My Only Son Packy

<I><P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>Above on the book's cover you see a self-portrait that Packy an aspiring artist painted. The shaded blue area around his mouth was his way of muting the part of his being that was forever changed by the accident described below.</P></I><P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>In 1966 at two years old Packy born David Patrick La Belle nicknamed Packy by his father crept under the kitchen sink and ingested the caustic lye Drano permanently disfiguring his face and damaging his throat esophagus and stomach. After undergoing numerous surgeries and other rigorous medical procedures for most of his childhood he gradually recovered his ability to breathe eat and talk. And for the first time in medical history after four years of unnatural feeding and breathing Packy's respiratory and digestive systems were operated on and restored to functional condition. In addition Packy's family achieved through litigation groundbreaking consumer safety efforts by forcing the makers of Drano to furnish all of its hazardous products with safety tops.</P><P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>Packy's parents and sisters stood patiently by him assisting as much as they could as he struggled to overcome the obstacles placed in the way of his having a normal childhood: at eight years and all of 35 pounds he joined Little League and played with a vengeance; at seventeen after his junior year of high school he earned admission to Cooper Union's scholarship art program. At no time did Packy quit trying. Packy not only survived but transformed his physical pain and mental anguish into life-affirming ambitions to become a promising New York painter with an enormous zest for life travelling to exotic locales including Africa where he was married. </P><P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>Just when it appeared that providence was finally smiling upon Packy at the age of 23 a cruel twist of fate ended his life in mystery and conflict. Suddenly on November 3 1988 he passed away as if God had called him back from his odyssey. But six long years after Packy had passed on his father began to question the circumstances of his death. Inconsistent accounts of what had happened that night provoked Dave Packy's father to investigate. Finally able to summon his courage Dave began the mind-boggling process of uncovering the truth behind his son's death. </P><I><P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>My Only Son Packy</I> is a father's story of the turbulent odyssey of his son. Like the Odyssey it is a story told out of love regret pride admiration anger frustration and longing. And while it is a story about Dave's son Packy it is also Dave's story: a story about a father who twice is faced with the idea and then the reality of losing his son. It's also a story about a father who after his marriage fails believes as a Catholic that he can never marry again. It's the story about how he falls in love again and is forced to reconcile not only the inconsistencies in his Church's dogma but also the contradictions of his own faith. It's the story of how as a remarried father he must wrestle with the built-in conflicts of his new family versus his old family. It's the story about how a man by force of circumstance is challenged to transform his relationships with his grown children from paternal disciplinarian to friend to some tricky balance of the two.</P><P ALIGN=JUSTIFY>On the day after Packy was waked Dave ran the New York Marathon an event that he'd been in training for for over a year. In deference to and in the spirit of his son's sense of adventure and triumph over adversity Dave ran and finished the New York Marathon in 7 hours 12 minutes. That run was for Packy as much as this book is for Packy: both are testaments to Dave's enduring love for his all too human son and his commitment to sharing his story with others -- parents sons and daughters -- so that they too may be inspired as much by Packy's determination to live