As I drove home tonight I stopped by the cemetery to see Mitch. My sweet wife has always been mindful of Mitchell’s flowers and each month arranges something thoughtful and sweet for his vases. I believe that is part of her grief path and I think it is beautiful.
By the time I arrived the sun was already behind the mountain and the sky was getting dark quickly. It was especially warm today and I could almost feel a hint of spring and a promise of warmer days to come. I love each season but there is something hopeful about spring. Soon I’ll be able to sit by my son again and write. I have missed that.
As I stood by my son’s headstone contemplating my life with Mitch, I couldn't help but notice a balloon on each side of his headstone that said “I love you.” Tears filled my eyes as I thought to myself, “More than you know …”
My heart, while broken, has grown.
It was a cold, blustery day in December. A winter storm was in full force and it seemed as if we were inside a freshly-shaken snow globe. Everything was white, soft, pure and beautiful. A thick blanket of snow covered everything and dampened the sound of the world; suddenly noises were less sharp and the harshness of sound seemed a little softer.
We decided to take our kids to the doctor’s office for Natalie’s last check-up before she was to deliver Wyatt. As we sat in the examination room Natalie told the kids to quickly feel her tummy because baby was kicking. Each of my children ran to her, reached up and softly placed their hands on their mommy’s tummy. Tiny Mitch, barely able to reach, also felt Wyatt kick and he said excitedly, “I can feel it! He’s moving!”
As I photographed this moment with my family I had a moment of truth. I marveled that we even had the capacity to create life - and what a life our children are. Each child, each human ever born is so remarkable in their uniqueness, identity and potential. Life is a miracle.
Just recently I listened to a dialog among scientists who were discussing the origins of human consciousness. It is a problem of modern science that confounds even the most learned. Surely in the years ahead science will make discoveries that lend insight, but there will always be matters of the soul, of intuition and spirituality that transcend biology. We cannot expect to understand things of the soul without using the very instruments of the soul. In the same way we cannot see ultraviolet light through binoculars, we cannot see matters of the spirit through the wrong instruments.
Life and the essence of consciousness is not only a miracle it is a mystery deeper than the oceans.
In the very moment I took this photo I was overwhelmed by the miracle of life; the miracle of these little children each of whom I loved so deeply – and yet another was on his way. I realized anew that life is a supernal gift. And though, through my lens, I saw my son who was fatally broken, my heart was filled with gratitude – for they were mine. My little miracles. My little ones. It was then I remembered we are all little ones.
As I work through the grief of losing my precious son I am sometimes tempted to think life is on pause and will begin again after I have grieved. But then I realized, in another moment of truth, that kind of thinking is foolishness. Grief is part of life … no different than love, laughter, fear, doubt, faith, and so many other things. I don’t want to die one day and realize I never really lived … because my mind and heart were sleeping or I had my head in the sand. I have a life, but am I living?
I have discovered that fearlessly being in the moment and learning to accept it – whether terrible or lovely – that is living.
Perhaps one of the great lies we tell ourselves is to believe we are only living when we are happy … as though unbridled joy, at the exclusion of sorrow, were our birthright. To the contrary, our birthright is to become more than we are – and like anything of value it won’t come easily. Personal growth and becoming will take effort, opposition and struggle – precisely why we are here in the first place. Surely happiness is part of life, but living also includes everything else. If we are waiting for bliss we are waiting to live.
Life is a miracle and a gift. Living is, too. I intend on doing both as long as I am able to.
It was bedtime and little Mitch wanted to visit his big sister in her room. Mitch loved Laura-Ashley and she loved him. A tenderer sibling relationship there never was.
My daughter, an honors student, always had a lot of homework to do and the stress of meeting her assignments was ever-present – but this young woman valued love and family above all else. No matter what was on her plate she was always quick to set everything aside in order to give Mitch her mind and heart. In my mind I can still hear the sound of her sweet voice whenever she spoke with him. Her tone with him was as unique and tender as their relationship.
Mitch sat on the edge of her bed and they talked for a while. Soon Mitch yawned and she knew it was time for her little brother to sleep. So, Laura-Ashley hoisted this tired boy on her back and carried him up the stairs, knowing his muscles were too weak to climb them anymore. I was so humbled to see this act of love and service.
I took this photo about two weeks before Mitch went to the hospital. He was dying and we didn't know it.
When I see this photo I can’t help but remember the night I knelt by this very bed and gently woke my daughter to tell her Mitch was gone. We both cried. I hurt for my daughter. I hurt for my son. I hurt.
I wish the death of a child didn't hurt so much. But it does.
Every room in my home reminds me of my son. Without warning a memory will flash through my mind as though I were watching a grainy home film of a moment long gone. For the most part these memories, these echoes of the past, are beautiful and I love them. I can still see Mitch sitting on the end of the couch every morning quietly waiting to give me a hug before I went to work. I miss that. I can see my three boys laughing as they had Nerf wars in the basement. I can see my daughter helping Mitch with homework at the kitchen table - and my wife at her desk helping him with an art project. I can see Mitch everywhere but nowhere.
As a grieving parent, I've discovered euphemisms like “he’s there with you” don’t help. Mitch isn't waiting on the couch for me. It is clear to see the couch is empty. My son is not in his room. His bedroom is profoundly empty. His wheelchair, covered in cloth, remains unmoved. Everything echoes. He is simply not there … not the way he used to be. And for a grieving parent that’s the point: the ones we love are gone from our lives.
As I have contemplated the echoes of emptiness I also recognized the echoes of memory and experience. One echo is hollow and the other is full … and it seems they are not mutually exclusive. At least for me, when it comes to grieving I think the key is to acknowledge both; to hear the emptiness but hear also the echoes of memory and love.
Never have my knees been more bruised – either from falling in sorrow or pleading to God. Though our empty rooms echo hollow, my heart is full of echoes that come from love and life experience.
Yet there are other echoes that come from neither emptiness nor memory. These echoes come from a place before time and mortality. B.H. Roberts once wrote “Faith is putting trust in what the spirit learned eons ago.” That is why certain things ring familiar and true. I have come to understand learning (especially spiritual learning) is but a remembering. Perhaps better said, it is an awakening.
Indeed everything echoes. My home echoes empty without my sweet son. My heart is filled with echoes - memories rich with love and feeling. And if I calm my soul, I can hear echoes from that place beyond the hills. Despite my broken heart, bruised knees and legs on the brink of collapse, I can hear echoes that bring spiritual understanding. I hear an echo that reminds me if I am not my body – neither was my son.
So in this place of echoes, where everything is empty yet full – I know there are echoes yet unheard that are meant to teach my soul.
I am listening.
Last May we took our children to see a movie, something Mitch loved to do. Mitch always wanted to sit by me and I loved how he would cling to me and rest his head on arm during movies. Sweet Mitch had been gone a few months and it felt as if my heart were dragging on the floor 10 feet behind me. As a family we made a conscious decision to actively do things together and find a new normal. In fact, we were desperate to find a new normal … but normal felt a galaxy away and we were still walking on Jupiter, gasping for air. I’m still gasping.
I remember taking Ethan and Wyatt to see Ironman 3 - we were all so excited to see it. There was a point in the movie, under the cover of darkness and loud noise that I quietly wept during the most intense action scene. I wept because I knew how much Mitch wanted to see that movie and I ached that he wasn't with us.
As we left the theater I saw my son Wyatt crossing the road in the same way he did with Mitchell almost exactly a year prior – only this time Wyatt was without his brother. My heart, tender to the touch, was pained and I was overcome with a sober sense time changes things.
Just the other day I was showing my daughter photos of her when she was a wee child. We laughed and smiled as I told her cute stories about her young adventures and darling personality. I love my daughter so very much and I wanted her to know how wonderful I thought she was … how blessed I was to be her father. As we looked through those photos I remembered how simple life was back then. My wife and I were young newlyweds and what seemed mountains to climb at the time were merely moguls today. “Back then” felt like yesterday, but also a world away. My daughter, who was once a cute little girl with grass-stained pants and messy hair was suddenly a beautiful young woman who will be college bound in the blink of an eye.
Once again I was overcome with a sober sense time changes things.
I have always taken photos of my family because I had a deeply personal belief that I’ll never have now again. Even back then I understood, whether through the happenings of life or death, time changes everything.
Today, I am reminded of a profound truism that says “the trouble is you think you have time.” True indeed. Yet, I don’t value time for the fear of losing tomorrow, I value time because I don’t want to lose today. I will never have now again.
Yet, there are moments I am tempted to give up the “now” so I can hobble away in my cave to weep and grieve. Sometimes I must go there – even if only for a moment to purge the pain. But I know the work of grief is the work of a lifetime – and a heavy work it is. The trouble is, I am tempted to think I have time … time to grieve in my cave at the expense of my children today. That I cannot do. That I will not do.
As a grieving father I admit my cave is tempting. What’s more, in the face of deep sorrow, the forest of which Robert Frost spoke is indeed “lovely, dark and deep.” But as he so wisely penned, “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
Indeed I have promises to keep: I have a family to raise and an untold harvest of love to reap.