About a month ago a good friend and neighbor of mine thought they lost their elementary-age son. He didn't come home on the bus and was nowhere to be found at school. With each passing hour concern turned to crisis as they put in motion a community search for a sweet child who left no trace. Family, friends and neighbors gathered at their home to help look for their son. My wife and I joined the ranks of those willing to search. Natalie and I were weepy before we drove to their home because we desperately didn't want them to experience the loss of a child. As we knocked on their door, prepared to spend whatever time and effort in search of their precious son, we were relieved to discover they had just found him. Upon hearing the news, while standing in the entrance of their home, I quietly swallowed the swelling lump in my throat.
As I drove home, I lost it. I wept … and I wept.
At first I wept because I was happy my friend found his son. But soon my tears turned toward the loss of my own son, recognizing no mortal search crew could ever find him. Yet there are times in my mind and heart that I frantically want to search for him as though he were lost in a crowd of strangers. Times that panic and sadness course through my blood like battery acid because my son is out of my sight and no longer under my protection. Those moments are almost paralyzing. There was a time in my life that I used to awake from nightmares; always finding relief that the horror show I saw in my mind was only a dream. But after my son passed away, I found just the opposite was true … every morning I awoke into a nightmare. I have since learned that nightmares can be managed.
The other day I found Wyatt in Mitchell’s room talking to him as if he were there. Wyatt had so many things to say; and I just stood in the hallway in silent awe of my youngest son who was doing his best to sort things out. He loved his older brother and just wanted Mitch to know he loved and admired him. Wyatt knows Mitch isn't there in body, but wonders sometimes if his big brother is somewhere near him in spirit. I believe, on rare occasions, such communions can take place. But it is my experience those opportunities are rare and happen for a specific purpose. Most of the time, of necessity, we must walk through life with the dim flashlight of faith. For reasons of our own spiritual growth, that is how it must be.
As I entered Mitchell’s room I could tell that Wyatt wanted to talk. So I kissed his forehead softly and sat next to him as we started to talk about his brother. We both laughed. We both cried. Together we shared our favorite memories and how much we loved and missed Mitchie. And while our hearts were hurting, they were also healing.
I have lost my son … and in that loss I have found unexpected things: I have found a deeper love for my wife, Mitch and my other children. I have also found a renewed appreciation for life and my faith. And while I am strongly buffeted by moments of panic, horror and sadness because my son is gone, I know he is not.
My task, between now and the day I am laid to rest, is to not get lost in the thick of thin things … but to do what matters most. Always.
The sunset was so beautiful tonight. I kept telling myself "if only Mitch could see what I see" ... then, in a moment of quiet refrain, something whispered Mitch would say the same to me.
#mitchellsjourney — at Herriman City Cemetery.
http://360.io/43mQRj
With each visit to the hospital, we became progressively more nervous. The news was never good, and always worse.
I made it a priority to go with Mitch to these doctor’s visits. I knew what was at stake and no business agenda was more important than supporting my little boy and my aching wife. I never wanted him to turn his head and find an empty chair next to him, where his father should have been when he needed a shoulder to lean on. I never wanted him to feel alone.
This was the day we learned Mitchell was in serious trouble. He didn't know it. He felt normal. And until his last month, Mitchell was never sick – which surprised his cardiologist, because he should have been profoundly ill. For this we were grateful and counted it among the many tender mercies we've received along this difficult journey.
After his ECHO we sat in an examination room waiting for the results. As I was fussing with my camera bag I noticed out of the corner of my eye, through the reflection of a mirror, little Mitch and his Mom playing catch. He giggled as they tossed a stuffed parrot back and forth. He loved parrots and he loved playing catch so this was a double-win for him. Natalie could have given him a digital pacifier (like an iPod) and she could have disappeared into a magazine or Pinterest as a means of escaping. Instead, she gave him all the love and attention she had – no matter how exhausted she might have been. It’s been said that the greatest act of sincerity is to give someone 100% of your attention. My sweet wife has always given our children 100% of her mind and heart.
To Mitch, little things were big things. A simple hug, a squeeze of the hand, a warm facial expression – everything meant so much to him.
Last summer my daughter quietly followed Mitch as he walked into his room only to discover a hand written note I put on his bed that read “Hi Mitch, I just wanted you to know that I think you are awesome and I love being your dad”. Peering down the hall under the cover of shadows, she quietly saw Mitch sit on the edge of the bed, read the note as his eyes filled with tears. He sat there for a bit, visibly touched and crying, wiping his eyes and then carefully placing my note in his night stand next to other things he treasured. I had long forgotten that I even gave him a note that day and had no idea it would touch him like that. It was a simple note … not very profound and my only hope was to give him a momentary, invisible hug while I was at work. But for Mitchell, it was more than that.
My daughter told me about this a few months ago and upon hearing this story I began to cry. It is a strange thing to have your heart break and swell at the same time.
Jupiter, it seems, is a place of paradox.
When I look back upon our life with Mitch and my other children, it was never the big trips that carry the sweetest memories. Often it was the impromptu campouts, the conversations on the grass, playing board games around the kitchen table and throwing a Frisbee at the park at dusk. It was playing “I Spy” in the car on the way to grandmas or trying to catch frogs with a butterfly net and screaming when they jumped out. It was playing catch with a stuffed parrot in the hospital.
These are little moments that are so easy to pass by. But they are the moments that carry the biggest memories. At least for me, these moments often came at the expense of convenience.
Earth, too, has its share of paradoxes: little things being big things are one of them. And the little things ... the invisible things … often make or break us.
I believe one day, when we've all passed on … when the fog is lifted from our spiritual eyes … we will look back on this life and wonder why we put so much energy into the things that are of least importance. I believe we’ll see with great clarity … that big things (by the world’s standards) were in fact the smallest of things … and the little things were the biggest.
This little moment between Mitch and his mom was then, and remains today, enormous. Within 4 months of this photo being taken our sweet little boy would pass away. We had no idea how precious time was. We are glad between this moment and his last he had many, many little moments that were big moments. Moments money cannot buy. Moments we will never forget.
I am deeply grateful for the little things.
A few weeks ago I walked by Mitchell’s room and noticed through the half-opened door his mother sitting on his bed with a look of sorrow and a longing for her little boy. 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 sat 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 very 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 … the 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 come to learn 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 that 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 seem 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, it's 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 mankind’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.