Mitchell was not okay.  Sweet Natalie helped him drink from a straw as my sister held his body steady.  I took this photo on March 1, 2013, at 1:42 PM.  A few hours would pass before he ate his last meal and then slipped into a sleep from which he’d never wake.  By midnight, he was gone.

Just a few days prior, Mitch said in a slurry voice while lying in his bed, “I don’t think I can survive.”  He closed his eyes and we thought he was sleeping – unaware he could still hear us crying quietly at the side of his bed.  A few minutes later, Mitch trying to comfort his mother said, “It’s okay Mom.”

Last night marked the 10-year anniversary of my sweet child’s passing.  Ten years of grief.  Ten years of gratitude.  Ten years of growth.  Ten years of heaven and hell.

Something remarkable happened in his room that night.  As Mitchell’s body started to shut down, the muscles in his face began to relax in a way I’d never seen before.  Near the end, his face was almost unrecognizable.  His rib cage began to bulge – as though his heart had enlarged, and his body looked deformed.  Little Marlie, his puppy of only a few weeks, curled under his hand as if to comfort him.  I have a sequence of photos that show Mitch softly moving his fingers through her fur.  He couldn’t open his eyes anymore, but he would softly squeeze our hands when we spoke to him.

It broke my heart.  I struggled to find meaning in the moment as darkness surrounded me.  By this time, I’d been crying for days and my lungs were so very sore – it felt as if I had the flu.

As each hour passed, little Mitch inched closer to death and the spirit of his room began to transform into something that felt like a busy train station.  I felt the presence of others I could not see.  They provided no comfort to my weary soul – I only sensed a gathering.  Later that night, several different people came to our door and dropped gifts off for Mitch – unaware he was actively dying.  They send me text messages to let me know they’d dropped something off - and each, in their own way, commented on how they felt.  One of them said, “I don’t know what’s going on in there, but I felt like I was walking through a crowd of angels.”

I don’t pretend to know what happens in that place beyond the hills.  Any more, I have more questions than answers.  But I’ve also had experiences that I cannot question – only wonder in awe that there is more to our existence than meets our mortal eyes.

Since my little boy died, a large part of me has died also.  And I’m glad of it.  In the last 10 years, I’ve learned that we must die a hundred times during our life – if we’re to truly be alive.  I know so many good souls who go about their days checking boxes, living vein routines that seem more like ruts, going about their lives like zombies, yet thinking they’re alive.  Sometimes it’s easy to confuse existing for living.

“If writing was my therapy, curiosity was my therapist. Curiosity taught me to ask better questions – questions that sought to understand the meaning of my experiences and see connections between them. ”

— Chris Jones

Grief, which is trauma in slow motion, transforms us for better or worse.  Some point to their trauma as an excuse to be hateful, disloyal, or stuck in a lesser life.  Others find ways to use that hardship as if to polish the gemstones of their soul.

Early in my grief journey, I learned to surrender to grief moments, not fight them.  I didn’t just surrender to grief moments; I made time and space for them, often when writing.  Each time I grieved, a part of me died, and a new part of me came alive.

If writing was my therapy, curiosity was my therapist.  Curiosity taught me to ask better questions – questions that sought to understand the meaning of my experiences and see connections between them.

For years, wave after wave of sorrow came crashing down, thrashing my soul.  Sometimes it was hard to breathe. But I surrendered my mind and heart to the ebb and flow of the emotional tide.  Each time, I’d find my way to the shore.  Sometimes, I’d find others drowning in grief and I’d tug them back to shore, too.

10 years have passed.  Every so often, the realization my son is gone hits me.  It’s not like I forget.  I think about Mitch every day.  But knowing something has happened and feeling its consequence are entirely different experiences.  When that realization hits me, when it brings me to my knees, I do my best to surrender to all the feelings.  Rumi taught, “The cure to pain is in the pain.”  I have experienced the wisdom of his words.

Grief is so much more than being sad.  I’m not even sure it’s an emotion; I know it feels like it, but I sense it’s much more than that.  As far as I can tell, grief seems to be a spiritual and mental struggle to adjust to absence.  We don’t grieve for things we have – we grieve for what we lost.

Today, my heart grieves for Mitch.  Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before: “Do not cry, I’m in the other room” or “Life is but a blink in the eternal scheme.”  Those platitudes are hardly useful to those who grieve.  The last time I checked, life is the longest thing I know in mortality.  If you want to help those who hurt, don’t talk to them about blinks and eternalness.  Instead, honor their suffering by mourning with those who mourn, in the present moment.  Hold space for their brokenness as they squint through tears to find their broken pieces and put themselves back together again.  The battle of grief is difficult enough – and is made more complicated when those close to us don’t honor the pain that is present.  Recognize the sacredness of suffering – and you may discover something special about your loved ones and about yourself.

So much has changed since I lost my boy.  The truth is, I’m more joyful than I’ve ever been.  I see further than ever before.  The pain that carved caverns in my soul has made space for a kind of joy and aliveness I never imagined – not even in my sweetest dreams. 

Today, I sit in the contrast of grief and gratitude as I celebrate my little boy.  My deepest teacher.

THE TRUTH ABOUT TRAUMA

When the funeral home employees rolled my son out our front door, I nearly collapsed with grief.  This was the same door my son stood gleefully by on Halloween to hand candy to children.  He was a giver of the sweetest sort – and he found more joy in giving candy to kids than getting candy for himself.  This was the door Mitchell’s best friend would knock and ask to play.  This was the door our hospice nurse told us Mitch was about to die … and in that same moment, heaven-sent an angel to bear up our broken hearts.

When I first became a father, I wasn’t prepared to be a parent.  Who is, really?  I quickly discovered that when you have a child, your life changes.  Forever.  It doesn’t simply change because you’re responsible for the well-being of a baby; it changes because your soul multiplies.  Once someone has a child, they stop belonging to themselves.  It’s as if part of our soul is cloned, and whatever happens to our child may as well happen to us.  We’re pained when they hurt, overjoyed when they’re happy, and when they die … our very souls shatter.  Though we may put our pieces back together, eventually, we’re never the same.

I was terrified of this moment.  I knew this time was near, so I tried to put it out of my mind and live in fragile moments that remained.  We didn’t know if we had five minutes,  five hours, or five days with our son, we just knew that he was on the thinnest of ice and it was about to break.

Suddenly, in a blink, I found myself watching two strangers roll my sweet son into the bitter winter’s air.  I was mortified.  Incredulous.  I was just talking to Mitch the day before, and he was very much alive … so sweet, tender, and innocent.  As they loaded my boy into the back of the vehicle and drove away, panic shot through my body, tears rolled down my cheeks, and began to freeze.  I physically gasped for air as though I was watching my child in the act of being kidnapped. 

As they drove away, every part of me wanted to run down the street and stop them.  I wanted to say, “Please, let me get in the back with my boy.  He must be so scared, cold, and lonely.  I need to comfort him during this difficult time.”

I cannot conjure the words to describe the trauma I experienced at this moment – and the subsequent traumas of grief I felt a million times thereafter.  I wept so hard that morning I threw up. Then, I wept even harder, and I thought I broke a rib.  Although the sun was rising, the long night of grief was only just beginning.  Over the next few years, I learned some painful truths about grief.  I learned some truths about trauma.

You learn to live with fear.

Grief and fear feel identical in many respects.  C.S. Lewis said it best, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”  Looking back on the early years of my grief journey, I was living in a deep, emotionally traumatic state that felt like fear.  And when the night came, I felt feelings of terror.  Every. Single. Day.

Deep grief is prolonged trauma.

If ever you get impatient, wondering when your friend or family member who grieves will get over their sorrow, if you’re ever tempted to think it’s time for them to move on, remember that grief is trauma in slow motion.  Everyone on this planet would do well to remember Shakespeare’s observation, “Everyone can master a grief, but he that has it.”

Others will move on, but you will not.

Another brutal truth about trauma is that for spectators of sorrow, empathy has a comparatively short shelf-life.  Others will move on, as they should.  But you will not.  At least not for a very long time. 

 Perhaps the best counsel to those who suffer is this: don’t expect others to understand your sorrow or to linger as long as your sorrow will.  They cannot – for after all is said and done, the journey of grief is traveled by one. 

To the spectators of sorrow, don’t expect the one who suffers to move on at your leisure or burden-free pace.  Remember that it is they who carry the weight of sorrow – a weight you cannot imagine, not even in your nightmares.  If you’re to serve them, you can lift their weary hearts with words of compassion.  I’ve found that saying, “I’m sorry that you hurt.  I care,” is enough, and more.

It Gets Worse, Sometimes Much Worse, Before It Gets Better

I’ve said this often: death is the easy part; it’s the aftermath that’s hardest.  So, when you see someone who's lost someone – know that they’ll need your love, compassion, and empathy gently at the funeral and the months to come – but more profoundly in the lonely years that follow. 

 I’ll repeat the last part: they’ll need your love more profoundly in the lonely years that follow.

Time & Healing

When it comes to the trauma of grief, time doesn’t heal.  Instead, time creates space for us to heal if we tend to our wounds with care.  I think of trauma like the adrenaline one might feel just after a ride on a terrifying rollercoaster.  It takes time for fear to leave your body.  The first 15 minutes we feel the trauma course through our veins – but over time, we go back to our regular state of serenity.  The mistake we sometimes make is thinking the death of a loved is the rollercoaster.  It is not.  It is only the beginning.  The rollercoaster of trauma comes from feelings of self-doubt, regret, endless what-ifs, and longing to see our loved ones again.  That trauma is a ride that takes many, many years to fade away.  

Trauma Shatters You

Trauma doesn’t just break a part of you; it shatters many parts of you.  Sometimes all of you.  Yet, somehow, some way, we gather our broken pieces and slowly reassemble ourselves. Depending on the nature of loss, it can take many, many years.  We are never the same person on the other side of trauma – instead, we become a mosaic of our former selves.  Sometimes jagged and fragile as our pieces begin to set into their new arrangement.  But always, we emerge a new kind of beautiful.   

The truth about trauma is that until we experience it first-hand, it isn’t just harder than we imagine; it’s harder than we can imagine.  Yet, another hopeful truth about trauma is that it lessens over time – how fast and how much is determined by a multitude of factors, most of which are under our control. 

At first, I wondered if the sun would ever rise and that I might live out my days in the dark shadow of grief.  There was a time I used to look at this photo and weep.  Today, I look at this moment and say reverently, “I remember you, son.  And I will spend the rest of my life trying to honor yours.” 

A few weeks ago, I walked by Mitchell's room and noticed through the half-opened door his mother sitting on his bed, arms empty. Her heart, even emptier. She had a pain in her countenance only a mother who lost a child could know. As I quietly walked toward the door, my eyes blurred, and I stumbled over my heart as it fell to the floor.  

Without making a noise, I took this photo with my iPhone and disappeared into the shadows so she could have her moment uninterrupted. My wife, on his bed, deeply contemplative – stripped of a tender child she loved with all her soul. 

I could only imagine what thoughts were crossing her mind as she sat in the very place we tucked him in at night, where we gave him hugs and kisses, had long conversations, and played video games. 

This was the very place we held our son's hand weeping that we couldn't save him from death and telling him we were so sorry; the place he said "it's okay, mommy." This was the place our precious son passed away in the deep freeze of a winter night while his faithful puppy had curled around his head as if to comfort him.

I'll never forget that night Mitchell passed away. I can still see her kneeling on the edge of his bed as she draped over him, sobbing, hugging him, holding his lifeless hand … wishing he wasn't gone. That was the day my wife and I left earth and took up residence in an unfamiliar place. That was the day our world changed.

There are days ... sometimes agonizing moments … the gravity of grief is so great it feels like I'm walking on Jupiter. It's a place where your chest feels so heavy even breathing is difficult. I have learned that once you lose a child, you leave earth's gravity forever. 

You may visit earth from time to time, but Jupiter is where your heart is. And from what I can tell, we will live the remainder of our lives in the gravity well of grief.  

There are many well-meaning people as if to throw an emotional lifeline, who try to remind us life is but a "speck" in the eternal scheme of things. Or they're sorry for our "temporary loss" as if the wave of a hand and a simple utterance will assuage our sorrow. And while I understand the eternal nature of the soul – being mortal, life is the longest thing I know. The years ahead seem to stretch out into infinity and feel so very long without my son.

I miss him terribly.

 Jupiter, with its crushing gravity, is home. At least for now.

Author Bill Bryson said his book A Short History of Nearly Everything that the universe is not only larger than we imagine, but it's also larger than we *can* imagine. When I read his words, that very notion blew my mind. To consider that the universe is so big that we don't have the capacity to comprehend it … it gave me shivers. Bill Bryson's comment reminded me of a passage in Isaiah where God said, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways …. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."  

While walking on Jupiter, I have learned that to have a knowledge of God (even a relationship with Him) doesn't protect us from pain and sorrow - but it can give meaning to pain and suffering.  

One day my heart will leave Jupiter for a better place. Between now and then, the gravity of grief is a necessary crucible of growth. After all, it isn't our bodies that need to grow, but our souls.

And as I gaze into the night sky and contemplate the sheer immensity of space and humankind's utter nothingness in the context of the universe – I feel a whisper in my soul that we are the reason all of that was created in the first place.  

 ---

At the request of Mitchell's Journey readers, this is a repost from the original 2013 story.

Some moments in life burn an image into your mind with permanent ink – and some experiences are so hard to bear they change the shape of your soul. This was one such moment that broke and reshaped me in ways I'm still learning to understand.

My dear wife was dressing Mitch at the funeral home. Our mothers and oldest sisters were with us, each of whom played a unique and sacred role in Mitchell's life, and we wanted them to participate. Also, we were afraid of doing this alone.

Our once-little-baby had grown into a beautiful, funny, thoughtful, intelligent, and caring young boy. Yet, there he was, lying quietly on a table – motionless and frighteningly cold to the touch. My sweet wife, along with these other good women, reverently dressed Mitch in preparation for his funeral - where we would honor the good little boy that he was.

Natalie was doing okay until she got to the last button. Then, grief washed over her like a title wave, thrashing her about on the inside. This was the last button she would ever fasten for our son – and that broke her heart into infinite pieces of pain. I shattered, too.

I was a wreck that day. In fact, I was a wreck on the inside for many months afterward. Years actually, to learn how to put my broken pieces back together again. Even still, I carry a father's grief, and it is a terrible burden. Yet as much as I hurt on the inside, I know my wife hurts in ways I cannot imagine - for I am a simple man. She carried him, gave birth to him, and made sacrifices in ways only a mother can - and with that pain and sacrifice comes a unique fingerprint of love. A depth that is only earned by a mother's service and surrender. So, I consider her grief hallowed ground. I silence my own tears so that I might wipe hers and scoop up her shattered pieces for safekeeping. And when I can, I try to gather mine.

All too often, I hear people suggest "there is nothing like a mother's love" – in a manner that subordinates or dismisses the love of a father. In like manner, I hear less often the same of a father's love as being more than anything else. It's almost as if people claim one love is greater than the other. Nothing could be further yet closer to the truth at the same time. They are correct in saying there is nothing like a mother's love; in the same way, there is nothing like a father's love. Both are different; both are beautiful and uniquely sacred. But to suggest one is more significant or weightier than another ignores one immutable truth ... a mother and father are both parents and hurt deeply for the one they loved and lost. Maddeningly, some people are so focused on comparing grief they forget to simply honor it.

So, when I look at this photo, I set aside my sorrows and reverenced my wife's. I realized at this moment Natalie's pain was as unique to her as her relationship was with Mitch. Her love was beautiful, vast, and deep. Her grief was then and remains today hallowed ground.

I'll never forget this sacred, agonizing moment; under a canopy of soft light and even softer whispers, we were trembling at the last button.

It seems the hardest things in life are always the last thing: the final lap around the track – when your legs are about to collapse; the last conversation you will ever have with a loved one before they die; or just looking back on a squandered moment realizing, in retrospect, that was our last and wishing we were different.

Neal Maxwell, a man whose intellectual and spiritual insight I've long admired, once wrote, "We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count." I love that statement because it reminds me of the importance of putting our blessings to good use - otherwise, we are throwing our gifts away.

I've discovered that some of our most profound blessings are sometimes camouflaged in tragedy, pain, and despair – and they can remain forever hidden if we don't seek after them. And when we find that hidden treasure, we discover our torment has become our teacher.

This image, burned in my mind and heart, reminds me suffering is sacred.

Among the many blessings I've received in life, Mitch ranks among my sweetest and most sacred. To this day, when I button my own shirt, I remember Mitchell's last button. Sometimes I cry. But every single time, I vow to lift heavy hands and hearts and help soften the blow for others who face their last.

#mitchellsjourney #babiesmadeofsand