Amanda was my son Bill's most serious girlfriend - practically a fiancee, since the two of them had been discussing marriage, and had planned to announce their engagement on April 3, 1996.

I guess she just never got over losing him.

She became one of my closest friends after my son's death, and I wanted, more than anything else in the world, for the rest of her life to be happy and successful and long. She had beauty, talent (in dance, writing, and various kinds of administration and organization), and courage, and I thank God that I was blessed with the benefit of her warm-hearted friendship for four years. How I wish it had been longer.

Because of her amazing writing talent, and her incredible emotional honesty, I encouraged her to journal, and to write poetry, as a means of working through her reactions to my son's suicide. This was not enough to heal her. I include here a few of her poems that she wrote and gave to me, just to give you an idea of what it is that we all have lost.

I will write much, much more about both her and him in the weeks and months to come, if her family doesn't mind, but I wanted to get a simple page up now.

Go rest now, little one. Sweets to the sweet: farewell. I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, and not have strew'd thy grave.

If you are one of those people who likes to pay your respects at graveyards, Amanda's remains are in the rose garden at Eternal Hills Memorial Park in Oceanside, California. Bill is interred at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery on Point Loma, in San Diego, California.

This page was slapped together by Mary Withers, Bill's mother and Amanda's eternal friend.