In deep sorrow and grief, we lose track of time, don’t we? It was October, now it’s December. My sense of time, in grief, is disrupted. I lack flow; I move in starts and stops. My wife comes home from work and asks, “What did you do today?” and I don’t have a ready answer for her. I know I did many things, had many thoughts, but I am hard-pressed to remember the details. She understands.
My daily ritual of leaving the back door cracked open has changed. It’s now too cold to leave the door cracked all day, so I briefly open it in the morning and say, “Good morning, Cooper. I love you. You’re always welcome here. Come on in, Boy, or go out, either way…” Then I shut the door. After that, I place my hands on his wallet, necklace, and watch, still sitting on the kitchen island, and I breathe deep and soak up his essence. I say “I love you” again. Then I repeat this ritual in the evening and leave a light on for him. Above the light on the end table, just to the left, is a wooden cross hung on the wall, illuminated by the lone light in the room.
A very peculiar thing has happened since I started my new ritual. About two weeks ago, I opened the back door in the morning, and a bright red fox, with a clean and shiny coat, pointy nose, and fluffy tail, ran out from underneath the porch directly beneath the back door. One morning, it stopped and looked at me, both of us frozen. I was scanning its face, looking for clues. I could see its intelligence. A red fox, it seems, has taken up residence under the porch, right underneath the back door.
I wonder about this. Were we living in a magical world, where rationality was subdued and the spiritual was made larger and given more space in our lives, what are the chances this fox is Cooper, or some spiritual reflection of him? I have little trouble imagining the cardinals flying around my backyard are dear loved ones, so why not a red fox?
Why does my rational mind so quickly dismiss my spiritual wonder? I have questions.
We have moved the makeshift prayer altar from the dining room table to a smaller table in our living room. Actually, it’s a library. (Do you remember I explained I am a book maximalist?) I’m still lighting a daily candle and praying for Cooper. My prayer remains simple: peace, happiness, love, and safety for Cooper’s eternal soul. I pray beyond Cooper, of course, to include the healing of family and friends, most especially my wife.
What’s spiritually interesting to me is that I spend at least a fair amount of my time in prayer these days praying for dear loved ones already departed from this life on earth. Early after Cooper’s death, I was asking for the prayers of my departed loved ones and the saints to watch over and guide Cooper. Now, I pray for my deceased loved ones in a way I have not done before. This is a new aspect of prayer for me, opening up new dimensions in my spiritual life I have previously not explored.
We’re approaching two months since Cooper died. I’m doing okay. Not bad, probably not great. I have my moments, both good and bad, and I accept them.
Just this week, I have been going through scrapbooks of Cooper that my wife has made and kept over the years. I cried as I was slowly flipping through the pages, not so much for the loss of Cooper, yes, that too, but for the love and care my wife has put into these albums. She has captured his life since birth in these beautiful books, and my heart breaks for her. The love my wife has for her children is so rich and deep and loving, I know she is crushed.
I am a father who deeply loved his son, and I am crushed, but I know the loss of Cooper is on another order of magnitude for my wife. A mother losing her child is, I think, the most tragic event that could happen to a mother.
I just finished reading Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief1 by Joanne Cacciatore. It’s a very good book. If I had to summarize, and using my own words and writing from memory, I would write:
Our society does not do grief well. Everybody, our culture, wants those grieving to hurry up and get back to their old, normal selves. Problematically, when you lose a child (or dear loved one), there is no return to the old self. That person is gone. If the people around us rush us, make us hurry up in our grieving—mostly because our grief makes them uncomfortable—it causes more problems down the road. No, the only way out is through. We must learn to sit with, be with, the incredible empty loss and pain of losing our dear child. Grieving takes the time it takes; it must be done in a healthy way that suits the griever, and it’s likely grieving and sorrow never actually leave, but rather our capacity to cope and be with, sit with, the pain, grows. As we come to terms with our grief and do the work, we may be able to channel our grief and help others.
Imagine the biggest, meanest monster you can bring to mind. Grief is walking up to the monster, standing toe to toe with it, looking it in the eyes, and not blinking. There’s great fear, the body quivers, and you don’t know how this is going to turn out. You don’t want to fight the monster, muscle up on it; you just want the monster to know, you’re not going anywhere and you will stand your ground. You fear not.
It is a rather unfortunate paradox that I can only now see the pain of others more clearly, even feel it in my bones, because I know it.
Does this make me more human?
Two months ago, I (we) got hit by a freight train. My spirit, mind, and body are still broken and deeply bruised. I am healing, but slowly. I am being patient and gentle with my healing. I don’t want to be sitting in a counselor’s office ten years from now because I didn’t do the deep work necessary to properly grieve the death of my son.
Imagine with me if you will: rather than Western medicine, I am sitting in a cave in the side of a Himalayan mountain with a Nepalese family, and they are caring for me in the traditional manner. This is a place where there is no doctor. I drink herbal tea with yak’s milk, and my bones are mended by herbal remedies. Since body and soul are in substantial union, the mending of my body mends my soul. Let’s call this Seven Years in Tibet the Midwest. I am not rushing this. If I literally have to go live in a cave to heal, it’s what I will do.
Another way of saying this is, nobody is going to make me rush getting over my son’s death. I’m going to marinate in it until my sinews are stained in his memories. I want to be able to close my eyes and etch the lines of his face by memory. I want to recite the scriptures by heart, by memory, and in this case, my holy book is Cooper.
I made it out to have a few craft beers with a dear friend last night. She, too, knows grief. I enjoyed very much that my friend wanted to talk about Cooper and to hear of my grief and sorrow. She was not afraid to engage in the uncomfortable conversation that sends most people running for the hills.
I like it when people can stand in the center of the fire with me and talk about Cooper. As a former firefighter, standing in the center of the fire has meaning to me. Oriah (Mountain Dreamer) would call this The Invitation.2 Or, of the 100 men in my life, only one is a warrior who makes the difference in standing with me to navigate and explore the unseen, healing the wounds nobody can see.
Let’s face it squarely: most of society is very scared of death and dying, and I understand this… up to a point. But I think, too, genuine spiritual maturity requires that, over time, we become more open and accepting of death, on account of the faith we hold. No?
I still talk to my mom almost every day, and we both agree: death does not scare us. We’re not looking forward to dying, but the sting is gone. We have a great belief we will see our loved ones again, especially dear Cooper.
There are worse things than death, I know, because I am living it. I have always prayed to God over these many years, “God, if you ever think you need one of my kids, no, take me.” All day long, every parent knows this.
I wish I could wrestle God, like Jacob. I know I would get beat, but I would like one night of going toe to toe with God. He would certainly feel me.
That’s the thing with living a long life: you will experience a lot of suffering.
As the years go by and the sweet bliss of raising my family fades into the background, suffering seems to press into my life more forcefully, more frequently, and finds more of the open pores of my soul.
I’m not depressed. I smile, I laugh, and I see color in my life; bright red foxes, for example. I have hope for my future, and I enjoy living.
But right now, I am more partial to healing with my Nepalese family and drinking tea with yak’s milk. This is where I am at.
Yes, I have questions. I am starting to have ideas too…
Endure 
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