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My wife and I went on a wooded walk.

We wandered through the crunchy leaves

and just began to talk.

The air was crisp and fragrant,

rich with earth's deep tones.

If only we could have a bottle,

to keep and call our own.

So there we shared some gentle words

about life and other things.

Then our souls went where words don't exist,

nor can they … not even in our dreams.

It's strange to live in such a place,

where peace and grief reside.

The loneliness of longing

forever at your side.

I saw my wife;

two lives rolled into one.

Arms filled with love and family,

yet empty, in search of our little son.

Yet something happened in the woods last night –

something we didn't quite see.

We knew the season was changing,

but suddenly we realized, so were we.

Grief evolves.

How could that be?

I think I see it now;

it isn't grief that changed, but me.

Yet there is still a deep, dark wood.

A place that is felt, not seen.

Where words of grief and anguish do not exist,

not even in our dreams.

------

[REPOST from 2015]

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As Mitch began to drift away, I'd look at him with deep sorrow in my heart. I desperately wanted to scoop him up in my arms and take him to someplace safe. A place like the children's books we often read to him – a place of hope and happiness, joy, and dreams. My little boy once glowing bright with laughter and childhood had become a dim candle about to flicker out. The light in his countenance had been growing dimmer by the day, and I was greatly pained therewith. When I took this photo, I had the distinct impression we were no longer counting the days, but the hours.

I remember cuddling next to my son just after I took this photo. I held him gently but firmly and said, "I am so sorry this is happening, son. You are so brave. I think sometimes God sends us the little ones like you to teach us grown-ups what it means to be truly grown up. And Mitch, when I grow up, I want to be just like you." Mitch squeezed my hand and smiled softly. I kissed his cheek and held him close to my chest as he drifted away, soft as a feather, into an afternoon nap.

While Mitch slept, I wept.

I wept so hard the bed was shaking, and I worried I would wake him. The grief I knew then was but a foretaste of the pain to come. For death was the easy part … the echoes of emptiness and longing were a more painful hell yet to come.

I learned long ago it isn't productive to raise my fist to the heavens and wonder why we suffer. Instead, I learned to turn my ear heavenward, to listen for secrets to the soul, and learn what I was meant to learn. Too often, people get hung up on asking the wrong questions – and therefore get no answers. They ask, "why would God do this?" When we hurt, it can be tempting to shake our fists at the Universe and bemoan our circumstance as though we're being singled out or treated unfairly. But the last time I checked, life isn't fair, and it rains on the just and unjust. Why should we be the only exception? The other day I learned over 150,000 people die each day. Countless others will suffer all manner of tragedies. In the few minutes it might take to shake our fist at the sky and complain about or own lives, hundreds of people will have passed from this life to the next, and a great many more will mourn their absence.

The world is filled with grief and suffering. Some sorrows we bring upon ourselves. Other suffering just happens, whether from an act of God or simply life in motion.

At least for me, I've come to discover suffering and sorrow are an important part of life's learnings. Any more, I worry less about the origins of my sorrows – for what difference would it make? Surely God isn't caught off guard or surprised by the events in our lives. Whether He's the author of some of our sorrows, as a divine teacher, or simply a patient tutor as we struggle with life in motion.

He could change the course of our sorrows if He wanted to. Perhaps the fact He often doesn't remove our sorrows is the most compelling message of all. I stopped asking "why me?" and began searching myself and ask, "Yes, it hurts, but am I listening?"

So, as I laid next to my dying son, weeping in the deepest of grief, I felt a pain beyond description, a pain that left my soul weary, bruised, and weak. I didn't want my little boy to go, for he was my tender son, and I loved him so. Though I prayed mightily for his safe return, the answer I received was, "No, my son, for there are things you must learn."

Thus began my journey with grief, down a bewildering path in search of spiritual relief. And though I still hear the deafening sound of death's terrible toll, I have come to understand our mortal bodies are but clothing to the soul.

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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.

When I listen to audio interviews I had with Mitch at the hospital and home on hospice, it’s clear to me now: he knew he was going to die. I already knew it but was trying to shield my son from fear. He knew it but was trying to keep my broken heart from falling apart. I wonder what we might have said to each other if we weren’t trying to save each other from sorrow. I wonder.

If I think too much about that, I fall apart. I have to let that go, though it is much easier said than done.

I’ve never known a child to love life with such a depth as Mitch. In the most curious ways, he was burdened by the kind of thoughts an adult might think, like, how he was going to afford a home, who he was going to marry, and the type of father Mitch wanted to be.

On one occasion, he asked me how mortgages work and said he was worried he wouldn’t make enough money. “My allowance is so small,” he said. I chuckled a moment, then swallowed a lump of compassion in my throat then said, “Oh, sweet boy, don’t worry about that stuff. It’ll all make sense in time. I don’t know how or why; I just know things seem to work out the way they’re supposed to.”

Mitch thought a moment, “But Dad, what if I can’t make it work?”

“I’ll always be with you, Mitch. You will never have to face life alone. I promise.”

With that, Mitch went back to building his Legos.

My son fascinated me, both by his purity and maturity. He drank in sunrises and sunsets like an old man wise in years and rich with experience. He understood that each sunset was unique, never to be repeated in all the earth. Because Mitch thought of his mortality often, I think part of him wondered if the beautiful sky he so admired at any moment might be his last. On the deepest level, he knew life was fragile and precious above all things.

So when I saw my son at the hospital struggling to feel good and doctors grappling with how to save his life, my heart sank below anything I’d ever experienced, then or now. The days at the hospital were long and the nights unbearable. Sometimes I wonder if he awoke in the middle of the night and heard me quietly weep in the dark corner of the ICU room.

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I remember running to get something from my car at the hospital, near the time I took this photo. The sunset was almost past, so I quickly captured it with my iPhone to show Mitch. When I returned to his room and showed him the picture, he said, “Was that today?” (see the next image in this post)

I could tell by the tone in his voice he yearned to see it with his own eyes. I could tell he wanted to leave the hospital and never return.

“Yes, son. You’ll get to see them again soon.”

My heart is glad knowing Mitch saw a few more sunrises and sunsets before his time was up. He treasured each of them.

I don’t know why we must watch loved ones suffer. I wish I could take it all away. I wish I had the healer's art.

Instead, I carry grief like an inoperable brain tumor. It isn't terminal, though sometimes it feels that way. But it does change my vision; as a result, I see the world differently, more clearly and compassionately.

I don’t suffer in grief like I used to, but tonight the gravity of grief is heavy. Tonight I walk on Jupiter and struggle a bit to breathe. That is the lifelong burden of losing a child.

While I continue to make sense of suffering, I don’t shake my fist at heaven, angry that I lost my son. Instead, I have a heart of gratitude to have been his father. I got to know a little boy who became my deepest teacher. I got to meet an angel made mortal, whose life forever touched mine.