jorge, our Spanish exchange student, came blurry eyed out of his room and said, "good morning." It's hard to believe, but he had slept through all the commotion and didn't know what had happened. Claudia told him that the next few days would be very painful and we could probably find another place for him to stay. "Oh no," he said, "you are my family now. I'm glad I got a chance to meet Colin." Claudia would have fed him forever for saying that. He surely was no dummy!

The next few days were very busy around our house. There was a constant parade of people, bringing flowers, food, encouragement, and love. Of course, many arrangements had to be made: flowers, church service, mortuary, cemetery, pallbearers, etc. The pallbearers we chose were Dan Sapone, Will Sapone (age nine), Brad Morisoli, Diana Morisoli, Bob McAleer, and Janet Risher, Colin's bus driver. One funny thing happened when we chose those six. Claudia and I first asked Dan and Donna Sapone if they thought their nine-year-old son, Will, could handle being a pallbearer, and they agreed he could. When I asked Will, he said, "What's a pallbearer?" I told him that he had the opportunity to be one of the few lucky people to carry Colin on this his last and most important walk. Will said, "No problem. But why is it `pallbearer'? His name's not Paul; his name's Colin!" I then explained that a pall was a robe that hangs over a coffin. That gave Claudia a wonderful idea. We placed a white sheet on our dining room table, put colored felt pens nearby, and people who came over drew pictures or wrote good-byes to Colin on the sheet. It eventually was filled with color, with rainbows, with butterflies, and with loving messages. Erin drew a jigsaw puzzle, entitled "the Willis family." It had six pieces and one missing piece where the heart should be. Robert wrote, "Colin, have fun licking God." Colin, you see, loved to lick things and suck on things. He spent much of his time crawling around the family room and sliming everything in sight -- especially the sliding glass door and the refrigerator. As Claudia said, "He definitely tasted life." The sheet, by the way, draped over Colin's little coffin at the funeral. It is now one of our treasures.

Erin in 1986 (age 16)

Now to the funeral. When we arrived at St. Charles, we saw a large sign above the doorway, which read, "Welcome to a celebration of Colin's life." Also out front were three big posters filled with pictures of Colin with all the people important in his life. Everyone seemed to notice that he was smiling in every picture. That was the way he approached life!

On entering the church, we saw a marvelous thing. The church is usually set up in traditional fashion -- the altar up front and rows of chairs facing the altar. In the middle of the church is a fountain, and on Sundays we always sat on the center aisle in the middle of the church near the fountain. We would move a chair out and move Colin's wheelchair in. We did this because Colin loved the sound of the gurgling water. On that difficult day, August 7, the church had a new configuration -- the altar had been moved down to the center of the church, and the 500 or so chairs had been put in circular fashion surrounding the altar. This was done so that Colin could be in his place -- next to the fountain. What an act of love that was!

Early in the service, Claudia and I and our four remaining children put symbols of Colin on top of the pall resting on his coffin. We included his glasses, his tape recorder (he loved music), and his two favorite toys. One was a white ring with three colored rings attached to it, a toy that he sucked often and lovingly.

The music for the funeral was beautiful and extremely moving. I only wish there were a way for me now to type in the sounds. At least two of the songs cause me to immediately tear up even now, one year later. Each row of chairs had bunches of colorful helium balloons attached, and, of course, flowers were everywhere. Children played a large part in the service. At one point, they even did a little dance around his coffin, and I could almost sense Colin getting excited at their presence and beaming his infectious grin.

My sister, Lynn McAleer, and Claudia's dear friend, Donna Sapone, did the bible readings; Colin's godparents, Robbie and Jane Fowler, did the intercessory prayers; and Fr. Steve delivered a warm, healing homily. I especially loved the intercessory prayers, and here they are.

That through the example of Colin, we may all recognize, accept, appreciate, and love the differences we see in each other.
That we all can accept yet still strive to overcome our own handicaps.
In thanksgiving for the teachers, teacher aides, nurses, doctors, and bus drivers who have so lovingly looked out for and cared for Colin.
In thanksgiving for the faith, love, and support of our Christian community.
That we, through Colin's example, may feel a sense of excitement with the simple joys of life.
That more things, which initially seem so painful, turn out to be so beautiful.
In thanksgiving for family and for friends who share in times of sorrow as well as in times of joy.
For all special needs children and their families, that they might have hope, perseverance, and courage in meeting their challenges.
That the remembrance of Colin's smiling spirit will continue to bring a smile to all our hearts and to all our faces.

Near the end of the service, Fr. Steve invited people to come up to the pulpit if they wished. The first to rise was Dan Sapone.

Dan is a dear friend, and he was about the only adult whom I would call Colin's friend. Everyone liked Colin, but Dan, a former teacher and now a technical editor at the Livermore National Laboratory, really loved Colin. Whenever he was around (and that was often), he always spent time with Colin, playing with him on the floor, throwing him in the air, etc. The very last picture we took of Colin was of him sitting on the couch asleep and leaning against Dan. Anyhow, Dan was the first to the podium.

Dan said, "Jim and Claudia have often been asked what it's like to raise a handicapped child. Well, it's like this. You and your wife (or husband) have often talked about the possibility of going to Italy. Many of your friends have come and gone to Italy, and they say it's such a wonderful experience. It's so fantastic to be able to see the Coliseum, the Sistine Chapel, the gondolas of Venice, etc. You debate back and forth because taking such a trip involves sacrifices. But you finally decide to do it. So you buy guide books, you learn the language, you purchase the plane tickets. The day for departure arrives, and you are so excited. You are about to experience a dream fulfilled at last. You board the plane, fly across the Atlantic, and when you land, the stewardess walks down the aisle and says `Welcome to Holland.' Your response is `Did you say Holland? There must be some mistake.' The stewardess replies, `Yes, you have landed in Holland, and here you must stay.' You are hurt, confused, scared, depressed, angry. You get out of the plane and look around. You don't see the Sistine Chapel or the gondolas of Venice, but what you see isn't disgusting; it's just different. And so you buy a new set of guide books, you learn a different language, and you meet people you never would have met otherwise. And as time goes on, you come to realize that Holland has tulips; Holland has windmills; Holland even has Rembrandts. And the rest of your life, as your friends come and go to Italy and talk about how wonderful it is, it hurts deeply because you've had a dream ripped away from you, and the loss of that dream can never, never be replaced. But if you spend the rest of your life bemoaning the fact that you didn't go to Italy, you might not realize how beautiful it was -- in Holland." (Adapted from "Welcome to Holland" by Emily Perl.)

What a great story! A lady then walked up to the microphone and, with a thick Spanish accent, said, "I work in Holland." It was Rocio Smith, the director of Alameda County's Department for the Developmentally Disabled. She had been the head of the Fremont school where Colin had been a student . She mentioned that one of the sad things about her job was that she often had to attend children's funerals, but she had never been to one anywhere nearly as moving as Colin's.

She was followed by a teenager who had baby-sat Colin and an elderly lady who had been his nurse. Donna Sapone, Claudia's best friend, then presented a loving tribute to Colin and to Claudia's care for him. Among other things, she said, "I've heard Jim often refer to Colin as one of God's little spies." She then turned towards his coffin and said with a beautiful smile on her face, "Well, how did we do, Colin?"

I then delivered a short, for me, tribute to my youngest child. I said, "For years, I have heard people use the word special when referring to children like Colin, and I always thought it was a euphemism, a way of not having to say handicapped, disabled or retarded. How wrong I was. I have four normal children, and I had one special child. If I had been asked seven years ago if I would like to have such a child, I would have said, `Hell no. Who needs the pain?' But now that I have been through the experience, I realize that I was one of the few lucky enough to have such a child. Don't get me wrong -- having a special child includes many burdens, many heartaches, but even more rewards, and I wouldn't trade the experience of being Colin's father for anything in the world. He was special, and he made my life special." God, how I miss him.

My 19 year old son, Robert, then walked up to the pulpit. Claudia grabbed my arm tightly at the time because he was the one of our four children who didn't seem to be reacting to Colin's death, and we were worried about him. Corrigan, for instance, who is very effusive, was down in his room punching his wall and yelling on the day of Colin's death. But Robert seemed stone-faced and unmoved. We frankly thought he would be about the last person to get up to talk. Little did we know. When he got to the microphone, he momentarily stared around the church at the 500 or so people and said, "Thanks." Then after a long pause, he continued. "I want to thank anyone here who ever smiled at Colin, touched him, spoke to him, or made him laugh because, you see, he was a good little brother. And he did things for other people. He did things for me. He couldn't mow the lawn for me; he couldn't wash the dishes for me. Well, he could lick `em pretty good!" He went on and on in a humorous and loving tribute to his little brother, and we thought he wasn't reacting! We learned later that he had bought wrist sweatbands for members of his softball team and had Colin's initials, CW, put on them. We all react (and need to react) to tragedy in different ways.

I want all the family members to remember every detail of the funeral, and so I am including the program from the ceremony. Claudia and Donna Sapone put it together, with aid from Fr. Steve. The actual program sheet itself was filled with caricatures of Colin drawn by children.

Chief Celebrant:

Concelebrants:

Instrumental (as people gather):

Preparation for Prayer

Opening Song:

Greeting:

Sprinkling, Covering of casket, Placing symbols:

Opening Prayer

Liturgy of the Word

Liturgy of the Eucharist

Communion

Final Blessing

Recessional:

Procession group:

Instrumental until all are out

Click on the butterfly to continue.

Home | Page One | Page Two | Page Three | Page Four

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page