08/11/2015

  Another vital realization about dealing with grief is that change is an inevitable result of a grief-inducing event. It has to be. Oh, we can try to deny grief's impact on us, we can pretend that it really doesn't bother us, we can try to rationalize it away, we can try to hide from it in some way, but sooner or later, if we are truly to begin the healing process, we must accept the unwanted changes that are threatening to take over our life whether or not we choose to acknowledge them. As I struggled to deal with these changes in my life following the death of my son, I often had to admit that I felt a little foolish at times. Of course, it was beyond obvious that my life had drastically changed and not for the better. It was also an indisputable fact that, for the most part, these changes could never be undone. They were permanent. What I could change, at least to a certain degree, was how I reacted and responded to these life-altering changes. I could go on either pretending they weren't such a big deal or I could search for ways to begin to face up to them. If I was to begin to heal on this journey I knew which course I had to follow.

07/27/2015

   How does a man learn to deal with grief? It's been almost a year since I posed that question at the end of my last blog entry. I'm again not sure why I have not been writing for so long, except to say that I was so focused on work and other issues that I just didn't have the energy to write. Oftentimes, my writing about grief takes me back in time to those first horrible days following Curtis's death, dredging up emotions and memories I thought were long gone. I realize at such times that there are still residual issues with which I am not finished dealing or now may need to deal with in a different way. I also understand that it is ultimately to my long-term benefit to face such things as they arise. Even all these years later, there are still ways I can help myself continue to move forward with my life. This situation again points to one of the most difficult aspects of grief-its unpredictability. I think as human beings (especially as men) it's this characteristic of grief that is so maddening-the uncertainty of it all. We may realize intellectually that each person involved in the same situation will grieve in their own way and follow their own timeframe, but emotionally, men find this to be a most frustrating factor of grief. We like to know how long something will last. We like to know how much time and energy we need to invest in this whole process. We don't like to think there may be no end to this entire thing. We don't like to think there may be times when we believe we have reached some kind of ending only to have to deal with the same things over and over again. The thought that we may never feel "normal" again terrifies us. We begin to feel paralyzed and hopeless that we will ever feel anything close to normalcy again. Why can't we fix this? Why can't we just make it all go away? Where is the magic spell or magic fairy dust that could make me feel like myself again? Dealing with grief may be the most emotionally, spiritually, and mentally challenging thing we may ever face in life. It can even leave us physically drained years after the initial event. So, after all these months between posts, the question remains: how does a man learn to deal with grief?

08/02/14

   Sooner or later grief comes to us all in one way or another. It is no respecter of status or station in life.  It comes to rich and poor alike. It cares not if a person is famous, powerful or well-connected. It cannot be bargained away, nor can you hire someone else to handle it for you. It strikes viciously, often without warning, with a ferocity unlike anything else we experience. It throws our lives into utter chaos, bringing into question the very principals by which we have been leading our lives. It completely disrupts our belief systems, especially when it involves the death of a young person such as a child, which seems to totally violate the natural order of things: parents are not supposed to outlive their children. Grief absolutely turns our lives upside down. Everything changes, often not for the better. We are forced to realize some very unpleasant things about our lives on this planet. We are left searching for answers to questions we never expected to have to face. We often feel lost, hopeless and alone. We want someone to explain to us why this had to happen to us. How can we survive this situation? When will our lives return to normal? When will we feel like ourselves again? We want someone to give us answers to questions which have no answers. We feel like everything in our lives has changed in the blink of an eye, and we are spinning helplessly out of control. How do we survive?

07/24/2014

   I realize now that in addition to learning how to take things one step at a time, in the early days literally sometimes taking things one breath at a time, there were other things that helped me overcome the various fears that threatened to engulf me.
   I learned that much of the time my feelings and emotions were transitory and that what I might be experiencing at a certain moment would soon be changing. I realized that what I often needed to do was actually the exact opposite of what my emotions were tempting me to do. For example, there were many times when what I really wanted to do was to curl up into a little ball, find an isolated corner in which to hide myself, and wait for the storm to pass. What I discovered I needed to do was to lean more heavily than ever on the people closest to me, especially my wife and children. In this case, I don't mean leaning on them in a sense of dragging them down at such a horrible time, but rather to mean keeping myself available to them, leaning on each other, supporting each other as much as we possibly could to survive together. If we could not stick together and find ways to help each other through something so absolutely horrible, who else was going to help us?
   Unfortunately, we did discover during those early days that some people we thought would always be there for us, could not find it within themselves to do so. We came to realize that many people just felt so uncomfortable around us that they fell by the wayside, some early on in our journey, and others as time went by. Whether it was because they felt helpless not knowing what to say or do or how to comfort us, or because our situation brought the fear and anxiety that if something this awful could happen to a family like ours it could also happen to them, the fact remained that these people were not able to be there for us.
   Conversely, there were other people who actually surprised us with the level of on-going, consistent support they gave to us. In many cases, these people are still with us today. Of course, there is another group of people who we believed would always be there for us, and indeed they have been, every moment of every day and every step of the way. Besides holding on to my wife and children for support, I learned to let these other people who were so concerned about us all, help us in whatever ways they could. Their timing wasn't always perfectly corresponding to what I might have been feeling at a given moment, but I learned to accept that everything they were doing was done out of true love and concern for us. I discovered again that the moments when I most felt like isolating myself from the entire world were often actually the moments when I most needed to allow people to simply love me.

07/07/2014

   I don't mean to imply that I have completely figured out why my son had to leave us at such a young age, nor do I want people to think that I have entirely accepted this reality. I only relate what I have come to believe, specifically that my son had a mission on this Earth and once it was accomplished he was called home where his spirit continues to exist in a place of ultimate peace and joy. It may be a fraudulent rationalization to some, but it brings me great comfort because I believe it to be true with all my heart. It would drive me insane to think that this life is all there is, that our existence is purely random, and that there is no possibility that I will ever see my son again. How utterly pointless and desperately hopeless life would be. In spite of all the agonizing pain and moments of deep anger and depression my son's death has brought into my life, I totally believe that there is some greater purpose in all of this, and while I don't understand it all, I do believe that ultimately love must win out.
   A few months from now we will be facing the fact that Curtis has been gone from us as long as he was here with us-14 years. There are still moments where I find it hard to believe he's really gone, and harder still to believe I've survived this long without him. When I think back to those first horrible days after his death, it's amazing to me that we have not just survived, but have been able to actually thrive in many ways. I never would have thought that was possible. It was only when I opened myself up again to receiving love that I was able to let go of the darkness that had enveloped my life. Once I realized that my son still loved me, that he hadn't left me because he didn't love me anymore, I could begin to love myself again. Once I realized that my son was OK where he was, I could love others, and allow them to love me. What a burden was lifted off my shoulders! What an amazing thing-my 14-year old son was still teaching me life lessons about the importance of love!

06/24/2014

   What was this great secret that was to finally move me to give up my anger? After all, it was an anger that I had carried for so long that it felt to me like I had always been angry. It seemed like it was the only true emotion I knew-that it was all that was allowing me to keep putting one foot in front of the other, as if it had become the driving energy of my life. I was afraid that if I stopped feeling anger, I would instead feel nothing at all. That worried me more than being angry. At least anger seemed to keep me going. It prompted me to keep fighting for justice for my son and his friends in court, and to keep looking for ways to honor my son's life and memory.

   Alongside the anger, there was another thought always at the forefront of my mind: why had my son had to die so young? Gradually, as I pondered this question and my mind went back over some of the conversations we'd had with other people, I remembered the words of one of the young Mormon missionaries who had ministered to us in those early days of our journey, "Your son's mission on this earth was done. It was his time to go home." When I first heard those words, I didn't want to accept them. That was not a good enough reason for my son to leave us! But as time has gone by and my wife and I have discussed this concept many times, and I've learned about other people's experiences, I've come to believe with all my heart that every person has a mission on this planet and a time given to accomplish that mission. I know that to some people that must sound like the rationalization of a grieving father desperately trying to make some sense out of a senseless situation, and perhaps it is, but to me it's the only explanation that makes any sense at all. My son had a mission. He had fulfilled that mission even though he was only 14 years old. His time on Earth was done. It was time for him to go home. Am I totally at peace with this notion? No, of course not. I would still much rather have my son here with us, but I am enough at peace with it that I've been able to release the anger that was poisoning my life and replace it with what I believe Curtis had learned as part of his mission here. I believe that, while I still don't understand everything about why my son died so young, God has chosen to give me a small glimpse into the secret that Curtis discovered-that what we are here to learn is love-how to love ourselves, how to love others, how to allow others to love us, and how to love our God. In short, that life is love, and love is life. How did he learn that in only 14 years?