The night before Mitchell passed away, we sensed time was running out. As the sky quickly darkened, the air grew eerily cold … and with each breath, we felt a heavy, somber feeling grow within our hearts. The abyss that was inching to devour our son had its mouth stretched wide and was beginning to swallow him up.

We were preparing to cuddle with Mitch in his room and read him stories to comfort him when we received a call from his best friend and next-door neighbor who wanted to see if he could play. Unaware Mitchell was already slipping away, coming in and out of consciousness (mostly out), we asked this young boy if we could speak to his mother. We told her Mitch didn't have much time and that perhaps her son would want to come over one last time. Within a few minutes of that call, this young boy came over to say goodbye to our baby, his best buddy.

Mitch absolutely loved Luke. Whenever he heard his friend knock on the door, Mitch would yell out, "Lukey!!!" Mitch was always excited to spend time with him … so this last visit would mean more to Mitch than I think Luke realizes to this day.

What I then witnessed in the quiet of Mitchell's room was the most tender interaction between two young boys I have ever seen. It was a sacred exchange between two boys made of clay; before my eyes, each being shaped by experience, hardship, sacrifice, and love.

Lying on the bed was our young boy, much too young to die. Standing next to him, another young boy holding his hand, bearing his young soul … much too young to say goodbye. It was not my place to ask God why such heavy things were required by the hands of these two innocent souls. Instead, I began to ponder deeply and pray in my heart to understand what we were meant to learn from this hardship.

These aren't the only two children to experience this, and they won't be the last. But they were our kids … and we loved them so. It hurt so very much to see.

This young boy, who had loved Mitch like a brother and faithfully served him with all his heart, told Mitchell how much he meant to him, that because of Mitch, he learned what it meant to be a true friend and that he would never forget him. Luke struggled to hold back the tears; his voice was broken with emotion as Mitchell lay unable to move or speak. His eyes barely open, my little son listened to tender words of affection and friendship. My wife and I wept as we witnessed love and friendship in its purest form. I knew that Luke, Mitchell's faithful little friend, was breaking inside.

Afterward, I hugged him and told him how much my wife and I loved and appreciated him. I told him I was sure if Mitchell were able to speak, he would tell Luke that he loved him like a brother and that he appreciated how he was always there to help him when his muscles were too weak and how much it meant to him that he always cheered him up when he was sad. I told Luke that he taught Mitchell and his parents what it meant to be "your brother's keeper" and that we were so grateful to him.

Later that evening, I couldn't help but think of that tender experience between these two young boys who were forced to grow up much too fast. I pondered the meaning of human suffering and the difficult experiences we sometimes must endure. I have learned to appreciate an old Jewish proverb, "Don't pray for lighter burdens; pray for a stronger back." It would seem that in all religious texts, no matter one's religion, God makes no apology for pain and suffering. In fact, I have come to understand there's a sacred relationship between suffering and spirituality if we learn to listen and endure it well.

The burden of losing my precious son has been heavy; so much so, I found my knees trembling, hands shaking, and my soul weary with grief. There exist no words in the human language to describe the depths of this sorrow. It is simply, utterly, bewilderingly heavy. But, like all suffering, the sting of that pain can make way to deeper compassion toward others, a greater capacity to love, a stronger desire to reach toward God and understand the greater meaning of things.

The truth is, we are [all of us] no different than these two little boys. We are all made of clay. And with each choice we make, each reaction to events in our life, we carve out something beautiful or something hideous – something that loves or hates. We need only look at our own life experience to know this is true … we have all seen some let the clay in their hearts harden and become brittle or unmovable. Others allow the tears of suffering to keep their clay soft and pliable.

Nine years have passed since this sacred evening, and in many ways, I have made peace with pain. That's not to say that it doesn't hurt; it does. The difference is I've come to accept deep pain is part of me now. As such, I allow it to come and go like a houseguest to my heart. Even if I tried to lock the door, pain knows where the key is and always finds a way in. At least for me, making peace with pain means grief can come and go as it needs – and with each episode, I gather up my tears and do the work to keep my clay soft and my soul pliable.

Tonight, on the anniversary of my son's passing, I celebrate my Mitch with a potpourri of grief and gratitude and a promise to Heaven and to my boy that I will never forget the tender lessons he taught me. Most importantly, I promise to use my hurt to help others as long as I live.

Mitch had passed a few hours prior, and we each spent sacred time saying goodbye to our boy. His body was beginning to change, and it was disturbing to see. I was frightened by the spectacle of it all. So, I called the funeral home and asked them to hurry. Soon, in the dark of winter, I’d hear a soft knock on our door that would usher a kind of trauma we weren’t prepared to experience.

The funeral home employees were kind and professional and went reverently about their work. They entered Mitchell’s room and slid a sheet under his body, then lifted my sweet boy onto a gurney, then strapped his body in. They covered his cold form with his blanket – not to keep him warm, but to show respect for a little boy who had gone too soon. I suppose they covered him, also, to soften the blow.

Natalie stood at the foot of Mitchell’s bed with a look of horror and disbelief on her face. Indeed, it was a horror show. In the long nights that would follow, my dear wife would weep and say, “I don’t want to live.” The long night of grief had just begun – and a long night it would be. As a husband and father, I scrambled to keep myself, my wife, and my children together.

In truth, I don’t need this photo to remind me of this horrible yet sacred event. The memory of this night is seared into my mind and soul – written in the most permanent of inks. I keep it, however, not to wallow in sorrow – but to stay sober about life. To stay centered in the heart and soul.

The other day I had lunch with an old friend and colleague. We talked for a while and covered a lot of ground. It isn’t my practice to speak of Mitch or grief with people unless they ask. But, somehow, our conversation turned toward Mitch, and we started to talk about life and loss. My friend had lost his sister many years ago, and though he grieved her loss, he didn’t understand the degree of sorrow his parents felt. He tried to understand – but until you experience it – it cannot be fully understood.

At one point in our conversation, I observed the spectators of grief – you know … the ones who, from the comfort of their own life, say things like, “Isn’t it time to get over it?” Or, “Just be glad you’ll see them again in the next life.” These, and a million platitudes like them, only cut deeper into tender wounds of the soul.

I said, “There is a kind of darkness one comes to know when they lose a child. And when you walk through that wilderness, you eventually come out the other side a different person. You change. Suddenly, the world is different. The pettiness of people and so much of what consumes society is both pedestrian and trivial. It’s like someone who knows only simple math is trying to tell you how to solve an abstract problem with theoretical physics. Suddenly, their level of understanding is elementary – and you are in graduate school, whether you’re ready or not.”

I went on to say that when I hear people talk of people ‘moving on,’ I want to say, “Okay, here’s a thought experiment. What if I told you to leave your young child (or grandchild) on the corner of a busy road and never look back? What’s more, you only have a few weeks to stop loving them – then, you must never feel after them. You must stop talking about them and act as if they never existed. Move on. Get over them. Impossible, right? Why? Because we love them – and that love is forever. So it is with grief. Yet, so often, grief feels a lot like love with nowhere to go – and it hurts to hold it in.”

We both had tears in our eyes. He could see my pain begin to surface, and he said, “I think I’m beginning to understand what my parents felt … and feel.” I smiled and told my friend that grief, like love, doesn’t end. Though our conversation was met with tender feelings – it was also healing and bridge-building. Talking helps. Remembering can be soul-soothing.

The death of a child is exactly similar to the birth of a child. It changes you forever. In the same way, your life is multiplied by their very existence; it is divided by their absence.

A grief remembered is only love trying to find its way.

Mitch and I surprised Natalie with an early Valentine's gift last night. (Mitch loved giving her surprises) This was a small expression of love and appreciation for the remarkable woman and mother she is. There is nothing I don't adore about her. As Mitch would say #imtheluckyone

More stories to come - but this is a snapshot of our family today.

Time is a slippery thing. One minute you think you have heaps of it, then on a Tuesday, you look back and wonder where it all went. Or, in my case, tragedy struck, and I was left dizzy with grief, wondering how I made the most of the ten years I had with my son.

At this moment, we were rushing Mitch to the ER. About an hour earlier, his stomach was writhing so much Mitch nearly passed out. I had never seen a child in so much pain.

Mitch rolled the window down a bit and hung his hand on the glass. He had a look on his face that was so very far away. I wondered what he was thinking. When I asked him, Mitch said softly, “Not now. I’m thinking.” To this day and forever, I’ll wonder what he was thinking.

A deep fog was rolling across the valley, and by the time we reached the hospital, we couldn’t see much of anything – which felt like a living metaphor. This photo nearly marked the beginning of Mitchell’s end.

“While we wait for life, life passes.” Lucius Seneca, a Stoic philosopher, said that about 2,000 years ago. Two thousand years ago. It would have been neat to know that 20 years ago, when I was a young father trying to find my place in the universe.

However much I tried to be in the moment as a husband and father, I failed more than I succeeded. Sometimes my heart is heavy over my countless moments of inattention, distraction, and procrastination; in my own deep work with grief and healing, I’ve learned how to turn regret into resolve. I can’t fix the past, but I can be in the present – and that will heal an otherwise painful future.

I don’t mean to sound so dramatic – as though everything is monumental. At least for me, being present has taken on a more hopeful meaning. How many of us have thought to record the voice of our little ones and said to ourselves, “Great idea, but I’ll do it later,” only to realize four years have passed and that tiny, helium-filled voice is deeper and more mature? It seems that even when we recognize THAT, we put it off. Then suddenly, our kids become adults, and those opportunities are irretrievable.

Whether we’re losing our loved ones to death or time, it’s the same. You will never have now again. We only have this moment – and what we do with it matters. This isn’t an original idea – but the realization (the awakening to it) is a revelation we’ll all have – hopefully sooner than later. At the deepest level, it seems like only the dying are the ones that awaken to how precious time is – and for the rest of us, we draw from an invisible bank account, never knowing the balance.

Time is a fast-moving river. We don’t often realize how fast it’s moving because we exist in the river of time – in the same way, you can be sitting in a car going 85 mph and not sense that you’re moving. In the same way, we don’t realize we live on a planet that’s spinning about 1,000 per hour, and when we lay our head down to sleep, we’re orbiting the sun at an average speed of 67,000 miles per hour (that 18.5 miles per second). Even still, our solar system is orbiting the galaxy at about 490,000 miles per hour, and the galaxy in which you now live is moving at about 1.3 million miles per hour into the immensity of space. Mitch loved stuff like this, and we talked about it often.

The point is we have no real sense of how fast things are moving … including time. For that reason, I’ve found it helpful to remember that it’s always later than you think. That invisible bank account from which you draw your minutes and hours is finite. One day your account will be empty. You’ll marvel at how fast it went, wonder where you spent it, treasure where you invested it, wince where you squandered it, and wish you had more of it. The prayer of the dying is almost always, “I wish I had more time.”

So, just a few weeks after I took this photo, I found myself kneeling by Mitchell’s side – the candle of life flickering out before my eyes. I’ll never forget how I was awakened by a force unseen. I was sleeping on the floor next to him. I was so tired. Then, suddenly I was wide awake as though someone shook me. I had an impression that felt like an emergency. I knew at that moment I needed to tuck Mitch in. I placed my hand gently on his chest, his heart barely fluttering. I told him I was so proud of him and wanted to be like him when I grew up. I still do. I told Mitch he could go when he was ready and that his mother and I would miss him, but that we would be okay. I whispered other sacred words, father to son. I kissed his face pulled his blanket around his shoulders just how he liked it. Although his body and senses were all but shut down, and what I did and set probably felt like a distant dream, I think he was hanging on for permission to go. I believe he heard me and felt my love for him. That was my last act of love.

Thirty minutes later, he was gone.

That thing you need to do. The words you need to say. That love you need to show.

Do the thing. It’s later than you think.