Thanks for helping us through a tough time

Sometimes, you live in a town for years and suddenly circumstances bring you into close contact with people you might never have met and come to appreciate otherwise.

We have experienced this over the past couple of weeks following the loss of our foster son, Jeremy Hamberg.

We want to offer a public thank you to Bart Casey, Doug Darling, Jim Sherrill and Audrey Oster of Lakeview Funeral Home. They tenderly cared for J. J, and compassionately guided us through one of the most difficult experiences we have ever had to face.

Thank you to everyone who attended J.J.'s service. It was inspiring to see how many lives he had touched in Sandpoint. J.J.'s service was a beautiful, moving tribute and a great comfort to all. Thank you to Pastor Nate Warren for his prayers and words of comfort.

Our eternal gratitude goes to Keith Kinnaird, the fine journalist with the Bonner County Daily Bee, for setting the record straight about who J.J. really was and affording him the first taste of real justice and fairness he has experienced in quite a while. He was part vulnerable child, part emerging young man — loveable and fun, sometimes exasperating but always honest and open. He spent his life searching for the security, love, acceptance, and permanance that escaped him in infancy and childhood (which no amount of love received later in life could ever replace) and running from the pain and fear which were the inescapable legacy of the horrifying abuse he endured as a child.

Keith Kinnaird's article was a true and fitting epitaph to J. J., the boy we loved.

JULIE and MARV REINBOLD

Sandpoint