06/25/2014

   During my "spiritual eclipse" period, I would catch glimpses of light from time to time trying to shine through my darkness, but I wasn't ready to latch onto them. The only consistent point of light I saw was  coming from behind me, a tiny pinpoint that I came to believe was the light left from my old life. But if I took a few steps toward it, it would shimmer and then disappear just as my son had disappeared. I was left to keep going forward toward what appeared to be only darkness. The occasional flashes of light I would see ahead of me I eventually came to realize were people's attempts to love me and draw me out of the darkness, specifically the love of my wife and children, and the love Curtis had left with us. But I wasn't ready to give up my anger and grief. I felt entirely justified in my anger and sorrow. I felt it was all I had to help me survive.
   As my journey continued, however, the flashes of love-light became more frequent and forceful. As I slowly began to accept the idea that Curtis's mission on Earth was completed and he had gone home, I also began to see the lights begin to stop flashing and to, instead, glow with a soft, steady radiance. The lights then began to join together to form one light glowing steadily in the distance ahead of me. I believed that this was the love-light left behind by my son. It was his way of telling me that he was OK-that I would be OK.  At his young age my son had found what many people, sadly, never find-he had found how to love and be loved. Curtis lived his life with love. He was able to let other people love him; more importantly, he was able to love and accept other people just the way they were. He never put conditions on people. He never asked them to change so they would be easier to love. He just accepted them as he found them. He always looked for ways to include people into his life, rather than trying to find ways to exclude them from his life. To this day, it still amazes me that such a young man could have such a profound affect on the lives of the people he met. People still tell us what a lasting positive impact Curtis had on their lives.
   It was that kind of love that brought me out of the darkness: the love of my wife and my surviving children, the love Curtis had left behind, the love I remembered that God has for us even in the darkness. Just as turning on a light in a darkened room scatters the darkness, so did that love scatter the darkness I was feeling. The light was real. It was the darkness that was the illusion. I know now that even though Curtis is physically gone from us, the love he feels for us and we feel for him endures. I feel it everyday whenever I think of him. I will always feel it no matter how much time goes by. Curtis will always be my son, and I will forever be his dad, and the love goes on.