Reflections From The Wreckage

I think its beautiful and inspiring when someone is able to turn their pain into purpose. I think being honest about where we are at in the pain and healing is just as beautiful. I think in western culture especially there is so much pressure on people in grief to not only heal quickly but turn that pain into purpose. We live in a what have you done for me lately society. We can get just about anything we want on demand with the click of a button. Instant gratification, instant results and anything beyond that is unacceptable. I think western society sees grief as a chick fil a drive through line. No matter how chaotic, painful, life altering, traumatic etc you should be in and out in 5 minutes or less.

We all love the underdog story in whatever capacity that looks like. We cheer on the sports team who has less than a 1% chance of winning. We cheer on the character in the movie or television show who has seemingly had the world against them, yet finds a way to become uber successful. Because no one wants to see anyone swallowed up by the devastation this life can throw at someone. Honestly who wants to be that person that is overcome by their pain and or problems. Let me be real with you though grief is not the way its portrayed on film. Grief has no timeline, no precise number of stages and the positive uplifting stories don’t happen overnight. There are some things that happen to people that simply are not overcome.

When we are curious about something or someone we do all that we can to learn as much about it or them as possible. We exhaust every possible resource at our disposal to become as educated as possible. That is what I have been doing in grief. I thought I knew grief before Jacob ran ahead but I continue to be educated everyday. While I look to those who have gone before me on this journey I also know that my journey will look drastically different than theirs. Grief is as unique to the individual as our fingerprints are in the world. I recently listed to a podcast episode by Anderson Cooper. He is no stranger to grief having lost a brother and his father. In this particular episode I think there is some imporant information that needs to be re-shared.

Cooper started the episode by speaking on why he went into Journalism. I resonated so deeply with what he said that it was almost like a lightbulb clicked on when I heard it. I started this blog as a way to talk about a real world superhero in my son Jake. I also started it as a means of therapy for myself and maybe for some of you that have been following along. Ironically from someone who has been so quiet for most of if not all of his life, this devastating turn of events made me loud. Not loud in the sense that I stop everyone I pass to talk about grief or the little boy who was taken way too soon. I became loud through this blog and other conversations I have had along the way. As painful and uncomfortable as this is the topic deserves a place in our conversations. Grief needs to be talked about.

Looking back on what I have shared I think it’s safe to say I may have shared too much. I may have been a little too honest with the world. I would be doing myself and those hurting a diservice if I wasn’t honest about the pain. This absolutely does suck and is the worst thing that could ever happen to me. Your grief for your person is the worst thing that has ever happened to you. I have not overcome losing Jake, this has very much destroyed a lot of things in me and my life. There is not one area his death has not touched that is not painful. I haven’t found any life altering meaning to what has happened. In all honesty in a lot of ways I think his death has had the kind of affect on me that no one wants to hear about. All the ways in which death changes people for the better haven’t seemed to happen for me. This is still very fresh and raw.

I say all this to say that I thought I had ideas on what this blog would be. There has been a lot of time since the start of this up until now that I have thought about shutting it all down completely. This is some really dark, heavy and painful stuff that has been shared here. The thought often comes that says ”What’s the point of any of this? Why am I still doing this, still talking about this?” The reason I think this blog exists? To bear witness. Here is what Cooper said that gave me the strength to make another post.

”Three years after my brother died by suicide. I started going to wars. A Friend made a phone press pass for me. I borrowed a video camera, bought some wireless microphones, and snuck into Myanmar to shoot a story about young people fighting the Burmese government. Months later, I went to Somalia to report on a famine and civil war. I’d never seen suffering and death on that scale. I was in a town called Bidoa where about a hundred people were dying every day. As dusk fell, I watched a man and his wife in a hut made of twigs fill a kettle with what little water they had. Between them lay their young son who had just died. His body was covered in a dirty cloth. The man held the boy’s head in his left hand. The woman poured the water over her son to wash him. They’d already watched their three other boys die. This was their last. He was five years old. It was in Somalia on that trip 32 years ago that I knew I had found my calling. I couldn’t stop the starvation. I couldn’t save people’s lives, but I could bear witness to their struggles. I could tell their stories.”

Recently I sat down with a friend who shared some of their own pain and trauma that came through their grief. I had no earth shattering wisdom to offer, no grief secrets of navigating the journey ahead. I didn’t have much to say honestly I just listened. I shared some of my pain and things that were similar in how we felt. After that night reflecting on those conversations, every blog post, every story I have heard of devastating loss since Jake died. I came to the same conclusion. I am here to bear witness, that is what this blog is and any writing done in the future. I can’t stop death from happening or pain from entering your life but I can bear witness to your pain and your stories. To the stories of those who have left way too soon but left an eternal impact on those left behind. Have that painful, uncomfortable conversation, listen, say their names and bear witness.

The posts that have been written thus far though painful, dark and hard to read have a purpose. They are meant for someone deep in the clutches of grief, someone who needs to know they aren’t alone in their pain, someone who is afraid to speak out on how grief has impacted them. Someone who has not yet met this thing called grief that is universally felt yet universally misunderstood.

I have had to reconstruct and reform everything I thought I knew but more importantly believed about God in the last year and a half. The majority of the time I have felt and heard very little or nothing at all. I can’t bring myself to read the bible or pray these days because that brings two responses either anger or tears sometimes both at the same time. Yet as I was listening to this episode and reflecting on my own journey with grief I was reminded of Isaiah Chapter 6. Isaiah in this chapter was caught up in heaven seeing God for the first time. He got a glimpse of what that realm looked like along with creator and was immediately undone. Isaiah heard God asking, ”Whom shall I send, Who will go for us?” Isaiah replied, ”Here I am send me.” I know that chapter is about something completely different, Yet I feel like the question had to exist for a lot of different things. So I think in someways though I am still early on this journey, still unhealed, still broken, still lacking the right words all the time. Here I am send me, to those deep in their own journey with grief. Which I think is kind of what this blog is not just for me but for those still on the journey and those who have yet to start.