"1-25-06
Hello! Lizard (lol)
Well how the heck are you and the kids doing. great I hope. you have always tried to make the best out what you got. Hope you guys had a good Christmas. Where the poster hanging. It is in good taste. I thought. So what outdoors in the winter time in SD. It gets really out there don't it. Mt Hood has been geting some good snow this winter. So of course I've been snowboarding alot!!! I love up there in the snow and that little town of Govt Camp. Theres this perfect trail you can ride down from timberline lodge down to Govt Camp and then hitch a ride back up. So it free and you get to meet some cool people. I've meet some really great girls up there. So hows school goin. Liorah plays water polo now. She always got have some way to push herself. I'm working graveyard at that dam j-o-b. Moneys good thought and I ger to snowboard pleanty. I've decided that once all my bills are payed up I'm going to quit and work seasonale jobs around the US or where ever. For example in the winter work at Ski resorts and in the summer climbing, outdoors kinda jobs. I have a buddy that worked at a white water rafting resort. over the summer.

Are going to make out this summer. I sure hope so. I think it would awesome to take Noah climbing at Smith Rocks. He would get a kick out of it. Hannah might even try it. Well it past my bedtime. So I must bid you farwell. Tell the kids I love them and say hello. I love you Liz wish you weren't so far away.

love
Jonathan"
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Today I remembered this letter I received because when I looked at my phone bill I noticed a phone call to mom for 113:06 on Jan. 25. That was the day that I called mom frantic about Jon; worried that if anything happened to him I'd be unable to get to his side. Mom tried to pacify my fears by telling me that if anything should happen to Jon, they would get me home. After talking with her, I spent a few days trying to rationalize who was more selfish: me, for thinking Jon shouldn't do things that risked his life so much and that I was placing my feelings for him above his own feelings about himself, or him, for thinking only about what made him happy and not thinking about those who loved him and would be devastated if anything happened to him. A week later I got the call from my sister telling me about his death. And, my family (including Cindy!!!) made a deep pocket and heart-felt effort to fly me, Mark, and our three kids out to Portland on a next day flight.

Further honor goes to Mark's dad, who rented us a car for a week, my good friends; Jim and Dave, for contributing financially and Mark's work, who gave us a consolence card with donations from the heart. These contributions have helped us skate through my lack of being at work while in OR, but more importantly, they represented how others feel. That is what is amazing.

I was talking to some one in Lebanon one day while I was there and when I mentioned that I was rationalizing Jon's "death" before he actually passed away she mentioned that what happened was pre-known by God and allowed to happen. I than thought about how Liorah and Cindy didn't have any "funny" feelings that day, just thought Jon was in one of his usual funks (where he just wanted to be left alone). How neither one felt the need to rush home while they were gone. Liorah said once that the only thing she felt was, as she was leaving she felt that she should go ask Jon to the game or go say something to him, but in all the past times Jon had always brushed her off, so she decided to respect his privacy. (did I get that right Liorah?) Anyway, what I am saying is there were no warning signs in his behavior and no made remarks that set anyone on notice, and than there were no "funny" feelings either.

When I got home, one of my co-workers told me that on the day I left for PDX her brother tried to commit sucicide by hanging. However, her mom had a "funny" feeling all of a sudden at work, about her brother, and made someone go to the house, where her brother was discovered hanging in the garage. He was rescued and hospitalized for a minor coma. I guess minor means it is not deep and he will recover. Why did her mom have a feeling , while no one had one about Jon?

I'm not saying Jon's time was now, or whatnot, but seeing my long phone call to mom just made me think. Maybe I was given a hint of something to come, but because it was not a panicky feeling, but more of a contemplative one, I was just being prepared. Who is to say, who is to say? Like I've said before, many questions with no answers.

PS
One day within this last week I was thinking about one of Mario's good friends because she had told me that she was trying to get pregnant. No reason for thinking about her, since I hardly see her, but I thought, " I bet she is pregnant now, or will be very soon." And later that day, she called to tell me, "I'm pregnant!" Weird!