It wasn't until this page was actually here ...  
out into the world - that I fully realized the ~why~ of the importance this commitment has to me. It is a last gift I can give to my son.  A last facilitating of the fulfillment of his dreams.... to be read, to be heard in the world - to say what he felt and thought.

In the movie ~Evening Star~ (sequel to "Terms of Endearment") 
Shirley McLain, at one point, makes a profound statement which speaks from all our hearts.... "When I die, something, somewhere 
is going to say .... " ~Aurora~ was here!"

And in "The Bridges of Madison County", at the beginning, Francescas' son and daughter are reading a letter she has left for them in her cedar chest (to be read after her death) - and in this letter she says to them.... 
"As one gets older, ones’ fear subsides. What becomes more and more important, is to be known. Known for all that you were during this brief stay. How sad, it seems to me, to leave this earth without those you love the most, ever really knowing who you were."

Francescas' words are indeed applicable to all of us!  I am most thankful for the fact that Eric and I shared a very intimate relationship and were pretty well known to each other..... But Eric had such depth of perception and observation that I believe that it would be a great loss for him not to be known by as many others as I can share him with.

It seems most fitting that I would use lines from great films - in light of the fact that Eric loved consuming two things in life more than any other.... music and films..... All of us who knew him - know the extraordinary capacity Eric had for experiencing and understanding both mediums and for his knowledge of them which he shared in the form of reviews and his own creativity..... He wrote songs. I hope, with all my heart, that one day I will succeed in taking one or more of his songs - all the way to actually being performed - for that would have been the greatest thrill of his life - to have heard his own thoughts & feelings put to music (which he so loved) and shared with others in that form.

Writing, though, was Erics’ foremost love!    I well understood and identify with that - for it is my own as well!

In Erics' own words from the biography he wrote, as an English assignment,  in his first year at college, excerpted and edited (by me) a bit here ....

"One of my biggest fears is that I'll never get published. <snp> Money is not the most important thing, however.  I would be happy to just be published once and have some people read my material.

If I were to start writing for the sake of becoming rich, then I would lose the desire to write what I really feel and think.      I would become obsessed with where my books were placed on the charts and I would become the pawn of publishers, managers and agents. That's not what I want from my life, at all (That is not what I want, at all.)"

His autobiographical sketch  assignment,
(written when he first left home  to go to college)  
ends with these words.....

"Sometimes I wonder how much of everything I do is in vain and what I would really be doing if society did not place so many prerequisites upon people in order to survive. There is so much that I think about and so much that I cannot answer, so much of everything that may mean everything to all that burns inside me like a cancer.  Is it really our destiny to question our lives incessantly without really learning anything?

I often think about myself as a vapor or a raindrop, only here for scant second and unnoticed by the rest of the universe. Sometimes my insignificance bothers me and other times I want to curl up inside of it so tightly that I can't even find myself. It's as if each beat of my heart is out of tune with my mind and one day there will be no more blood, no more pain, and the great machine will simply stop and crumble.

I guess so much of what I want in life depends on myself that all the answers are inside of me somewhere, I just don't know how to reach them.    I think to myself often of the past 19 years and still marvel at the amount of events that have taken place in them. The people, the knowledge gained, (the knowledge lost) , and everything in-between still has the same mysterious attraction that can drive a person to the edge of their sanity and lift them up into the heavens themselves.   Maybe there is no answer to it all or maybe one was never meant to be.......       I wish I knew......."

So often, we feel alone and ~different~ from those people and the world surrounding us - and yet..... I believe that sharing our deepest thoughts and feelings is of great benefit to those who feel so isolated and ~different~. To share these, is to raise the consciousness of our humanity and our under-it-all unity and perhaps then... it may be of benefit to those who have difficulty accepting themselves or others. It seems to me that our world (or, at least... our country) - predisposes us more and more to isolation and separation which then leads to a loneliness and despair that cripples and even kills ..........(in the form of self-destructive choices of behaviors and even outright suicide.)

These then, are the reasons for my commitment to this homepage. I hope that it will bring comfort and healing to many who suffer....... encouragement to those who feel despair, and strength in relative proportion to the wisdom and understanding of themselves which may come of the sharing here.

This then, is how and why I came to create this little place in the world where Eric will yet speak and be heard, and where those who come here will know that he was here in this world and that he lived and had thoughts and feelings much like their own... thoughts that some of us do not even stop to realize or speak to our own selves!

Perhaps in listening to Eric, you may better hear and know your own soul....  That would have been his hope.   It is mine too.

Ferrum College