Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [118]
There was no way that Lori was going to come down to the mortuary, so I had to go and identify him on my own. Whatever physical damage he had suffered in the fall, by the time I saw him they had restored his body to some normality. As I looked at his beautiful face in repose, I remember thinking, “This isn’t my son. It looks a bit like him, but he’s gone.” I went to see him again at the funeral home, to say good-bye to him, and to apologize for not being a better father. A few days later, accompanied by various friends and family, Lori and I flew back to England with the coffin. We went back to Hurtwood, where the Italians all wailed, openly expressing their grief, while I remained quite detached, in a permanent daze.
Conor’s funeral took place at St. Mary Magdalen’s Church in Ripley on a cold, bleak March day shortly before my forty-sixth birthday. All the Ripleyites came and it was a very lovely service, but I was speechless. I looked up at his coffin, and I just couldn’t talk. We laid him to rest in a plot right next to the wall of the church, and as his coffin was lowered into the ground, his Italian grandmother became completely hysterical and tried to throw herself into the grave. I remember feeling a bit shocked by this, as I’m not very good at outward emotion. I just don’t grieve that way. When we came out of the churchyard, we were faced with a wall of reporters and photographers, about fifty of them. The curious thing is that while a lot of other people were very upset and insulted because they considered this to be a lack of respect, it didn’t impinge on my own grief in any way. I just didn’t care. All I wanted was for it all to be over.
After the funeral, when Lori’s family had all gone home and Hurtwood was quiet and it was just me alone with my thoughts, I found a letter from Conor that he had written for me from Milan, telling me how much he missed me and was looking forward to seeing me in New York. He had written “I love you.” Heartbreaking though it was, I looked upon it as a positive thing. There were thousands of letters of condolence for me to read, written from all over the world, from friends, from strangers, from people like the Kennedys and Prince Charles. I was amazed. One of the first I opened was from Keith Richards. It just said, “If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.” I’ll always be grateful for that.
I cannot deny that there was a moment when I did lose faith, and what saved my life was the unconditional love and understanding that I received from my friends and my fellows in the twelve-step program. I would go to a meeting and people would just quietly gather round and keep me company, buy me coffee, and let me talk about what had happened. I was asked to chair some meetings, and at one of these sessions, when I was doing a chair on the third step, which is about handing your will over to the care of God, I recounted the story of how, during my last stay in Hazelden, I had fallen upon my knees and asked for help to stay sober. I told the meeting that the compulsion was taken away at that moment, and as far as I was concerned, this was physical evidence that my prayers had been answered. Having had that experience, I said, I knew I could get through this.
A woman came up to me after the meeting and said, “You’ve just taken away my last excuse to have a drink.” I asked her what she meant. She said, “I’ve always had this little corner of my mind which held the excuse that, if anything were to