LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION
It is my honor and privilege to write this letter of recommendation for LWR. I have had the pleasure of knowing him for 32 years and in that time have formed the highest opinion of him. In my decades of working with thousands of young people, I must say that LWR ranks in the top 1% in terms of courage, integrity, and strength of character.
The words that first spring to mind when I think of LWR are honesty, compassion, intelligence, humor, creativity, insight, depth, wisdom, valor and fortitude.
LWR was a beautiful child. – pure of heart, kind and gentle, loving and good. He excelled in art and athletics, writing and math. His teachers praised him and one wrote, “His intelligence is rivaled only by his compassion.” He loved people and animals, Nature and Life.
By the time he was 20, a series of almost bizarre misfortunes had befallen him, bringing more than his fair share of disappointment to one so young. Conflicts raged within and without. But he held on.
At 25 he found the courage to pack up and leave a detrimental environment and move across the country. In the fresh, clean mountains of Salt Lake City, he joined a buddy, a childhood friend he’d grown up with. They became roommates forging a better life.
All was moving forward until LWR walked upstairs one winter’s morning and found his good friend dead. He was 27 years old.
What followed may have been the worst year of his life. Feelings of personal guilt - classic in cases of traumatic deaths – plagued and pummeled him, plunging him into a black and terrible place.
Friends and family urged therapy and medication and wrung their hands when he resisted. But somehow he found his own way back. Through will power and discipline - through deliberate care of body, mind, and spirit - he found his own way though the darkness.
He might be the strongest person I know.
I recommend LWR without exception for anything and everything.
He is a hero to me.
I am proud to call him my son.
It is my honor and privilege to write this letter of recommendation for LWR. I have had the pleasure of knowing him for 32 years and in that time have formed the highest opinion of him. In my decades of working with thousands of young people, I must say that LWR ranks in the top 1% in terms of courage, integrity, and strength of character.
The words that first spring to mind when I think of LWR are honesty, compassion, intelligence, humor, creativity, insight, depth, wisdom, valor and fortitude.
LWR was a beautiful child. – pure of heart, kind and gentle, loving and good. He excelled in art and athletics, writing and math. His teachers praised him and one wrote, “His intelligence is rivaled only by his compassion.” He loved people and animals, Nature and Life.
By the time he was 20, a series of almost bizarre misfortunes had befallen him, bringing more than his fair share of disappointment to one so young. Conflicts raged within and without. But he held on.
At 25 he found the courage to pack up and leave a detrimental environment and move across the country. In the fresh, clean mountains of Salt Lake City, he joined a buddy, a childhood friend he’d grown up with. They became roommates forging a better life.
All was moving forward until LWR walked upstairs one winter’s morning and found his good friend dead. He was 27 years old.
What followed may have been the worst year of his life. Feelings of personal guilt - classic in cases of traumatic deaths – plagued and pummeled him, plunging him into a black and terrible place.
Friends and family urged therapy and medication and wrung their hands when he resisted. But somehow he found his own way back. Through will power and discipline - through deliberate care of body, mind, and spirit - he found his own way though the darkness.
He might be the strongest person I know.
I recommend LWR without exception for anything and everything.
He is a hero to me.
I am proud to call him my son.