Did you know National Sons Day was March 4? Neither did my wife Elyse and I.
That’s okay. Every day should be Sons Day and Daughters Day and Parents Day and Caregivers Day … You get the drift.
It’s been a while since we spoke with our son Harrison. Or touched him. It’s been 22 years, to be exact.
By sheer coincidence, in 2003, Harrison’s third open-heart surgery of his young life had been scheduled for my birthday, March 20. We took it as a sign of good fortune heading our way. Talk about wishful thinking. Someone up there had other plans that outranked ours. Harrison, at 15, took his leave of this earth the following day, March 21, 2003.
We can’t touch him. But he continues to touch us every day – touch our hearts, touch our thoughts, touch our lives. And so it is with our family’s kindred spirits – those who also belong to the world’s most exclusive club nobody wants to join: parents who have lost children.
The physical presence of a child – like our daughter Elissa – is in itself a family heirloom. Our progeny advance the lineage into future generations. When you lose a child, along with the absent physical presence, it creates a missing link in the bloodline. Living family members of course are diminished by the loss, but so are future generations.
Turn on Your Lovelight
For 11 years after Harrison’s demise, until we sold our home, each night before turning in, I would go to his bedroom to quickly flick its ceiling light on and off. It was my way of letting my son know that, here or not, his light still shone brightly. If there were a song to accompany my memorial gesture, it could have been The Grateful Dead’s “Turn on Your Lovelight.” I turned on Harrison’s lovelight some 4,000 times. (Speaking of songs, Harrison’s favorite was Louis Armstrong’s version of “What a Wonderful World.” That alone tells you something about his indomitable spirit.)
For the 15-plus years Harrison was here, we were blessed by his unique and joyful presence. To meet him was to marvel at his wit, his wisdom, his love of life, his prodigious sports knowledge – all the while braving the challenges that accompany being born with a rare dwarfism that stopped his growth at three feet and required open-heart surgeries at ages 5, 10, 15. His effect on people knew no age limit. Whether 8 or 80, they saw in him a fortitude that touched them. And inspired them.
For the 22 years he’s been gone, we continue to be blessed, by the comfort and compassion of community. When you lose a child, you gain something: the privilege of helping others in your child’s name.
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When he no longer could play sports due to his heart condition, Harrison umpired baseball and refereed basketball.
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Though almost half the size of some peers, Harrison wanted to play ball just like they did.
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At a middle school retreat, Harrison met his Everest — a rappelling wall that he was determined to scale for at least one peg — and after a Harrisonian effort, and being cheered on by classmates, he did it.
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Harrison’s growth stopped at three feet but when performing on stage — here as Vince Fontaine in “Grease” where he made his entrance emerging from the jukebox — he felt 10 feet tall.
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Harrison and his dad Bruce were lucky to attend major sporting events, such as the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
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Harrison got to compare biceps with WWE star Lex Luger at Wrestlemania.
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Harrison and family (sister Elissa, mom Elyse, dad Bruce) on a Myrtle Beach vacation.
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Harrison’s passing was reported on page 1 of the Journal News.
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N.Y. Daily News sportswriter Wayne Coffey devoted a full page to an appreciation of Harrison’s challenges and achievements.
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A seventh grader’s petition bearing 1,200 signatures resulted in the first public place named for a child of Yorktown.
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Memorial plaque at Harrison Apar Field of Dreams in Yorktown Heights.
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At each year’s opening day ceremony of Yorktown Athletic Club, a player reads the plaque that explains why Harrison Apar Field of Dreams is so named.
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Before his heart surgery in 2003, Harrison filled out his March Madness bracket, and while he didn’t live to see his dad’s alma mater, Syracuse, win the tournament for the first time his dad likes to believe Harrison somehow had a hand in the victory.
Harrison Apar Field of Dreams
One way we sustain his presence is through the Harrison Apar Field of Dreams Foundation, which benefits local recreation and education. We named the Foundation after a ballfield the Town of Yorktown renamed in spring 2003, transforming Pinetree Field into Harrison Apar Field of Dreams.
The renaming was the brainchild of Brendan Frail, a seventh grader at the time, who led a town-wide drive to collect 1,200 signatures on a petition that was submitted to the Yorktown Parks and Recreation Commission. A bench at the field is dedicated to Brendan, who lost his life several years later in a freak accident.
Thanks to the stewardship of the Yorktown Athletic Club (YAC) and Yorktown’s Parks and Recreation Department, Harrison Apar Field of Dreams is embraced by the town as a testament to youth sports, where YAC stages its spring season opening day ceremony, scheduled this year for April 5.
I use the occasion each year to advise the young players to respect their parents, their coaches, their teammates, their opponents, to practice good sportsmanship, give maximum effort, and to have fun. I tell them that despite Harrison’s extreme physical shortcomings, nobody had more fun playing ball than he did.
And so it is that Harrison’s presence endures these two decades on.
A day after his passing, in a diary that we discovered he had been secretly keeping, Harrison confidently wrote on the night before his surgery that he fully expected to “give my dad a refreshing birthday gift wrapped in flesh — a son’s healthy heart.”
The way I look at it, Harrison came through with flying colors on delivering his promise, by giving me the gift of a lifetime: His.
