This video is the first installment of a 5 part video series entitled "Letters to My Son." In these visual essays, I narrate letters I wrote my son after he passed away. Collectively, these meditations explore my journey with grief, thoughts on healing, living a life of significance and life's search for meaning.

In this video, you'll see a collection of videos I shot with my drone while returning to Mitchell's favorite places to visit. Everything you see in this video are actual locations that were near to Mitchell's heart ... places he and I forged memories and talked about our dreams.

These are the meditations of my heart.

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In the month of September, Mitchell's Journey will be focusing on the theme of growth and change. 

This Essay is part of the September Seasonal Content.  Visit each month to get more.

August  -  September  -  October  -  November  -  December

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Mitchell’s cardiologist placed a stethoscope gently on his chest. Suddenly he closed his eyes and disappeared into a state of deep meditation as he listened closely to the fumbling, tumbling sounds of our little boy’s failing heart. There wasn’t much time left and this doctor knew it. Unaware of his fate, little Mitch just wanted to go home. At the end of the day, I believe that’s where our heart yearns to go. Home. Back to that time and place where we felt safe and surrounded by the ones we love. 

Just a few days prior this same cardiologist, fighting back his tears, told us our son only had days to live. This good man spoke to us as a medical professional first and as a father second. The doctor in him told us the medical truth bravely and unfiltered – which we wanted and desperately needed. The father in him told us what he would do if he were in our situation. As far as I’m concerned, he practiced perfect medicine – for he was professional and human.

I cannot get this image out of my mind. I have many such photos of this doctor performing this same act of listening to my son’s heart – each time with the same degree of intensity. 

In this image is a metaphor that I can’t put away. Little Mitch once said to me while dealing with a hard thing someone had done to him, “Dad, if you see with your heart, you see everything that matters.” Mitch instinctively knew that old adage “hurt people, hurt people.” Someone was mean to him, yet he didn’t see a mean person, he just saw a good person who was broken and hurting on the inside. Listening to the heart and soul sometimes takes just as much focus and intent as this good doctor applied to my son’s physical heart.

I don’t know that I’ve ever shared this, but my son was named after a dear friend of mine who unexpectedly passed away several years ago. One night, over 20 years ago, my friend and I were in the heart of Kentucky. I remember that night like it was yesterday … the sky was clear, the stars were bright and there were fireflies nearby. We were talking about things that changed us from the inside out. We were only 19 and 20 at the time, but we had already experienced a change of heart that was significant and we were sharing our experiences. He shared with me something that changed everything for him. In high school he was rebellious and did everything his parents told him not to. One night, well after midnight, he smashed through the front door drunk, high, and belligerent. He then passed out and fell down the stairs and on to the basement floor. The next thing he remembered was his father holding him at the foot of the steps, weeping and telling his son how much he loved him. It was his father’s act of love and compassion that changed my friend for good. When Mitch told me this story, we both wept and discovered a spiritual truth. 

Over the years, time and circumstance created distance between us. We attended different universities and our lives did as they must … go on. But I never forgot my friend. So, on that fateful day my wife and I had our 3rd child, we named him Mitch because of what this good man taught me about love and compassion. I finally reconnected with my friend a few years before he passed and told him how we named our son after him. He was humble and kind and I was reminded of the kind of person I hope to be.

I wonder how the world might change if everyone started to see and listen with their hearts. That’s not to say we become illogical and foolish, driven to-and-fro solely by emotions; but how might things change in our own lives if we truly listened to the intent of others? I can say with confidence that almost every single conflict I have been a part of stemmed from a misunderstanding of the heart. Most people aren’t bad, they’re just a little broken and don’t know what to do with their jagged pieces. 

It is my experience that people change because they are loved, not because they are shamed. I hope to follow my son’s example and see (and listen) with my heart – for when I do, I see everything that matters. 

That’s what Mitch taught me … at the heart of things is everything. 

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Several months before Mitch passed away a friend and colleague handed me a metal coin he created for one of his businesses. On the face of it was etched a butterfly and the word transformations. He gave it to his clients as a token and reminder of what we are meant to become, something far greater than we currently are. This good man, who has faced incredible difficulties of his own, learned to channel his own disappointment and sorrow into love and the service of others. I admire him greatly.

On this afternoon we took Mitch and the kids to the mountains where we would take our second-to-last family photo. Had I known what little time was left, I would have asked Natalie if we could take turns driving so we could each cuddle with our son. 

We found ourselves at our destination surrounded by a forest whose colors, save a few patches, were nearly gone. Mitch and the kids scooted down old wood trail across the marshland. I reached into my pocket and discovered the coin my friend gave me, which I mistakenly thought I left on my office desk. As I held it I couldn't help but take a photo of it and contemplate the process of transformation. Soon, I would find myself wrapped in a cocoon of grief, wondering if all was lost and if life would ever be worth living again. Such is the sorrow of losing a child.

I really don’t know much about grief, but I’m learning a little each day, and each day I experience a little more of a transformation. I used to write of my journey THROUGH grief, as though somewhere a great way off, there would be an end to it. Any more, I write of my journey WITH grief. For as far as I can tell, grief will be my companion so long as I live on this earth. Such, also, is the sorrow of losing a child.

There was no way of knowing what would happen when I started Mitchell’s Journey. Like a camping tent, I set it up with the intent to eventually take it down. I don’t think I can do that now. Mitchell’s Journey has transformed into something I’m still trying to understand. 

I will still write of hard things because hard things happened. I will share hard stories because I don’t want anyone to ever confuse DMD as an inconvenient journey. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is a fatal journey. 100% catastrophically fatal. Not one can escape it.

I recognize, also, the exhausting toll such stories can take. So, I am also going to write of the transformation I’m experiencing and the hope and happiness I feel in my heart. Today I feel as much joy in my heart as I do sorrow, which thing I never imagined nor ever quite supposed. The journey of grief has taken me places I never had a mind to go.

To those who are stumbling deep in the wilderness of grief, I want you to know there is eventually peace. It will never stay, not like it did before, but you will appreciate it when peace comes to you more and more. The road is long and skies sometimes dark and bleak, trust me when I tell you … somewhere out there, on your own journey, is happiness and peace. Just keep moving forward at your own steady pace and remember the journey of grief is not a race.

One day, perhaps at our journey’s end, we will look back on our broken paths and marvel at where we've been. I wonder if the parts of us we thought were so broken will be the very thing that transforms us like the promise of this token.

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I remember watching my sweet wife’s expression when she first laid eyes on Mitch in the delivery room. She immediately wept tears of joy and was overcome with a love that transcends words – a love only a mother can know. I cried watching her love him – I was so happy. Soon I got to hold our little baby for the first time; he was so tiny and I marveled at the miracle of life. I loved him the moment I laid eyes on him – for he was my son.

It is so hard to say goodbye after 10 years of life and love. I wish I had the power to heal him. I wish I could have traded places with my son. 

I will never forget a tender conversation I had with Mitch just after he returned home from the hospital to die. I was tucking him in and he wanted me to cuddle with him for a while. As I lay by my broken son, we gazed into each other’s eyes and had the most soulful exchange I have ever experienced. I told Mitch that while I had been scrambling to find a way to save him, it was he who was saving me. With tears in my eyes, I thanked my little boy for being such a good example to our family and for inspiring me to be a better daddy, husband and person. Mitch cried and told me how happy he was and that he felt loved. With a kiss to his forehead my little boy continued to cry happy tears and tenderly burrowed his frail body into mine and drifted off to sleep. I wept a strange potpourri of tears that night – and many nights thereafter. Little Mitch was then, and remains today, the most profound and painful gift of my life. And though I journey through the wilderness of grief, I’m on my way, but I’m not there yet.

There is nothing linear about grief. I have often heard “time heals all” as though that glib phrase should give peace of mind or assuage a grieving heart. At least for me, that phrase has little to no meaning – and in some cases it does more harm than good. I would be quite content to never hear that phrase again. Time alone is no healing agent; that is a loosely written fiction. I believe healing has less to do with the passage of time but rather, like all things in life, it’s what we do with our time that matters. Surely time is necessary, but it is a minor ingredient. If I spend my time finding ways to bind my wounds and dress them with healing things – I am more likely to accelerate my path to recovery. On the other hand, if I mask my pain or agitate tender wounds, they may never close or heal. Time is a neutral thing – it’s what I do with it that matters.

I am on my way to healing, but I’m not there yet. I don’t know that I’ll ever fully recover from the loss of my son. What I can say is today is better than yesterday; not because time has simply passed but because I am allowing myself to do what I must – to accept my sorrows, and to not run from them but rather let pain take its course. I am learning to grieve in my own way, to hurt as long as I need to, to cry often (and I cry often), to write and remember everything that comes to mind. And, of course, I pray. I pray for peace and understanding. I pray also that my son knows how much I love and miss him. What I wouldn't do to hold him for 5 minutes. 

I recently read a saying, “Those who mistake success for significance, will lead a deeply unfulfilled existence.” I pray I will never confuse the two. I would sooner give someone a boost, a smile or a loving hand than fill my wallet with that which does not satisfy. After all, you can’t fill an empty soul with empty things. 

Little Mitch, my broken son, has taught me how to truly live ... to think less on the things I get and more on what I give. For my little boy had nothing to his name, save some little toys and modest clothes, his material things were plain. If he had nothing but gave so much, I have much to learn from him. For he lived a quiet life of significance and my heart he did truly win.

I’m on my path to healing, the end I cannot see, for the wilderness of grief seems to stretch out to forever, even to infinity. Please be patient with me my son … for I am broken, too, just in different ways than you. I’m on my way, but I’m not there yet.