When Cooper died, and in the months that followed, I found myself walking and moving in a very, very deep spiritual place. I felt as though I could literally reach out and touch the spiritual world if I wanted to. I mean this sincerely. Out of respect for what’s on the other side, the spiritual realm, I never did reach into the void.

I sensed a close connection with el otro lado (the other side). Animals and insects took on new meaning. Red foxes, butterflies, dragonflies, robins, cardinals, cranes, and crows all became more than just animals and bugs—they became messengers.

It’s funny, but not funny, how in my deepest pain, the spirit world leaned in on me through the natural world.

Riptides have a different meaning to me now, as do wind chimes, dreams, candles, and felt hugs.

I’ve had three dreams with Cooper in them since he died. My last dream was so real, I woke up crying. It was a good dream, and it lifted me all day. It still lifts me.

I was recently walking the path at a local park when a woman passed me in silence, but with a certain look. She seemed like a spiritual messenger. I wondered if she was an angel. That was my impression. With certain people now, I sit and ponder, I check them out, I wonder: is this a person or an angel?

I have come to realize that the traditional Christian faith I grew up with, and have believed in for most of my adult life, has not provided me with the language and imagery I need to cope with and explain the loss of my son.

If I’m being fair, and I think I should be, it’s the second time in my life that I’ve felt shaken and Jesus was not there. My faith has shifted.

If you’re a Christian, I understand that you feel compelled to advocate Jesus to me. I would do the same. Don’t be hurt if I share that I have some new territory to explore, which may be outside the bounds of traditional Christianity. I must be true to the muse within me.

I talk to Cooper, his spirit, and I pray for him (his soul) daily. I regularly pray for “the boys” (Cooper, Cas, Kameron, Austin, Cody, and Joshua). I see spirit guides in animals, especially red foxes. I sense Cooper’s presence in certain places he used to visit. I can be sitting in the reading room at my house, thinking of Cooper, and the wind chime on the porch will chime at just the right time. It’s uncanny.

Despite all the spiritual nuance, life is returning to a baseline. My wife and I are both working, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, working out, reading books, watching television, caring for our children and pets, caring for each other, and doing all the things adults do.

Returning to work part-time has been helpful for my healing process. It has also moved me further away from the deep spiritual place I was in. Perhaps, and I think so, this is a good thing. Being so close to a thin space is good, but these places are not without their inherent dangers.

People often ask, “How are you doing?” My answer is, “I’m okay. I’m not great, and I’m not terrible. I’m okay.” And I think, at 10 months in, this is completely acceptable.

I don’t cry nearly as often as I used to, but I still do. Just this morning, a good family friend shared a Facebook memory of Cooper’s freshman drop-off day at the University of Arizona. Cooper was sitting next to her daughter, and Mama Bear was with Cooper. The picture took my breath away, and the tears welled up.

I was explaining to a friend that I now understand micro-aggressions. To be clear, nobody is being aggressive with me and nobody is intentionally trying to harm me. As I go through each day, I almost always bump up against a conversation related to children. I’m frequently asked how many children I have, or people talk about how difficult their child is being, and I only wish mine were here, etc.

These small wounds add up over the week, and come Friday, it’s time to shed some tears. I always feel better after I shed a few. It lets all the funky chemicals out.

Truth be told, I drink more alcohol now than I did before. I don’t drink a lot, and I don’t have a problem, but I do drink more than I used to. On Fridays, I drink beer and get my buzz on. I’m not sure I do this to numb the pain because I don’t feel pain in that way. It’s more that I just smile and get happy and can set the grief thoughts behind me for an evening.

I’ve become good friends with silence and quiet. It’s how I best process and grieve. Since I work part-time, my wife works, and our daughter is in school (the boys live outside the home—they are adults), a few days a week it’s just me and the puppies. I cherish this time to think slowly, consider, reflect, remember, pray, listen, and try in some way to process this tragic life event. I pay homage to Cooper.

Occasionally, I lean into pity parties. Why me, I wonder? Why am I drinking from this cup? Why didn’t it pass over me? My heart and mind move to the mothers in Gaza, and I am quickly humbled, and I forget my pity party.

If you save one life, it’s as if you have saved the whole world. Likewise, if you take one life, it’s as if you have killed the whole world. No?

We just passed the 10-month mark since we lost Cooper to suicide. I still struggle with wondering why such a beautiful boy, who was seemingly doing so well, self-ejected from life so suddenly and without warning. We don’t know why. We know there’s no do-over for this one. We don’t get a re-do, no take-backs. What’s done is done, and oh, so final.

I’ve perfected my “elevator speech.” I say, by rote memory, “We don’t exactly know what happened, but it’s likely Cooper had undiagnosed clinical depression, which he wasn’t receiving treatment for.” This seems accurate, but I really don’t know. It’s a stupid-wild-ass-guess (SWAG).

Does it seem sad that I have to have an elevator speech for relating the loss of my child? It is sad to me. Without the 30-second elevator speech, I would freeze.

I continue to have many questions, but there will be no answers (in this life). I understand this terrible logic.

I have an overwhelming, strong sense that I will see Cooper again on the other side. I know it in my bones, unequivocally. Zero doubt. Why do I sense this and know it so strongly? I don’t know.

I haven’t gone back and read any of the blog posts I’ve written. I write them, read them a few times that day, post them, and I don’t look back. I’m not sure I can even go back and read my own writing about what happened. How’s that for pain and loss? I remember Cooper, for sure, but I press forward.

I worry about my wife. She’s an only child, and she was very close with her father. We lost Poppy Jack to Parkinson’s disease in May 2023, and then Cooper, Mama’s baby boy, in October 2023. Either one of these is a tough cross to bear on its own, let alone together, in tandem.

I wait in eager expectation for creation to reveal itself and answer some questions. I’m flipping the script. I now more fully understand all the ancient myths where the protagonist is angry with the gods.

A good friend, like a mom to me, frequently checks in with us. She wants us to tell her stories about Cooper on holidays, like the 4th of July. Recently, on August 8th (Cooper died on an 8th), she asked us to share a brief memory. I shared this:

I was looking for a .jpeg picture the other day. I’ve saved all of Cooper’s pictures in my iPhotos, and I have his little meme pictures from saving his data from Snapchat. It was kind of funny looking at the memes Cooper was sending to his friends in high school. He had a pretty good sense of humor. Many of the memes are totally inappropriate, and most people would not find humor in some of them, but they made me smile. The kind of things these kids sent back and forth to each other was comical. Digital natives. As Cooper got older, he was trying to wean himself off social media, and I think he was largely successful. Good on him.

At our most recent The Compassionate Friends meeting, a bereaved mom said to our group that she feels like, since her son’s death, she is just drifting. I completely understand; I feel like this now. I used to believe I was an “operator,” that I could influence my environment and make things happen. Now, I am in a boat drifting along parallel to the shore, waving at all the good people. Just drifting, no paddles. Waving, with a smile on my face.

I’m no longer forcing life, asserting my will. I am taking paths of less resistance, moving with the spirits. There is a flow to life; I sense it now.

Oddly, this lack of strain, this letting go, is not so bad. I am finding a new happiness in release—probably because I am now realizing how little control I actually had over anything.

Through Cooper’s death, I have let go of my driven self. I am more attuned to the compassionate person within me that I have always been but have not let out because of life and risk. It’s risky to be authentically ourselves and show that to other people. But now, to heck with it.

My kids are doing well, all things considered. I am anchored at the reef, wrecked, and doing my part to full-send them into the world. Mama Bear and I have each other. We are doing spiritual edgework together. I’ve got the grief. I will hold it for all of us. Kids, you go.

A question I used to ask my children was this: “How are you… deep in your soul?” The reason for the question was because if I asked them, “How are you doing?” like we all do all the time, they would respond with “fine” or “good.” So I changed the question. “How are you doing in your soul?” This caused them to pause and reflect.

How am I doing in my soul? I hurt. More on some days than others. I understand my life has been tragically altered. Even when I try to fake it and use old maxims and axioms to pump myself up, I know I have been badly wounded. My wife, tenfold.

And yet, I am still standing. I still smile, and I still have joy and happiness in my heart. I still want the best out of this life.

It’s difficult for me to have conversations with people who act like they know what’s up because they’ve gone through some stuff and all, but they have not lost a child. There’s just nobody who knows except the people who know. I just can’t explain this. So my peace and my love go out to those who have lost a child, who know this deep hurt place. Only they really know. When it comes to understanding the new spirit world that opens up after the loss of a child and the difficulty in straining through traditional Christian language to find words and symbols that help the grieving soul, only bereaved parents know.

I am tending, in this regard, toward more silence in my life, less noise, and fewer distractions.

As I close out my free write today, I’ll share a story about Cooper that makes me smile.

From a young age, Cooper was clearly on a path toward diabetes. I jest, but the boy loved sugar, and in particular, powdered sugar. He would toast bread and use a spoon to scoop and then smooth a 1/4-inch layer of powdered sugar on each of two slices of bread, edge to edge, times two. He would then sit at the kitchen table, watching SpongeBob on the television across the room, smiling with contentment at the pure joy of sugar and SpongeBob.

One day, I took out the powdered sugar bag to make Cooper some powdered sugar toast. I felt a spoon in the bag, so I went to take it out. I noticed another spoon in the bag. Then another, and another, and another. I took five spoons out of the powdered sugar bag. Apparently, once Cooper made his toast, he simply left the spoon in the bag and moved on with his day.

These were the kinds of funny nuances of living with a gifted child. Bright, but lacking in the common sense department.

These little stories of Cooper still make me smile.