On June 11, 1986, whilst my parents were driving with another couple in southern France, their car was struck by a drunk driver and they were killed. The other couple, though significantly wounded, survived.

My contribution to Memory Packs is a yellow T shirt that I wore on the day of their funeral on a horrible wet winter's day 10 days later. The T shirt is ripped as according to the Jewish tradition, one must rend one's clothes at the graveside. The tears in the clothes to this day evoke the rips in my own life that their sudden deaths caused.

They never knew my children. They didn't even know of the extant pregnancy that would have become their grandchild and our first child. Their sudden and premature deaths to this day evoke in my memory an array of ineffable and terrible consequences.

There is no doubt that if ever asked to contribute an item which evokes the strongest emotions in me, the item, without doubt or hesitation, would be my faded, ripped yellow T shirt.
Counsellor Dick Gross