Summer was over and Mitch was about to start a new year at school. He was nervous for a lot of reasons: would he make new friends? What if he gets lost? Who would help him if he didn’t have the strength to walk anymore? Who would understand that while he looked normal, he had a muscle wasting disease and doesn’t have the strength of healthy children?
I remember being little and having big worries. I would think to myself at a department store, “What if my mom forgets me and never finds me again?” After all, the world was a very big place and I was just getting familiar with my neighborhood – and any place more than a few blocks away felt like a different country. Maybe even a different world. So, as a child, I was worried about being lost and never found. As a father, I see things differently today. Were my child to get lost, I wouldn’t stop searching until I found my precious child. I would sell the clothes on my back, and my very life if required, to save them. But I didn’t know that as a child. My understanding was limited to my life experience – which was crayons, backpacks, and lunchpails.
So when Mitch shared his worries this year, the child in my heart related. I remembered how I felt and I wanted Mitch to know that I cared. Knelt down so I was eye-level with him and said, “Sweet Mitchie, I will never let you get lost. I will always look out for you and never will you be so far that I couldn’t come racing to save you. Okay?” Mitch would nod softly with tears in his eyes. With that, I hugged him and whispered, “I love you, son.”
Little Mitch was still nervous, but he trusted me and he trusted his mother – who is an infinitely better parent than I could ever hope to be. She sets a standard I strive to emulate, however imperfectly.
Mitch and a handful of other children his age waited patiently for the doors to open. When the bell rang, the kids were summoned to the door only to be greeted by Shelly Davis, the school’s principal at the time. When I think of the tender mercies in my son’s life, I have no doubt Shelly is one of them.
She took little Mitch under her wing, along with other children with special needs, and helped them feel loved and important. Under her kind care, Mitchell grew strong in confidence and self-assurance. Though he was quiet and shy, he was growing a little more each day because of the way she treated him. Although she was the school’s administrator – she was its best teacher, too. She needed no chalkboard or textbooks, no podium or megaphone; she taught by example and helped these young children believe in themselves.
I watched this good woman from afar and each day I fell to my knees and thanked Heaven for placing her in my son’s path. She was exactly what Mitch needed at the time – and I’m sure she was exactly what many other children needed, too.
When I think back on my education, never once were the mean teachers, detached or ready-to-snap principals and overbearing school staff a positive influence. To the contrary, they got in the way of the very thing they were there to do. Instead, the ones who shaped me were the ones who saw me in the hall and said hello with a smile. They were the ones who got to know me and saw what little I had to offer the world, yet they recognized my potential and watered my tiny seeds of potential with encouragement. They were the ones that said, “I see you. You matter. You can do this.”
I love and appreciate good educators; the ones who not only teach concepts, they teach people. The ones who teach us how to be good people. Shelly did this for Mitch and countless other children. I know Mitch loved her because she first loved him, and that gave him permission to believe in himself.
Though I am no formal educator, I believe the bedrock of education isn’t books, but belief in self. That will do more for the soul than all the books ever written, standing quietly on a shelf.
As long as I can remember, I have loved fragrances. When I was little, my dad would hold my tiny face with his big hands; hands that always seemed to smell of Old Spice. To this day, 37 years later, that smell carries potent memories of my father ... memories of rainy days, ticks of toast, and those long drives to my dad's dental practice where I was so small, I couldn't see out the window. I just remember seeing telephone poles passing by, blurred by raindrops and thick fog.
Smells take me places far away and to memories long gone. Like invisible keys, they unlock something powerful inside my mind.
Fragrances also took Mitchell's worried mind to places that comforted him.
Tonight, Wyatt was looking through some of my long-lost cologne collection and was as curious about my memories behind them as he was the smells themselves.
I still keep them, not to wear them, but because they are liquid time machines that only I can travel.
"This one I purchased on a hot summer day in Kentucky." I said. "I remember wearing it the next day as I was walking down a long dirt road in the middle of a prairie. The sun was setting, it was humid, and I couldn't see a building for miles. The sound of crickets were loud and beautiful. I don't remember being so hot and miserable in my life, but I loved the smell of that cologne and turned a hard experience into a good memory."
Wyatt then handed me another bottle. "Oh, this one brings back strong memories of a dark winter far north in Canada. I was going to the University of Alberta. It was deep in the middle of a frozen winter, the air was 40 degrees below zero ... so cold, you lost your breath trying to take a breath. It was so cold, I wondered if summer would ever come again. This smell is forever attached to long, dark winters."
Wyatt was swept away with my stories and I could tell by the look in his eyes, he was assembling memories of his own and attaching smells to them. Pretty neat, these little liquid time machines.
Yesterday I found Ethan sitting on the edge of Mitchell's bed playing one of their favorite video games. Mitchell's room remains virtually untouched since the day we lost him. Even the stack of Xbox games Mitch gathered up to keep his worried mind occupied are still there, just the way he left them. I asked Ethan if he was okay and he replied, "Sometimes I like to play in here because it reminds me of him." It was a sweet moment ... not a sad moment, just tender with brotherly love.
It occurred to me through this simple exchange with Ethan, though death may cause our loved ones to leave us, they never really leave our hearts. I wish them being in our hearts were enough to assuage the pangs of grief, but it is not. Though they live in our hearts, at least the memory of them, it is at once beautiful and terrible.
“Dad … can I sit by you?” Mitch said softly. It was mid-January and I was working from home that day. “Sure Mitch! I love it when you’re near me.” I then patted my hand on an extra chair, inviting him to sit with me. Mitch sat down holding his baby puppy close to his chest. Marlie looked at me as she snuggled deep into his arms. Mitch thought himself blessed to have a furry friend like Marlie.
I turned my camera toward Mitch and he just stared into the lens. He didn’t try to posture himself for a photo – he did exactly what I always wanted … absolutely nothing. You see, Mitchie knew I wanted to capture moments unrehearsed … I wanted to capture life, not the imitation of it. So, Mitch gave me the moment.
His almond eyes and soft expression my heart melted. In this same moment he gave me a curious look as if to say, “Dad, something’s wrong.” He didn’t need to say any words – I sensed it, too. Like a cold wind from the north, I felt a brooding sense that we were on the edge of a great and terrible change and my soul began to shiver. At the time, I didn’t know what was about to happen, I just knew something hard was coming. How hard, I knew not. For almost 2 years this feeling was growing. Looking back, I believe heaven warned me and helped me make the most of time I might have otherwise squandered.
As death drew closer, Mitch would begin to ask me deep questions about the purpose of life, death and what happens when we die. At the tender age of 10, an age that he should have been playing with toys, he faced the stuff of philosophers and theologians. He wanted to understand what too many adults often dismiss for cheaper thrills.
In less than 6 weeks from this photo, Mitch would lay on his bed unable to open his eyes or speak as his body was shutting down. It is frightening to think how quickly our worlds can be turned upside down and inside out.
This same puppy who was at first frightened to be away from her mother, received great comfort from Mitch, and would soon return the favor with honor. The night he was slipping away, she would use her nose to lift his hand and nestle under his palm as if she knew he needed to touch her. Though he couldn’t open his beautiful eyes, he could move his fingers slightly. So, there on the side of this sacred bed, I filmed Mitchell’s tender fingers running softly through her baby coat. Eventually, when the end was upon Mitch, this little puppy curled around his head on his pillow. Then, within an hour, my baby boy slipped away.
I am a simple, flawed man and I don’t know much; but I know a few things for sure. One thing I know is, we are not alone. I know it all the way to the marrow of my bones. The moment I first laid eyes on newborn Mitch, my Father warned me with a distinct impression something was wrong. That impression persisted for three years until his diagnosis. Then, almost 2 years before he passed away, my Father returned and began to stir my soul with a great uneasiness. I didn’t know all that He was trying to tell me, I only knew He was preparing me for a spiritual winter. A time where darkness would become my home. Then, as my spiritual eyes began to adjust to the darkness of grief, I began to see little flecks of light … little tender mercies. Though I was in hell, I saw evidence of heaven and a Father who cared.
Yes, my heart is still broken and my soul is weary with grief. I long to find my son so that my mind might find some relief. My soul searches as if he were lost in some great wilderness. But alas, it is not he that is lost, but me. So I journey through the wilderness in search of heaven. I pray for ears to hear and eyes to see. Somewhere, out there, my little son waits for me.