Natalie took this photo of tiny Mitch on my shoulders while we were on some adventure deep in the wilds of Wyoming. Every time he sat on my shoulders he would pull my hair with his chubby little hands in the direction he wanted me to go. Mitchie would giggle as I winced and moaned from the pain of pulling my hair. The hurt I felt was a nothing compared to the joy I experienced when he laughed. 

On this day we were playing by a swift but smooth flowing river. Mitch would use his same chubby fingers to scoop up a pile of pebbles and hurl them into the water – sending a cascade of ripples downstream. To Mitch, it was like fireworks in the water. To me, watching my son was fireworks to my heart.

Although Mitch was young, I felt even younger than him. In many ways, I felt like a child raising a child. In those early years, when the realities of being a father settled on my mind and shoulders, I would panic a little on the inside because I felt wholly inadequate and unprepared for such a responsibility. Oh, I loved my wife and kids with all of my heart, but when I went to college, I never learned how to be all of that. I suppose, as with most things in life, we learn by doing.

What I wouldn't do to go back in time and talk to the younger me. I would tell myself:

• You will make mistakes. Just remember you are not your mistakes … but you become what you do with them.
• Relax, you’re okay.
• When you fall, try to fall forward. 
• Read that extra book at bedtime.
• You will never have now again. Cherish … everything.
• Slow down and let tomorrow be. Tomorrow is coming soon enough.

I tried to do all that stuff … but I wasn't always the best at it.

As I reflect on this tender time with Mitch I can’t help but think of that fast moving “wivo” that entranced him so much. Today I can see a different kind of river and it is fascinating to behold. I cannot see where it is going, I can only see backward … leading up to this moment. 

As much as I thought I knew what I was doing in my younger years, I can see that I had no idea. However much I tried to peer into the horizon as a young parent and professional, there were currents in life that were taking me places I wasn't wise enough to pursue on my own. I thank heaven for the currents of life that have gently guided me along my own path. I am grateful for the people I have met whose currents blended with mine, even if only for a season. My life is better because of it.

I have learned to trust the current. Yes, I need to make wise choices while in the river … and there are rapids, undertows, and hazards of all kinds. If I'm not careful I can certainly drown. But I have come to learn I can no more stop the current of life anymore than I can stop Niagara Falls with my bare hands. So, rather than swim against the current or pretending such heavenly currents don’t exist, I am trying to swim where I am supposed to swim. 

One day, I pray the current will take me to that place beyond the hills; where I will stumble from the shore tired and tattered … longing for rest. And on that day I will see my son again and my tears will fill the river to overflowing. Niagara, by comparison, will seem like a dripping faucet.

As much as I yearn to, I cannot see the river ahead. So on my journey, I have learned to trust in my heart as much as my head. Sometimes I’m not sure I'm swimming in the right direction … but this much I do know … I'm learning to trust the current.

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This was Mitch just a few months after his diagnosis. Soon the steroids he began taking to slow the effects of DMD would change the look of his face, but never his soul. He was tender and kind until his last breath. Sometimes when I realize he is gone I lose my breath and struggle to find it again. #mitchellsjourney #babiesmadeofsand

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It was a cold January afternoon when a kind man walked up our steep driveway with a tattered cardboard box in his arms. Inside that box was a tender, shivering puppy for one sick little boy. Mitch was so excited to have a little furry friend to call his own. 

I think on some level Mitch was beginning to feel increasingly lonely because all of his peers were moving far past him. It wasn't that they didn't care about him … to the contrary, his friends loved him. But as they were getting older and physically stronger, Mitch was growing increasingly weak. The world Mitch used to know was beginning to pass him by and he was beginning to feel more and more isolated. He didn't complain about this, but as his father, I knew what was happening. I sensed it as only a parent can.

About a week before my son passed away he lay on the floor in tears saying how much he wished he could do in real life what he was only able to do in video games. He had just played a skateboard game and wanted so much to do those tricks “for real.” My heart broke as I saw my little boy long to be like every other little boy. Life and hardship would take that away from him and that pains my heart.

I don’t know what drove my father-in-law to give little Mitch a puppy, but the timing of that gift was nothing short of miraculous. Two weeks later Mitch would go to the hospital, then be sent home to die. This little puppy was such a comfort to Mitch. I will share more about those tender mercies in future posts, and some are especially tender, but there is no doubt in my mind this little gift was an act of inspired kindness. Heaven’s hand was very much in this gift.

I posted a short video of that sweet exchange here: vimeo.com/58228257

At some point, as Mitch was getting to know his puppy, I turned my camera toward my father-in-law and captured this image. This good man, who bore the scars of age and experience on his face, stood quietly against the wall and seemed to find great joy in the happiness of my son. I love everything about this photo … not that it is a good photo (because it is not) … I love this image because it captured someone in the very act of goodness. This is what goodness looks like. 

I admire the person who thinks less about heaping riches unto themselves and instead looks for ways to love and lift others. I am convinced the key to a rich life isn't found in what we keep, but instead what we give. 

I think there’s a special place in heaven for this good man. When I grow up, I want to be just like this man. For he is good and he has a rich life.

As Thanksgiving nears, I can’t help but be overwhelmed with gratitude. Though I lost my son, a little person and friend most precious to me, I am grateful I had him in the first place. I am grateful for my family, true friends and all of you. I am grateful for goodness.

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Little Mitch was so cute this night. He always loved to take baths … I think in part because he was able to float in the water and that helped him feel a little relief from the relentless tug of gravity. As his muscles grew weaker from DMD, any rest was a good rest. 

I always loved sitting with him, playing with toys on the edge of the tub. Whenever I spent time with Mitch or my other boys, the little boy in me would emerge and we would get lost in imagination. I could care less about a football game or stretching my legs to the news … my world was (and remains) my family. In an instant the bath was no longer a tub, but an ocean with an ever changing landscape of bubbly mountains. The faucet became a mammoth waterfall and the various bottles of shampoo, towers to a soapy fortress. Our adventures were epic and endless.

I'll never forget the sound of my son’s voice pointing to the tender spot around his PICC line saying, “Dad, I wish I didn't have to have this.” He paused a moment, catching his short breath and said, “Well … at least I’m alive.” I smiled softly as my eyes gushed with tears and then ran down my face. I kissed his forehead and quickly excused myself, then slid my back down the hall and wept like a child. 

Little Mitch was just glad to be alive yet I found myself wanting for death because losing him hurt so much. I pleaded that night to my Father; I cried out like a child and wet my pillows with my tears. That night, and endless nights since, I visited the darkest parts of the human soul. 

Those words will haunt me the remainder of my days: “Well, at least I'm alive.” Mitchell’s words were a declaration of gratitude for what little he had, not a complaint about what he didn’t have. If ever I’m tempted to complain or get discouraged, I will remember those fateful words of my son … “At least I'm alive.”

Some might ask why I continue to post stories such as this … stories wrought with profound sorrow and loss. It begs the larger question as to whether revisiting painful moments like this agitates a wound that may otherwise heal if left untouched. But, what does it mean to not touch the wound?

The truth about grief, especially the loss of a child, is you can never not touch the wound. That is a fiction, in Shakespeare’s words, “told by an idiot.” Not a day passes I don't think of little Mitch. Were you to ask any parent who lost a child, no matter how many years have passed, you will most likely hear them say what I just said; that not a day passes they don’t think about their lost child. Not a single day. 

Every day, those who grieve the loss of a child touch the wound. It is normal. It is unavoidable. It is part of healing.

I think the key to processing grief isn't about not touching the wound … pretending it doesn't exist. That’s impossible. Rather, it is how we touch and dress the wound that matters. I can say with confidence, every day I'm healing on the inside. Yes, my heart is still broken and tears flow regularly – but I'm not as broken as I was a year ago and I'm grateful for that. Make no mistake, I'm still broken … broken in ways that are deep and rending and will take a great deal of time to mend. But I'm mending … and guess that’s the point of healing. Progress, however fast or slow, is progress.

At least for me, part of my own grief journey is journaling. I don't write to fixate on sorrow. Instead, I write to process these moments in my own mind and heart and determine what meaning they have for me. With each painful moment I address the pain of my wound, then I dress my wound with meaning and context. That, with Heaven’s help, is how I choose to heal. 

Though the pain of losing a child is so great at times I may wish for death, I seem to always come back to the thing my son figured out at the age of ten, “At least I'm alive.” 

I am alive … and I intend to make the most of it.