View fullsize

Early in my grief journey, I often wondered, “When everything hurts, how will I know I’m healing?”

There was a time, not long after his passing, and for some time after, the very sight of Mitchell’s things was painful to see. I remember his Velcro-strap shoes sitting on the edge of his bed. They were, by design, light as a feather so he could walk more easily. The moment I saw these shoes, they reminded me how difficult walking had become for him. Each step in the hallway at school was a risk; the slightest bump from another child could have sent him falling fast to the floor. Without the strength and coordination to break his fall, he would hit the ground hard. His muscles were getting weaker – and time on his feet more precious. These tender shoes were a reminder of his fragile existence and a symbol of his mother’s love.

When I saw these shoes, I wept like a child. I would have done anything to trade places with him.

Though these shoes were painful to see, for a time, I’m not one to make rash decisions – especially with memories. I could have, like others who cope with grief, swept everything away. I could have swiftly removed anything that might have brought back memories that hurt. While that can be a valid path for some who grieve, I chose a different path. I chose to sit with my pain. I wanted to look at the things that hurt me and healed me, for both are my teachers.

For the first two years, I wept every single day. I didn’t cry. I wept. So-much-so, my lungs were sore and I felt like I had a persistent flu. Every. Single. Day. When we left town, I felt an existential panic leaving my son at the cemetery. It was nightmarish. When it rained, I wanted to race to the cemetery to protect his place of rest. Somewhere deep inside me, I felt a flurry of worry – that if I didn’t have the power to protect his life, at least I could protect him in death. Grief has a way of triggering irrational feelings from a very rational pain.

For me, darkness covered the whole earth; and though I walked among people, I was living in a different dimension. Within the first few months of my son’s passing, I wrote an essay entitled “Walking on Jupiter” where I described the gravity of grief, the thinness of the air, and the difficulty of living. Earth, with all its pedestrian concerns, seemed so very far away. At the same time, I could carry a conversation with a smile … and were I to shake your hand, you probably wouldn’t know the nightmare I was living. Everything hurt.

In private, it felt like I was consigned to an eternity of sorrow. Everything hurt. Even sleep hurt; every morning and night, as I’d drift in and out of sleep, I felt the unbridled panic and sorrow of my son’s passing. It would play out in my mind like a vivid dream and I couldn’t tell if it was happening in that moment or if it happened in the past. There was something about that in-between stage of consciousness that left me especially vulnerable.

It wasn’t long in my grief journey I learned that healing hurts – and that was the first vital step for me. I found if I gave myself space to grieve, the darkness would pass sooner. Moments of acute grief, at least for me, was like a building sneeze: the sooner I let it out, the better I felt. Even still, the general heaviness of grief weighed on my shoulders like a led blanket no matter how much I sneezed.

As far as I can tell, healing isn’t discernable day-to-day. Like getting older or gaining/losing weight, we have to step away from the mirror for a minute. And therein lies the curious paradox of healing: that opposites can be true at the same time.

For example, I’m a believer in living an examined life. That means looking in the mirror and studying what I see, including the things that hurt me. It’s not enough to simply look at our pain, but how we look at our suffering makes the difference. At the same time, I’ve discovered that we must also look away and get busy living. To do one at the expense of the other is to thwart and sometimes deny deeper healing. For me, the choice to look or live has a kind of ebb and flow about it; a delicate dance of the soul.

How do I know I’m healing when everything hurts? I start by recognizing this: if I’m hurting, I’m probably on the path to healing. For one cannot heal without hurting.

The rest is up to me. Sometimes I look, other times I live. Together, they help me heal.

View fullsize

About a month ago, on the anniversary of Mitchell’s passing, I sat next to my father-in-law, who wanted to meet briefly to offer his love. The atmosphere that day was almost identical to the day of my son’s passing – unusually warm, bright, and sunny. Ironic for the day that ushered in the darkest time of my life.

I never really grew up with a stable father-figure, so I often find myself quick to observe others. It’s become my quiet nature to watch other men show up as fathers, then I instinctively ask myself, “Is this what a father does? Is this what it looks like?”

In a way, my father-in-law has the presence of a butterfly. It’s beautiful, but all-too-fleeting. Sometimes I wish he’d linger a little longer – for life is so short and one day, all too soon, it will be over. We only live on this planet for 5 minutes and I’m learning to savor every second. I think, in a way, he tries to stay out of the way of our young family as we try to forge our own path. I respect that. Whatever his reasons, I’m deeply grateful for this good man and father; firstly, for bringing my sweet wife into this world, and for being such a loving grandfather to my children. His gentle and reaching ways always helped Mitch feel loved, seen, and heard. I could write a book on their sweet exchanges and the lessons this good man taught me.

We went to lunch briefly, then parted ways. Natalie and I were grateful for the moments we shared with her parents that day. On the anniversary of my life’s greatest trauma, my mind was quiet, my soul was at peace.

One of the recurring themes of Mitchell’s Journey is being still and learning to live in the moment. I’m not always good at it, but I am getting better. Today, in another place where I’m trying to serve people, I wrote of stillness and quieting our mind, “A quiet mind is an empowered mind. When fear and other blinding emotions are set aside, we give rise to our intuition.” I then asked the group how intuition has served them. One woman responded, “Learning to be still and quiet your mind after a lifetime of fear is unbelievably hard.” She then shared breadcrumbs that pointed to trying to cope with pain while not hurting herself or others. She asked, “What suggestions or baby steps do you have for anyone and everyone?”

This was my response:

Arriving at a place of stillness is challenging enough for people dealing with day-to-day distractions. It's especially challenging to do after someone has experienced protracted trauma. Finding peace and stillness while trying to cope with a storm of unrest that lies within is a tall order.

As a student of trauma and grief myself, I've discovered at least 4 things that have helped me quiet my mind and achieve stillness. I hope this is helpful:

STEP ONE: BE PATIENT, HEALING HURTS

Finding stillness seems like a distant dream when we're in pain. The very suggestion sounds impossible, even patently absurd. Understanding healing hurts and learning to be patient with ourselves while sorting through our pain is the first step. When we accept the idea healing hurts and give ourselves a little grace as we sort it out, we take the first and vital step toward stillness and peace. Pain is no longer a surprise, but something to be expected.

STEP TWO: HEALING BEGINS WITH FEELING

Though it sounds like step one, this second step is as distinct as fire is from water. Knowing that something hurts and allowing ourselves to hurt are very different indeed.

I've discovered that scheduling time to grieve and release emotion is a healthy practice and that it always leads to a measure of stillness and peace in the end. Allowing ourselves to experience "all the feels" is vital to our emotional and spiritual health. Running from or suppressing pain can alter our thinking in ways that harm ourselves and others. Letting pain course through us can be terrifying at first, but it is necessary if we're to do the deep work of healing. Processing pain can feel like a forceful sneeze; as we breathe in deeply, then let it out, we feel much better on the other side. Put simply, we cannot heal what we don't allow ourselves to feel.

STEP THREE: SEARCH FOR MEANING AND PURPOSE

The very suggestion that we search for meaning and purpose in our pain may sound like a trite slogan; however, it can be a powerful tool to discover deep stillness and peace.

When it comes to pain (or anything, really), the key is to not ask, "why me?" but rather, "what can I learn from this?" When we examine our struggles with the intent to learn and understand, we begin to see pain as our teacher, not our tormentor. This shift in how we see things can be a great source of understanding and understanding leads to peace, peace to stillness.

STEP FOUR: PRACTICE MAKES …

Perfect? Not always. But practice has the power to make things permanent. If we practice allowing ourselves to feel and to search for understanding, stillness will eventually come. It takes time, but if we practice, we can build a kind of emotional muscle memory that can take us through pain more quickly and to peace and stillness more readily.

Each day I’m learning the deep relationship between peace and quiet and how they contribute to healing.

View fullsize

Tucked away in a quiet corner of my home, deep in the shadows of a bookshelf, is a mold of my son gently holding my hand. This artifact is as close to seeing Mitch in physical form as I’ll ever see again in mortality. It's hidden from view, not because it isn’t special – but precisely because it is. I keep it tucked away so it can be safe from unintended harm.

This mold was taken just before Mitch came home from the hospital on hospice. If you look carefully, you’ll see a puncture wound, in the form of a small bump, on the back of Mitchell’s hand. It is just above his wrist, bearing a mark from an IV that had recently been removed. Were you to see this in person, the detail is breathtaking. Every bump, every little flaw, every little part that made him so beautifully human, was captured and preserved. Natalie has something similar with Mitch – except in that mold, a Band-Aid covers his IV wound, which makes it even more tender and unique.

“I discovered sometimes you can’t make sense of suffering, but you can make peace with pain. When that happens, it’s not that you stop hurting; you simply learn to live with longing. ”

— Christopher M. Jones | Mitchell's Journey

At the time these molds were taken, Mitch didn’t know the doctors said he had days to live – and I’m pretty sure he just thought mom and dad were being weird. But then again, it always seemed he knew more than he let on. He not only had a look of knowing in his countenance, but he would also say things from time to time that revealed how deeply perceptive he was.

When I look at this life-size statue of my son and me holding hands, I see several conversations at once. First, a whisper between a father and his little boy, “I love you, son, so very much.” Then, “I love you, too, Dad. I know you’ll keep me safe.” At the same time, because I knew my son’s deadly secret, I see a one-way narrative, “Sweet boy, we’re almost out of time. Let me hold you before it’s too late – for tomorrow, I will miss you forever.”

The final unspoken narrative, at least to me, is symbolic of two souls drowning in a sea of trouble.

At least to me, this statue with my son contains a deeper metaphor; that of two drowning souls trying to comfort each other in their hour of need. As Mitchell’s life was being swallowed up by the sea, I felt like we were both drowning, only differently, me in grief and Mitch to biology.

My wife and I knew what was about to happen, and we felt like we were drowning in grief. Yet, we didn’t know how deep and dark those waters would soon become. As terrifying as grief was at the time, we were still splashing in the shallow end of sorrow. Deep grief would eventually come, years after the loss of Mitch.

Before I knew it, little Mitch was gone, and my wife and I were left feeling empty.

A few months later, the board of a company I was running pitched in and sent our family to Hawaii to get away and perhaps heal a little.

One night, while my family and I were on the shore, I took a photo of the sunset (seen in this image) and wrote the words, “Good night, little Mitch. You are always on my mind. And while I know you're not lost at sea, sometimes in my heart, you may as well be.” Then, Mark Allen, a thoughtful and inspired friend, commented on my post: “Consider him your lighthouse now... so you can make it back home...” I was grateful for his words of compassion and faith.

I’ve spent the last 7 years gathering up my broken pieces, healing one grief moment at a time. I’ve felt my way through the darkest shadows of death and tried to make sense of suffering. I discovered that sometimes you can’t make sense of suffering, but you can make peace with pain. When that happens, it’s not that you stop hurting; you simply learn to live with longing.

I still miss my boy. I think about him every day and wonder what memories we might have made. And when I see his childhood friends in our neighborhood, almost young adults now, I marvel how fast time has passed.

I still wonder what happens on the other side of life. You know that place over there … on the far side of the sea. Sometimes the waves of grief are so great they completely swallow me. Other times I wade softly in the water, smooth and placidly.

The struggle to keep from drowning has made me stronger and given rise to a different kind of me. I’m still flawed and tread water… but I see the world differently… thanks to my son, somewhere over there … on the far side of the sea.

About a year ago I was cleaning my inbox and stumbled into a letter I wrote my family the night Mitch passed away. I wasn’t expecting to see it, so when my eyes saw the headline, “Mitchell Passed Away”, I was immediately swept up by a tidal wave of tears. After I gained my composure, I began a journey through time, reading emails that were sent the weeks following our son’s passing.

One person especially close to me, just a few weeks after Mitch passed wrote, “Now that the worst is over …” I was mortified by her words and sad to see how out of touch that person was with reality. I thought to myself, “I guess she’s lucky she doesn’t understand.” What she and many others didn’t realize was the worst of everything was just beginning. In matters of grief, especially the loss of a child, hell happens in the aftermath of death. Let me say that again: hell happens in the aftermath of death.

What followed in the weeks, months and years was a new kind of journey for me – a journey where we had to learn to heal in a world where there seemed to be no room for grief.

Two years after my son passed, I was on my way to Southern California to take my oldest son surfing. I remember exactly where I was when I received a call from a friend and colleague from an earlier part of my career. She wanted to give me candid feedback. She was convinced I was stuck in grief and that I needed to move on – yet there I was, with my oldest son, very much moving on with life. No effort was extended to understand my mind and heart; instead, after reading a few stories, she felt that my writings were self-focused and something resembling a sermonette. I appreciate truth and candid feedback, however much it might bruise my ego, yet in her almost flippant assessment of things, I couldn’t help but think of Anis Nin’s observation: “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” What she didn’t understand was that my writing found here on Mitchell’s Journey was a private journal that I chose to make public – not to solicit sympathy, but to help others who might be struggling with various aspects of grief. Writing was my therapy – yet, according to her, there seemed to be no room for grief.

Another year would pass, and a well-meaning colleague (who has such a good heart) would put his hand on my shoulder and summarily tell me that the time for grief was over. With a slap on the back he told me the time had come to become like a caterpillar and transform into something new. Again, according to my friend, there was no room for grief. He was ready, and therefore I should have been ready.

Those who read Mitchell’s Journey know I am a man of faith. I not only believe in God, I love Him. I am not angry at Him over the loss of my child. I am hurt, but I’m not angry. In fact, I have come to recognize the many tender mercies He has provided our family; blessings that eased our burdens and offered light to an otherwise darkened path.

Even still, I’ve observed a certain isolation that comes from people of faith, especially those who haven’t lost a child. Often, when sharing words of hope, people can inadvertently dismiss or diminish the pain of the sufferer. We’ll hear things like, “In the eternal scheme of things, this life is but a blink.” To them I say, “Life is the longest thing I know. Now that I’ve lost my child, this life is an eternity.” Others say things like, “Don’t be sad, you’ll see your child again.” To them, my heart cries out, “But my heart pains to see my son today. I miss him so and I don’t [yet] know how to live without him. I’m trying my hardest to find a way.” I’ve seen others, even those who have lost a child say things like, “I’ve had a spiritual experience and I’m okay – therefore, because I’m okay, you should also be okay.”

There is an endless, almost nauseating list of platitudes and poems that would seem to leave no room for grief. One poem reads, “Death is nothing at all. It doesn’t count.” To that, I say death, aside from being born, is the biggest thing that will ever happen to you or me. It counts a great deal. Poems like these would try to convince us that nothing has happened, that everything remains as it was, our loved one slipped into the next room - just around the corner … when in truth, after the death of a loved one, everything is different and nothing (at least in this life) will ever be the same. That room of which they speak may as well be on the other side of the universe. Poems and platitudes sometimes dismiss the hard realities of grief and mortality. They leave no room for grief. And when there is no room for grief, there is no room for healing.

It took almost 4 years for the worst to pass. What’s more, I’m not stuck in grief – but it is a heavy burden to carry and to others, I may appear to walk slowly. I’m not a caterpillar anymore, and what I am becoming is only just emerging – in my time and in my own way.

I’ve had the burden and blessing to speak to thousands of people over the last few years about perspectives on grief. I am a young student of the subject and have much to learn. What I know so far is, sorrow is sacred. There must be room for grief.

If you know someone who suffered the loss of a child or has a terminally ill child, you can serve them by giving them room for grief. When I say room, I don’t mean space away from them. What I’m saying is you can give them a safe space to talk about their loved one. Giving room for grief can be as simple as saying, “I’m here for you. I care, and I want to listen to your heart.” Your friend may not trust you at first because the world has taught them, over time, there is no room for grief. Everyone is different, but if you’re patient, they’ll eventually feel that you’re safe and will open up to you.

You may be tempted to avoid such subjects with your friend because it is awkward or sad. Sometimes, if we’re to serve our friends, we must set aside our uncomfortable feelings of empathy and give space for the sufferer’s hard reality. You may worry that talking about “it” will touch an already tender wound or that your friend might suddenly remember the realities of loss – as if by avoiding the subject, they might forget the worst thing that could ever happen to them. By avoiding conversation, we leave no room for grief. It is helpful to remember that your friend is already sad and that talking is therapeutic. What’s more, talking about it doesn’t remind them of their loss – they think about it every single day – only in isolation and compounded sorrow.

In many ways, I feel like I’ve come a million miles since I’ve lost my son. Yet, I still have a billion miles to go. I know sacred truths about the immortal soul. I also know that our loved ones are sometimes near. I have experienced moments of peace that surpass my mortal understanding. These things I know of myself and no one can take them away from me. Yet, moments of peace and pain come and go like the ocean tide – that is just part of being human.

Even after 6 years, I still need room for grief.