Our skin burned as if from a roaring campfire. The summer sun was about to fall behind the Oquirrh Mountains and offer some relief from the heat. Little Mitch scurried about on his plastic big wheel, wearing his favorite Hulk Smash t-shirt. I loved how he lifted his legs as he rolled down the modest incline of our driveway and giggled and giggled. I smiled then and I smile again today. A small Band-Aid on his foot offered evidence he was doing just what little children should do: explore. There was a thin storm cloud above us that created almost magical mist all around us; drops of water that looked like diamonds falling from the heavens.
I look back on these nearly perfect moments in time with gratitude. Life wasn’t perfect back then. I worried a great deal about work, bills, and what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was a young father often humbled by the sacred responsibility of raising children. “Who am I to do such an important thing?” I would ask myself. I felt woefully inadequate as a father, but my love for my wife and children gave me the courage to carry on.
No matter where I am in life, it seems, I have to find the courage to carry on.
I have been asked to speak at a funeral director conference in two weeks on the east coast. There I will share Mitchell’s Journey and a candid insight on our experience with a funeral home.
Yesterday, as I began preparing my keynote for the conference, I began to reflect back on that time at the funeral home. I went through a corner of photos I hadn't ever really looked at. I took the photos, but I quickly put them away because my heart was much too tender. But now I had to look at them. I had to pull the relevant parts of the story so that I could share with these funeral directors our unfiltered experience. I thought I was ready. I wasn’t. I wept and wept. I wept so hard I almost threw up 3 times.
Don’t worry, I’m okay. But I’m not okay. And that’s okay.
Some who lack empathy, or perhaps just lack insight, ask “Why do you do this to yourself?” To them I answer, “I am not doing this for me, I’m doing this for others, so they might understand and see.” Whether I’m speaking to the medical community, bereavement groups, businesses, religious institutions or youth groups … and now funeral homes … I share Mitchell’s Journey so others know what happens on the other side of medicine … what happens when we take our children home from the hospital to die, and how we die on the inside, yet must learn to live afterwards. I share this so others standing on the outside of grief might have a glimpse of what a sufferer might be feeling or thinking. I share so that others who are walking in darkness might find a measure of light, if only just to light the path just beneath their feet.
Even though I didn’t really want to go there yesterday, I had to, so that I might better serve that audience with information that will help them help others. At least for me, helping others makes the hurt worth it. I am going to hurt anyway, so I may as well use it to help. As I said in a recent keynote to a bereavement community, “Grief is like a flame that cannot be extinguished. As long as I love, there will be fire. What the flame means to me … what it does to me or for me is found in how I carry it. The flame of grief can either burn me or help me see.”
I don’t know that I will have anything special to say; I’m just an ordinary dad who lost his son and is learning to live with chronic grief. I just happened to capture every detail of our funeral experience. I hope whatever I share helps a little. I hope.
Which brings me back to this picture: my son was a beautiful soul who left my world profoundly empty, yet strangely full.
When Mitch was young he carried with him two toy figures. One was a man with a hardhat, ready to go to work and the other was a little boy with a ball cap and backpack. He never went anywhere that he didn’t carry these two figures in his chubby little hands or tiny pockets. Often, Mitch picked up the father, a symbol of me, and kissed it softly. I adored his tender, affectionate heart. I would then pick up the little boy, a symbol of my son, and kiss it in kind. Mitch would always giggle and give me a big hug.
“I love you so much, little Mitch.” I would say.
“ You see, there is a sacred place I want to be, beyond the hills and in a place I cannot yet see.
My little boy is there, waiting patiently ... waiting to see if I might offer symbols of my soul, evidence of who I love and what I believe ... not just in word, but deed.”
I discovered early on, what children lack in words they often make up for in other ways. Mitch didn’t always know how to share his feelings, so he found other means to tell me. I always tried to listen to his other means. For every symbol he created there opened a window into his soul. My other children did the same thing to some degree, but not like Mitch. He was not very talkative in his early years – and he found other ways to share what was in his heart and soul.
There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “There are no secrets of the soul that conduct does not reveal.” Each day, little Mitch shared symbols that revealed his soul. Each time, this little child took me to a sacred place.
In this photo, Mitch asked me to take a photo of him with his “guys”. I loved how he posed for the photo, resting his head against his marker-stained, chubby arm. I wish I could reach into this photo and kiss his face again. How my heart reaches through time and space, yearning to love …
I have a friend and business partner, Corey Berg, who once shared a quote, “In all things teach people about [God]. And if necessary, use words.” He was speaking of the ultimate symbol – how we choose to live. In my soul, I hope that my daily actions are a symbol, like little Mitch so often gave me … symbols that say more than words.
Though I have journeyed broken roads and wandered through the vast shadows of death, I have also climbed the highest mountains of life. Sometimes places so high, the air so thin, I could see the heavens and almost touch them. The peaks and valleys of life are sacred places, each in their own right. They teach us things we must learn, that add to our spiritual sight.
I am grateful for souls, symbols and sacred places. I have been to heaven and hell, and seen many faces. This little soul, who like a feather, softly landed in my heart, is now a symbol of my own journey’s new start. You see, there is a sacred place I want to be, beyond the hills and in a place I cannot yet see.
My little boy is there, waiting patiently ... waiting to see if I might offer symbols of my soul, evidence of who I love and what I believe ... not just in word, but deed.
On the corner of my wife’s dresser is a worn-out eraser that Mitch carried with him the year he passed away. His name carefully inscribed by his school teacher – a good woman who cared for her students and grew to love little Mitch. Next to the eraser is a framed photo of my son – which frame was given to my wife as a gift by a compassionate soul. And next to that, a little statue of a boy holding a golden heart. As a very young boy Mitch thought gold was pretty special, so this little statue has become deeply symbolic on many levels.
In the frame is a photo from one of my favorite memories with Mitch. It was a warm summer day and we had taken our kids to the park. Mitchell’s hair was long and floppy and twirled as he rolled down a grassy hill. When I see that image my heart swells with love and my eyes fill with gratitude. This little boy was mine to love and raise. And in a strange way, he kind of raised me. However much losing him hurts, having him in my life was worth every tear … every drop of agony.
Love and grief are identical in at least one respect. I remember when I first had a child, I would tell my still-single male friends how amazing it was … the love that I felt. I would sit on the edge of my seat and passionately try to describe fatherhood … the love that I felt, how my heart had multiplied and soul enlarged. My friends would step back and give me a strange look from the corner of their eye and say something like, “Okay, now you’re being weird.” Suddenly I remembered my life before children and thinking the same thing.
I came to realize that it is impossible understand the depth of parental love until you become a parent. I cannot transfer, describe or in any way, share that kind of love; it is knowledge that comes only from experience. In like manner, one cannot know the hellish depths of parental grief until one has lost a child. There exist no arrangement of words or song that can cause someone to understand. It, too, must be experienced. That is how love and grief are identical. Both are spiritually seismic events that change the landscape of our souls forever.
Both must be experienced: love and grief. Then and only then do we begin to understand the true value of peace. Each in order and in their special way: love first binds us, grief then grinds us, and peace eventually makes right and refines us. They must be experienced. There is no other way.
It is interesting how God prepares our souls for the end of life. Not always, but sometimes. And when He does, I believe it is for a higher purpose. It is almost as if He is gently saying, “My child, over here.” Through this hardship I have learned to hear and recognize those impressions in new and meaningful ways. I was being prepared for my son’s passing the day he was born. I had a distinct impression something was seriously wrong. It consistently pressed on my soul for the first 3 years. I couldn’t shake the feeling; I knew his life would be short. Then the diagnosis came and those whispers to my soul suddenly made sense. A year before we discovered Mitchell’s heart was failing, I sensed something life-altering was going to happen. I remember telling a few people that were close to me that I sensed an almost chilling change in the air. I didn’t know what, I just knew something significant was going to happen. I wish I knew it was my son. I would have done more with him and less with things that matter nothing to me now. Such is the lament of those who grieve.
So, when Mitch came home to die, not knowing his days were short, he had a premonition in the same way I had them – except his was more specific. “Mom, can I have an early birthday?” Mitch said in his soft voice. “It feels so far away.” Natalie looked at me and without saying a word, said a million things at once. Immediately a birthday party was put in motion. We didn’t know if we had 10 minutes, 10 hours or 10 days with Mitch – so every second counted with him. The next day we had a special birthday party for our son. It was a beautiful celebration of life and love and my son’s heart was full – while ours were quietly broken.
After his birthday party, Mitch sat near his aunt Sonya trying to build a Lego set. My sister Diane loving inflated a great many balloons to make the day extra special for my son. As small as that act of service may have seemed, it was big to me. When I saw what those balloons did to Mitchell’s heart … how it lifted his spirits and put a spark in his eyes, I have never looked upon a balloon in the same way. I get it now.
Just beyond Mitch was my youngest child, Wyatt, twirling in the background with an over-sized teddy bear. For a moment I wondered what act was playing out on the stage of his mind; was he in a magical forest with an imaginary friend or a king’s hall dancing under a moon-lit sky? For a moment I was swept away in wonder, admiring children for all the good and imagination that is in them. Then, I was reminded of my other children’s needs. I knew each of them were different and needed love and attention unique to them. Most importantly, they needed to know in our moment of crisis that mom and dad were going to be okay – that no matter what, the world would go on and that our family would survive this hardship.
When I saw Wyatt playing happily by himself I felt the words in my heart, “… over here.” I had as distinct an impression as I ever had with Mitch, this time it was directed at my youngest son. At that very moment I set my camera down and walked over to Wyatt and started to play with him. I let him know how proud I was of the young boy he was and that I loved him very much. Wyatt smiled with a mouth full of missing teeth. I kissed his face and hugged him tightly.
I don’t know what that little exchange meant to my youngest son. I only know my Father wanted me to remember him, too. Ever since, that is all I try to do. Oh, to listen to that whisper, “Over here.” It is there for all to hear, if we choose have a listening ear.