May 11, 2009

Our Story

 

 

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Ricardo and family in Rio

 

It was the phone call that every parent dreads, piercing our sleep at two in the morning. Our son, Ricardo, in his sophomore at Quinnipiac University, had been hurt. It was bad…we’d better come right away.

The news slapped us awake, and Claudio and I swiftly pulled on our clothes. Fear kept us silent during the drive to Yale-New Haven hospital, silent and stiff and trapped in a misery of confusion and doubt.

We knew, of course, as soon as we saw the doctor’s face. As doctors ourselves, we recognized the look…we just never thought we’d have to see it. They’d done everything they could, but our son was gone.

Our bright, dynamic Ricardo–the guy who could light up a room with his smile–our twenty-year-old son, had been taken from us.

I really don’t know how I survived those first few weeks without him. Life ceased to be meaningful, and I felt like I was looking at myself through thick glass. This couldn’t be me, carrying such grief. This couldn’t be me, burying my child.

Like so many people, I had had a spiritual practice during my twenties, but it had eroded as my responsibilities and commitments had grown. But during the time after Ricardo’s passing, Claudio and I re-devoted ourselves to the study and practice of the Spiritist Doctrine. We were helped by our cousin Rosemary and her husband Roberto, who were clairvoyants. Although they had only met Ricardo once, they received two messages from him–and even saw him standing next to us at the wake. That revelation changed our experience from one of indescribable pain to one of hope–and gave us the understanding that we live on forever, despite being in different realms of existence.

On July 2nd 2006, 9 months after Ricardo’s passing, we received our first message from him. It was written through Claudio, but it was so clearly Ricardo’s voice and experience there on the page. We rejoiced and cried, and knew that we had received a gift from God, something to cherish and be grateful for.

It took a while for us to grasp the meaning of what we were living. As more messages came, Ricardo told us about his experiences after passing to the ‘other side,’ and what it was like to live in spirit. He comforted us with messages of great love, and assured us that our behaviors, and way of dealing with his death, helped him to be at peace and adapt to his new vibratory level.

Eternal Bonds of Love is Rico’s book, his own experience of passing from this realm in to another. As his parents, we were honored to receive it. And to those that have lost a loved one we can only say: there is no death, no end, only rebirth in a different dimension. And opportunities for ‘those that have ears to hear’ and ‘eyes to see,’ to relate to their beloved departed, in the here and now, are everywhere.

Silvia Knoploch

 

 

 

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Your Authors

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Ricardo, age 20

 

RICARDO KNOPLOCH PETRILLO was born in 1985. At the time of his passing in 2005 he was a sophomore at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. He was a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. He enjoyed music, singing, acting, sports, cooking and politics. He inspired his father to write his first book “Eternal Bonds of Love”, which was published in 2008.

CLAUDIO R. PETRILLO, MD has been a practicing physician for 35 years. He is the Chairman of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut. He has never written a book either professionally or privately before receiving the writings from his son.

SILVIA KNOPLOCH, MD has been a practicing physician for 24 years. She is a Senior Attending Physician in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut.