EVERYTHING WE KEEP
On his final day, Mitch slipped into a state of near unconsciousness. His body was motionless, his breathing soft as a feather and pillow stained with a feverish sweat; by stark contrast, the only sign of life was his heart pounding violently through his ribcage. Natalie placed her hand softly on his chest to comfort him. Occasionally, we’d get a soft hand squeeze from Mitch that signaled he could hear us. But Mitch was slipping through our fingers like a baby made of sand.
Although our hospice nurse told us what to expect over the next several hours, we discovered there is never any real way to prepare for the death of your child. Until that fateful moment, it’s all an abstraction. The deeper truth is there’s never a single moment you confront the totality of death. Instead, grief visits you each day as you learn to cope with layers of sorrow for years and years … and years.
My heart broke for my sweet son, surrounded by all his boyhood treasures. The bitter irony was Mitch looked to his future with youthful enthusiasm; what he thought was a beautiful sunrise on the horizon of his life was, in reality, a darkening sunset.
As his parents, we knew time was running out … we saw the sunset but didn’t want to frighten our son. So, we just held him and loved him the best we knew how and kept that terrible reality from his tender mind as long as we could.
This image was the moment I realized the sun in Mitchell’s life had disappeared behind the mountains – never to rise again.
Medicine failed us. Hospital bureaucracy and antiquated transplant policies failed us. We hoped and prayed something might slow the destruction of his heart from DMD – but such was not the case. Last-minute interventions were too little, too late.
I suppose there are a million and one reasons I could be angry with people, medical systems, and God (or the Universe) for all that’s happened. But I am not. I am only grateful. I am grateful for what I did have, for I had a chance to love my little child for 10 incredible years. He became my friend, and I became his student. Though I was his father, he taught me more than I ever hoped to teach him.
On my son’s journey through life and death, there were many times I cried out in my mind and heart, “Oh, this hurts. God, where are you?” After my son passed away, my world darkened by a veil of grief and sorrow – such that I wondered if the night would ever end. I had never known a darkness so pitch, a grief so heavy. Behind my smile was a broken, weary soul stumbling over pebbles. My eyes, scared with tears.
Years later, I can say with confidence there is light on the other side of all that darkness. That’s not to say I am over grief - because I’m not. Some days are as dark with sorrow as any day I’ve ever known. Grief is a chronic condition that I’m learning to live with. Yet, I’ve learned to carry grief in ways that won’t injure other parts of me – and for that, I’m grateful.
The question I hear over and over from others is, “Why?” I’m not sure it’s possible to know why we experience what we do. If you’re a person of faith, whether we settle the question ‘Is God the author of our suffering?’ or not is immaterial. If our suffering is caused by other means … whether from our own poor judgment or the harmful choices of others or perhaps our suffering is simply a result of life in motion … the fact of the matter is God could stop our suffering if He wanted to. That He doesn’t sends the most important message of all.
Despite my heavenward pleas to spare my son, a little boy I loved with all my heart, I now find myself on the other side of death. What I do next with my harsh reality matters. I can shake my fist at the heavens or universe in anger – but that won’t change heaven or the universe. Not in the slightest. That kind of rage will only change me … and probably for the worse.
Instead, I’ve learned to take a knee and search for understanding and wisdom.
The trouble with suffering is we exhaust too much time and energy asking the one question that can’t be answered. Rather than wondering, “why me?” I learned I was better served by remembering, “What am I to learn from this?”
I believe life is meant to be hard because the evidence is all around us. I also believe that suffering can strengthen us in ways we cannot imagine in times of comfort and ease. The key for me was to transform my torment into my teacher. That transformation didn’t lighten my sorrows – it only gave it context, meaning, and purpose.
Losing my little boy reminded me that we do not take our earthly treasures to that place beyond the hills. We only take who we are and what we’ve become. That’s everything we keep when all is said and done.