Just about everything I do or think or remember has a Tyler-associated experience to go with it. For instance, I get in my car, and there are a million associations: The times he sat behind me in his safety seat, and I would reach back and grab his little foot and shake it to make him laugh.
The times we would make up silly songs or jokes, or belt out our off-key voices to the radio. More recent associations with being in the car are him climbing in next to me. Tyler was not one to plug in ear phones, close his eyes, and check out on me. In fact, the opposite was true.
Riding in the car together meant talking together about what was going on in his life, discussing favorite songs, making future plans, or simply seeing who could say or do the weirdest thing to make the other laugh. It was insanely easy to make that boy laugh. Oh my how I miss that!
If we had silences, one of us would reach over and touch the other: a hand hold, a leg pat, a shoulder squeeze. We clocked many hours together listening to Tyler’s playlists or the radio, just singing together or even discussing the meaning behind a certain song. These are some of my most cherished memories.
So now I get in the car, and he’s not there. He’ll never be there. His friends won’t pile in the back and entertain me with their goofiness and laughter. His children will never be strapped in behind me so I can reach back and grab their little feet. Sometimes I try to figure out what would be worse: having had wonderful experiences only to lose them, or not ever having had them at all. On one hand it’s joy turned to pain; on the other, it’s not having experienced joy in the first place.
My intellect tells me that of course Tyler is in a better place. Even though he lost a bright present and a bright future, He’s with his Lord and he’s not missing what he left behind. Time has no meaning for him. While I’ve been marking each day, week and month without him, he is in his indescribably wonderful eternity.
Ever since I became a Christian, I’ve been thankful that God created a way for us to be with Him eternally, but now I’m immensely grateful in a new way, because I can know Tyler is there with Him. I can know I’ll be there with him for eternity as soon as I die. That intellectual knowledge is something to grab onto, something to convert into hope, something to mitigate the loss. I can’t imagine grieving without this head/faith knowledge.
But my mother’s heart tells me something different. It only knows that my son is gone and that memories will never be as wonderful as his actual presence was. My heart holds the pain of his absence, which includes not only him being gone, but also the loss of what was supposed to be years and years of our future together. This pain and hurt only seem to worsen as time marches on. I know it’s supposed to “get easier as time passes,” but apparently that doesn’t apply to these early months, because that’s not happening.
Thoughts and images of my son are always on my heart. A constant mantra – “I have no son!” – plays an endless loop inside me. Sometimes I’m involved in distractions that relegate the chants to soft whispers, barely heard or acknowledged. Other times, the phrase is at the forefront, but I feel at peace as I acknowledge it. I also have occasions when, without warning, the whispers become shouts, and I fall completely emotionally apart, right then and there. I may be at work, I may be driving, I may be in a store, I may be at home. But suddenly, I’m completely overtaken by horrible, horrible loss and everything else around me becomes inconsequential.
I’ve heard that grief is isolating, and I find it to be true. I think it has something to do with having this constant “buzz” in your head and brokenness in your heart. On a daily basis, I am surrounded by people who are like me before my loss. Like I was, they are consumed with thoughts of daily obligations, plans to make, things to do.
The day of Tyler’s diagnosis, for instance, my mind was focused on and anxious about getting started with the school year, a huge project I had going on at work, a trip Ron and I were taking to Florida later in the month, and how we were going to afford to send Tyler to college in three years.
So now after the death of my son, I’m back to work, back to church, back in lines at stores, and I have things on my mind like everyone else, but ever intertwined with those thoughts are the thoughts that Tyler is gone. I’m aware that, unlike everyone else I know, when I leave I’ll go home to the comforting arms of my grieving husband in our childless house.
This kind of new reality makes you feel utterly separate from others. The friendly cashier asks you how you’re doing, and you answer, “Fine,” because he or she doesn’t deserve the response, “Well, since my child died, I’m feeling really crappy.” You come upon that question on a form that asks how many children you have, and suddenly a mindless task becomes an agonizing one. You attend a workshop where the speaker asks for a show of hands if you’re the parent of a teenager. Suddenly, your mild professional interest in a topic shifts into raw grief that your child is dead.
You are different. You are not who and what you once were.
Friday will be three months, and all I can think is that four times a year, for every year I have left on earth, I have to re-live these same three months. Of course I know this isn’t really accurate because each quarter-year period will take me further and further from the day of his death, but at this point, that’s how I feel about what looms ahead of me.
Even as I read over what I just wrote, I’m dissatisfied with how I’ve conveyed it all. I guess I really don’t have the words to adequately paint the picture. This level of grief is unchartered territory for me.
Ron and I constantly check in with each other to make sure our grief doesn’t become unhealthy. The challenge is that healthy grief still comes with an amount of pain that makes you feel like you’re going to die. When people ask how we’re doing, and I say OK, what I mean is that we seem to be as functional as can be expected when going through the loss of a child.
I will say that even three months after his death and nearly ten months after his diagnosis, we’re still not angry. I know that’s supposed to be one of the stages of grief, but we’re just as happy to skip that stage.
II Corinthians 4:8-9 says, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”
My take on that passage is that crying tears of pain, asking questions, being confused, having a broken heart or dashed dreams – it’s all OK, because we will never be crushed, abandoned or destroyed.
And why is this? The answer is outlined in the two verses that come right before, “For God, who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves!” (II Corinthians 4:6-7).
I love these verses. We are human and fragile. When we accept Christ, we have the very light of a holy God living in our hearts rather than darkness. And while that amazing treasure is housed by our fragile hearts, God gives us His power. There are no promises that life on earth won’t trouble us, perplex us, hunt us down, and knock us down. But, there are countless promises that God will be with us and prevent us our spirits from being destroyed. So, while I may feel lonely without my child and as I struggle to find my new place in society, I am never alone, because God has not abandoned me.
These verses also apply to Tyler, who had the light of Christ in his heart as well. Although earthly disease ended his earthly life, God never abandoned him. Before he even breathed his last, God was already revealing the beauty and glory that awaited Tyler, and Tyler’s strong spirit was never destroyed. Tyler now “know(s) the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ!”
I have to admit, I’d rather be in Tyler’s place right now than my own. But as I continue to live out my life on this earth, I look forward to seeing how God will use Tyler’s legacy to further His kingdom. And I look forward to seeing how he will use Tyler’s parents and family and friends who remain here to impact our world as we wait to be reunited with Tyler. What will He do with fragile vessels filled with His light and His power? I am open to whatever He has for me!