Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands

The Time Is Soon

Ethan’s Dad: Eight years. It has been eight years since we last saw Ethan — experienced him — alive. Eight years since I heard his cry: he would wail, scream, go on for quite a while, but also sigh. Eight years since I felt his breath. It could be halting and shaky, but it also could be very gentle. Eight years since I fed him those bottles of milk and formula. That was always difficult for me. I felt that I could never get him to drink enough. It was not for lack of effort — he tried very hard — but there was almost always some left. The best part of that was when he was finished and was tired. When he slept peacefully, he was like an angel. Eight years since I saw those eyes open: those dreamy, contemplative eyes that always gave the impression he was thinking about something interesting. I wish I knew those thoughts. Eight years since feeling his warmth. He liked to be held close. It was his love language because he could not yet really speak.

It has been eight years, but the time is relative — it both flies and crawls. It flies because in one sense it feels like an instant since that moment of loss happened; that time is frozen in our hearts. It crawls in the sense that each day without him aches, and we long to see him again. But the reality is that we live in this present time, each next moment, without him. God asks us to go on because our journeys in these earthen vessels are not finished. We have not spiritually matured to the point of being ready to see Him, which means we are not able to see him yet either. No matter how much we may wish it, we cannot change this reality.

It makes me think about the difference between how God experiences time versus how we do. Several of the stories I read to our kids revolve around altering time. Characters are able to jump back and forth — unwind, rewind, or see what is coming ahead. Of course, that is all fiction. God has made us to traverse time in one direction, always moving forward. But God does not experience time that way.

I recently finished reading C.S. Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader to our smaller kids. In it, there is a scene in which one of the main characters, Lucy Pevensie, interacts with Aslan the lion, who is (for those who may not know) an allegorical stand-in for Jesus in the Chronicles of Narnia series. At the end of the scene, Aslan tells Lucy that he must leave her, and he says:

“Do not look so sad. We shall meet soon again.”
“Please, Aslan,” said Lucy, “what do you call soon?”
“I call all times soon,” said Aslan.

That exchange is a not so veiled reference to Jesus’ words in Revelation 22:12-13 in which He says: “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

“Soon” takes on an enlarged meaning because of what Jesus says about Himself being before and after all other things. In Revelation 1:8, Jesus similarly says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” In the same chapter, verses 17-18, He says, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” Just before Jesus ascends into heaven at the end of His first coming, He gives the disciples the command to go tell everyone about Him, and He adds: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:20.
In the Old Testament, when God speaks to Moses from the burning bush, Moses asks God:

“Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.'” Exodus 3: 13-14

Unlike us, who experience time as one forward horizon, God is present everywhere, all at once. This is why He knows the future and can speak with certainty about it, and why He can speak to anyone at any time. Lest you think that God has it easy because He is not immersed in time as we are, think for a second about what it means to see everything and to be everywhere. Could you or I handle the immensity of that? I know that I sometimes feel an almost overwhelming sense of dread when I read the news about all the calamities that happen around the world every day. It is too much for us to digest. Even though we only experience remote harms second-hand, the sheer number of them burdens us. Think about if you were there for each and every catastrophe — for all-time, throughout history. In that light, the fact that we live in time and have no choice but to move on to the next moment is a blessing because we do not continually or infinitely live through any moment all the time.

But God also chose to willingly experience time as we do when Jesus was incarnated. In that earthly life, you could practically hear Jesus’ heart breaking when he lamented over Jerusalem: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” Matthew 23:37. When Jesus came to Lazarus’s tomb, He openly wept — twice. John 11:35 & 38. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus tells His disciples: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” He then prays earnestly: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet, not as I will, but as you will.” Matthew 26:38,39. Jesus then goes to the Cross and experiences an agonizing and excruciating death that includes separation from God the Father. In all of those moments, Jesus knew the future, but He experienced time as it unfolded, just as we do, and so He felt as we do.

Likewise, when Jesus healed those in need, He made them well for their remaining time on earth; He did not rewind time such that those people never experienced the pain, harm, and loss they had known up until that time. He renewed and redeemed those individuals, as much on the inside as the outside, but they still carried with them what they had lived in their brokenness before they had met Him.

Why am I getting into all of this about time — for God and for us? Because in these past eight years there have been countless times that I have wished I could go back, or I have wished I could have known what was going to happen, so that somehow, some way, Ethan would still be with us. I particularly do this on each March 10th.

But we all do this for certain points in our lives, don’t we? Our fascination with time travel boils down to wanting to fix things, to make right what has gone wrong. We do not want to retrace our steps, but rather to redirect them. But we are not made that way or for that purpose.

In that same exchange between Aslan and Lucy in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a little before the part I quoted above, Lucy asks Aslan if she has messed something up to the point that it can never be the same again, and whether it would have been different if she had not made the mistake. Aslan answers:

“Child, did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?”

There is no “what if?” because there is no going back. For us, there is this moment, and the next, and the one after that. And what happens matters, for this earthly life and the heavenly one. This is why Jesus said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me,” which paradoxically connects directly with His command “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth …, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Matthew 25:40; 6:19-20.

I cannot undo our loss of Ethan. I cannot unwind the pain and misery and missed opportunities of all we do not get to experience with Ethan for the rest of our days here. But because each moment in time matters — as do the losses that accumulate with each day that passes — Ethan’s presence here for even that brief two-month time eight years ago also matters. He matters and he cannot be erased because Ethan is a child of God. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1

Yes, the knowledge that God is always present both hurts and helps. It hurts because it means He was there in that moment, and yet He did not stop it. He had the power to halt it or to unwind it, yet, for reasons we cannot know, He did not. But it also helps because it means God was there from the start.

“Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
“If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
“If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,’
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
“My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
“Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.”
Psalm 139:7-16

God created Ethan. He created him with a purpose and a destiny. Part of that purpose was to be with us, even as exceedingly short as it was, and for us to love him and him to love us. We do not know what our lives would have been like if he had stayed with us, and we are not meant to know. But we are told where Ethan is and where, one day, we will be.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am.” John 14:1-3

So, when, exactly, is that? “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.'” Revelation 22:20. Yes, to Jesus all times are “soon.” It is not so with us, but we are meant to live as if that is the case — as if time is both present and imminent — happening soon. With the help of the Spirit, we are to become like Him as much as it is possible in our present, earthly, time-bound existence because then, one day, we will be like Him. “What we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when [Jesus] appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as he is.” 1 John 3:2. And we will see our Ethan too, at which point soon will be now. “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” Revelation 22:20.

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands

Waiting on Glory: Year Seven

Ethan’s Dad: Last week our Bible Study Fellowship Group was studying John 17, which is the prayer of Jesus before he goes to the cross in which He petitions the Father concerning His disciples and then for all believers. John 17:24 says: “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

When our teaching leader got to that verse, he told a story about a nurse friend who worked at a hospital and who was taking care of a man who was having a heart problem. At one point in the middle of the night, the man coded, and the nurse had to pump his chest. For a moment, he did not respond, and the nurse saw a look of complete peace come over the man’s face. The nurse and the code team were able to revive the man. The next morning, the man woke up and was recovering well. The nurse went to him as she was leaving her shift because she wanted to ask him about that moment in which she saw his face seem so peaceful in the midst of the emergency. The man told her that he had seen Jesus and that the sense of security, belonging, and especially joy that he felt was unlike anything he had ever experienced. The man said he wanted to stay with Jesus, but that Jesus had told him it was not his time yet.

Our teaching leader related that story as a way of attempting to convey a taste of what it will feel like for believers in the presence of Jesus — to see His glory and to be with Him in eternity. For most of the people sitting in that chapel listening to the story, I am sure it was a reassuring and inspiring vignette. But it made me sick, almost physically sick, to the point that I wondered if I would need to walk out of the room.

For anyone who has read snippets of our story about Ethan, you might guess why the story produced that effect. Ethan had a heart defect. Ethan coded, on this very day, seven years ago. His amazing Mom tried to revive him while I stood by in helpless disbelief. The EMTs tried to revive him on the way to the hospital. The emergency room doctor and his team did everything they could for 20 minutes. Nothing. There was no revival. There was no peace. There was no happy story to tell. Our baby was gone after two incredibly short, hard months, in an instant. It was separation: cold, stark, and ongoing. I have no words to adequately describe it, and honestly, that is probably a good thing because no one would want to read about such emptiness.

And I started reliving that moment the instant our teaching leader mentioned that man’s heart trouble. I do not blame the teaching leader at all. This happens to us at times, and we never quite know what might set it off. I am sure the fact that it was close to this day had something to do with it, because it does not happen as often as it once did, and sometimes I wonder about that. It is not that time heals the hurt, as some people are all too fond of saying, but that time makes it feel more distant — until there is a trigger. Because when it happens, it feels very real, all too real, being right back there on that March 10th, the day that changed everything.

So, I took some deep breaths; I zoned out from the lecture for a little bit. I felt the deep ache inside. I wondered for the millionth time why Ethan is not here with us. Why does his twin brother not have his sidekick? Why do we not have five children sitting at the table every night? Why does Ethan not get to experience our laughter, our fights, our Friday-night movies, our family road trips? Why do we not get to see his smile, hear his voice, watch him run, feel his hugs? The enormity of what we all have lost because his little heartbeat stopped is incalculable.

There are many entries in this blog filled with musings about that why. This one is not about that. It is, first, just meant as a lament, because I still mourn over losing him. The sadness deserves — demands — to be acknowledged. Time does not heal it; time just spreads out the anguish so that it is not felt as deeply all the time. My heart is still broken, Ethan, and it always will be, as long as I am here. I do not believe that there is anything wrong in admitting that.

But there is another part to the story. After I started to come out of my flashback, I started to think again about what Jesus had said. “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” Jesus wants us to be with Him where He is. He wants us to live in His glory. Just as the Father loved Jesus before the creation of the world, Jesus loved us before we were ever created. So, is that what Ethan saw when he closed his eyes that last time? Did he see Jesus in glory, holding out His arms to embrace our frail little boy? Jesus informs his disciples before His prayer that “in my Father’s house are many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:2-3). Jesus invited Ethan into His home. He said, “My child, you fought bravely, you gave all you could to stay with your family because you know how much they love you, but it is time now to rest with me. See how much I love you,” holding out His scarred hands, “and feel the glory that surrounds you,” a glory that is, somehow, more wonderful than the warmth he felt in his Mother’s arms.

Even more shortly before His prayer, Jesus tells his disciples: “So it is with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 16:22). Ethan arrived at our true home before I have, but I will join him one day. And when I do, no one will be able to steal that joy ever again. “He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain.” (Revelation 21:4). There will just be joy: Joy in being with our Savior, and joy in seeing my son again! Jesus has promised, and it will be.

As Jesus said, though, before that time, there is grief. Jesus acknowledges that. He did not say there is anything wrong with that. For some, that time of grief is longer than it is for others. I do not know why that is because it certainly seems unfair. “God knows we ache, when He asks us to go on. How do we go on?” (Ellie Holcomb, Red Sea Road). He asks us to go on in the knowledge that comes from faith as to what lies ahead in the end. The end is Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Jesus was there for Ethan seven years ago on this day. And He will be there with me and Ethan’s Mom on our last days. He is waiting to show us His glory, the glory Ethan already has seen and is surrounded by right now.

I can say that because Jesus is also here, right now, even in this ever-present moment of grief. He is here just as He was on that cross, bearing all shame, pain, anguish, anger, wrath, blood, and broken hearts. Right there Jesus and the Father experienced separation, loneliness, despair, darkness, the emptiness of that loved one not being there — a separation even more painful than ours because they had been together forever. He knows what this grief is to us, even more than we know it ourselves. Then Jesus died and His heart stopped beating.

But three days later “His heart beats, His blood begins to flow, waking up what was dead a moment ago.” (Andrew Peterson, His Heart Beats). His death will end Death, once and for all. He returned to glory so that we can join Him in glory. Jesus is there, in glory, waiting. Ethan is there, in glory, waiting. I am here, for so long as He calls me to care for the precious ones that remain here, waiting. But for those of us in Christ, waiting is hoping because “we celebrate in the hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:2).

This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him [hope in Him].’

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him [who wait on Him], to the one who seeks him;

it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Lamentations 3:21-26

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Bitter & Sweet

Ethan’s Mom: I picked up my copy of Streams in the Desert after several months, turned to the current date’s devotional, August 19th, and found that I had previously circled it. The poem from that entry describes Joy and Sorrow as they are preparing to go their separate ways because they cannot travel the same path. Then they each gaze upon Jesus. Joy recognized him as the King of Sorrow and Sorrow recognized him as the King of Joy. The final verse says,

‘Then we are one in Him,’ they cried in gladness, ‘for none but He could unite Joy and Sorrow.’ Hand in hand they passed out into the world to follow Him through storm and sunshine, in the bleakness of winter cold and the warmth of summer gladness, ‘as sorrowful yet always rejoicing.’

That image stayed with me as I was starting to write this blog about our summer. It started with goodbyes and ended with a very unexpected turn of events but was sprinkled with fun, grace, and love throughout. Bitter and sweet. That is life in the shadowlands every day, but sometimes the tension is especially prominent. So, what have we been up to this summer?

After 10 years, we graduated our last child from our church’s preschool program. Our oldest finished elementary school. There were many special events to celebrate these transitions, but eventually, it became difficult to carry the weight of the grief alongside the joy. I was grieving a change in our family’s season, as we were exiting the stage of babies/preschoolers altogether and taking our first hesitant steps into middle school. I was grieving Ethan’s absence from the preschool graduation ceremony, the kindergarten tours, and the class lists while proudly cheering on our living children through parties, parades, recitals, and sporting events.

Our 15th wedding anniversary fell on the night of our daughter’s recital dress rehearsal. The weekend was full of activities, so there was no time to celebrate. My husband advocated for an anniversary trip right after school was dismissed for the summer. I thought he was crazy but actually it was the best idea he’s had in a long time (and he has good ideas frequently!). We spent time in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, hiking to waterfalls and up mountains together. It was a sweet time to slow down and enjoy each other after passing in the night for weeks.

In June, we had Vacation Bible School, which is always a crazy week.  During VBS, my parents painted the room upstairs that had been the twins’ nursery so that #4 could change rooms with his sister, who needed a room of her own among all the brothers.  This was good and right, but also hard because it involved moving Ethan’s remaining possessions out of the room along with his brother’s stuff.  It is mostly still sitting stacked in my room, waiting for the tough job of sorting through and packing up into storage.   But #2 is enjoying life in her ballerina pink room, and #3 and #4 are having a blast as roommates.  

The next week, #1 complained of a stomachache. Not nausea, not intestinal problems, just an ache in his abdomen. We gave it a couple of days, but when he couldn’t walk upright without discomfort, I took him to the pediatrician. She was slightly suspicious, but not convinced, that he had appendicitis. Later that afternoon, an ultrasound technician took one look and confirmed he had a raging case of appendicitis and also a high pain tolerance. We ended up at the emergency room of the local children’s hospital, the place where five years earlier we had heard the words, “there is nothing else we can do” and the entire world shattered into a million pieces. I have prayed we would never have to return to that ER. I have alternate plans for where to go in the event of a broken arm, etc., but when your child’s appendix is about to rupture, there is no other option. Thankfully, the doctors and staff, particularly the Child Life Specialist, were so kind and patient with us as we tried to calm our anxious 11-year-old and hold it together ourselves. The surgery went smoothly, he stayed the night, and we all went home the next day. Upon arrival, we had to throw away the contents of our refrigerator, as our power had been out for 20 hours starting the night before all the action, but there is nothing like an emergency surgery to put food waste in perspective.

Aside from a few camps, we spent most of our time at the swimming pool. Three kids did swim team, one did dive team, and we all enjoyed playing together in the water. There are many things I miss about having a baby or toddler in tow but taking very little people to the pool is not one of them. #4 really grew into a solid swimmer early in the summer, so all four are now strong swimmers who do not have to be within arm’s reach at all times. They can swim off and enjoy playing with friends. This is the season for the pool (past swim diapers and not yet too-cool-for-the-pool), and we lived in it. No regrets there.

We also looked forward to our family reunion in Michigan. My in-laws plan and host one every other year at various locations. This year, we had two neighboring cabins on the shore of Lake Huron, and it was an absolutely wonderful trip. There are 15 cousins on that side of the family, ranging from 5 years old to young adult, and they were all there, except Ethan. It is amazing to watch that crew reunite and pick up like no time has passed, even though it is months or years between our gatherings due to geographic constraints. We enjoyed catching up and being together while boating, swimming, and playing games – everything from corn hole to ping pong to Uno. But even this very sweet time is touched by bitterness. My sister-in-law had a life-threatening stroke soon after our first reunion in 2015, and the effects of the stroke continue to fundamentally affect her daily life. Seeing her adapt to the challenges in person is both inspiring and heartbreaking. Every time we are together, I am struck anew by how much she has lost, how hard she has fought to rebuild her life, and how thankful I am that she is still with us.

Which leads me into the “grand finale” of our summer, and it is not easy to relate. My husband was out working on a ladder in the yard the weekend before school started and took a major fall, resulting in a loss of consciousness. I found him very disoriented and called 911. For the 3rd time in 5 years, the fire department rushed to our house in response to a medical emergency. He was admitted to the hospital, spent one night in the ICU, moved to a regular room, and was discharged with a long list of unanswered questions. The following weeks have been very difficult, and it is still too raw to write about most of the details.

However, I will end with this thought. Sometime in the early hours of the morning in ICU, I suddenly realized that if my husband spent more than a few days in the hospital, he would miss the first day of school and be completely devastated. Thank God, he was discharged in time to walk #4 to his first day of kindergarten and give him a big hug at the door. Then we watched one little kindergartener walk through into the “big school” when there should have been two. Ethan wasn’t there to walk in, but their Dad was there to hug his twin brother goodbye. That was the end of our summer in the shadowlands – bitter and sweet.  Sometimes it is just plain exhausting trying to hold them both.

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A Birthday with Bereavement

Ethan’s Dad: We have just concluded the Christmas season, pondering Christ’s coming to us as one of us, born as a baby in a stable. The very One who is above all things lowered himself to become a human infant, with all the confusion, helplessness, and utter dependence on others that entails. Five years ago today, our twins, Noah and Ethan, did the same thing, in a precarious way, no less, being born in an ambulance being driven to a hospital in an ice storm. Little did we know at that time how vulnerable Ethan actually was (though his mother always had an inkling that he was somehow different). Jesus did not have Ethan’s health issues when He was born, but the fact that He experienced the general vulnerability of infancy helps me when I think about Ethan on this day.

Identification is not everything: no matter how similar another person’s experiences may be to our own, everyone experiences life in a unique way, and it is good to keep that in mind whenever you think you know what someone else is going through. But shared experiences are integral to bonding and to persevering through difficult experiences. The Creator of us also became one of us, and so there is no corner of our being of which we can say He is unfamiliar or does not understand. I have always believed that the Lord was with us on that anxious (and for my wife, extremely painful) ambulance ride, just as the Lord was with Joseph and Mary in that stable on that cold night so long ago. But then He showed up in the flesh for them, and, in the ultimate reversal, He needed them just as much as they loved Him. My wife brought ours into the world on this cold day five years ago, we nurtured them the best we knew, and Jesus said, “whoever cares for the least of those among you has cared for Me.” (Matthew 25:40).

But the book of Matthew also recounted another event that occurred within a couple of years after Jesus’ birth that rarely receives notice. In modern Bible translations, it is referred to as the “Massacre of the Innocents,” and it comes to mind because, as hard as it is to think about, I also have always believed that the Lord was with me on another ambulance ride with Ethan that occurred two months after the twins’ birth, and that ride always also accompanies this day.

At the time of Jesus’ birth, King Herod ruled over the Jewish province for the Romans. Herod was, by any standard, an abjectly evil king who never hesitated to employ violence in order to preserve his grip on power. During his reign, he murdered his wife, three of his sons, his mother-in-law, his brother-in-law, and many others who he perceived were threats to his position. Matthew does not provide that background; instead, he relates the event in short order. The wise men had failed to return to Herod after finding Jesus — despite his request that they do so — because God had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod. In Herod’s twisted mind, Jesus was a threat to his power because the wise men had told Herod that a messiah, the “king of the Jews,” had been born within the past two years in Bethlehem. “Then Herod, when he realized that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men.” (Matthew 2:16). Joseph and Mary fled with Jesus to Egypt before this massacre occurred because God warned Joseph about Herod’s plan.  But no such warning came to the rest of the families in Bethlehem, and Herod’s order of infanticide was carried out with precision.

The details of this event render it apparent why it is not often dwelt upon in churches or Bible studies. Matthew tells the story in passing to explain why Jesus ended up in Egypt, which fulfilled a messianic prophecy. But such a traumatic event deserves some pondering because, for the parents who remained in Bethlehem, it involved what is every parent’s worst fear: that one of their children would suddenly face death, and there would be nothing they could do about it. The Bible recognizes this by having Matthew pause to acknowledge the pain of those families who became collateral damage in this tale of the Christ, by quoting Jeremiah 31:15:

“This is what the Lord says:

‘A voice is heard in Ramah,
mourning and great weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.'”

There is more to that reference than just another fulfillment of Scripture. There is pain and suffering and senseless loss caused by the sinful desires of a cruel king whom God allowed to be on the throne. Many reasons can be produced as to why Herod was there, such as his grand building projects — one of which included the new Temple in Jerusalem — his interest in the Jewish king that helped the wise men find Jesus and spurred Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt, and, thinking ahead, so that Herod’s son could be involved in Jesus’s trial before the crucifixion. But the excruciating pain and loss caused by Herod’s rule also deserves notice. We may not be able to understand why God allowed this ugly abhorrence against innocent children, but we do a disservice to truth and faith if we just ignore that difficulty.

Unfortunately, the pain and loss described Jeremiah 31:15 is all too familiar to us. Our baby was not murdered, but he was taken from us suddenly and without explanation after he had been preserved through that perilous delivery and was to undergo surgery to repair his broken heart. The fact that God sees and acknowledges the pain of such losses is not an answer to why it happens, but it is worth something to know that God is not entirely aloof or detached from our personal tragedies that, in the larger scheme, seem to become mere footnotes in history. In fact, God’s identification goes well beyond acknowledgment, because He experienced the loss of His only Son in an excruciating and unjust manner.

The implication of fulfilled prophecy also offers some solace because such fulfillment means that God knows the future and arranges affairs to accomplish His grand design. The whole story of Jesus’s life is a testament to that truth, and while we cannot fully comprehend how the vagaries of evil come into that design, knowing that the evil does cannot derail God’s ultimate purposes is a lifeline for faith when our circumstances are dire.

A third, somewhat unexpected, balm comes from a further reading of Jeremiah 31. The chapter is actually relating a prophecy of joy, containing such lines from the Lord as “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness,” (v. 3) and “I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.” (v. 13). But most interesting to me is what comes immediately after verse 15:

“This is what the Lord says:

‘Restrain your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,”
declares the Lord.
‘They will return from the land of the enemy.
So there is hope for your descendants,’ declares the Lord.
‘Your children will return to their own land.'”

In the immediate context, of course, the passage is talking about a return from exile for the Israelites, but the broader application is to the final promised land “the better country — a heavenly one.” (Hebrews 11:16). Thus, God does much more than just acknowledge the torturous agony that comes with losing a child; He promises that one day our children will return to us in the new place He has prepared for us (just as His Son returned to Him in glory). (John 14:2; Hebrews 11:16). And, of course, this is why Jesus came as that helpless baby: so that this seemingly relentless evil that haunts our days on this earth would not be the end of the story. The Massacre of the Innocents reminds us that great sadness and pain remained in the wake of the immense joy of Jesus’ birth, but it also proclaims to us of the hope of glory. (“Through Christ we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and so we boast in the hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:2).

And so it is for me on this day. I rejoice in the joy of celebrating Noah’s birth and presence with us. He is adorable and maddening, brilliant and confounding, silly yet sometimes deeply serious, boundless with energy and appetite for dessert. Our lives our infinitely better because he joined us five years ago. Yet our hearts ache for his missing brother, who may have been like Noah in some ways, but undoubtedly would have contrasted in other respects. Like those parents in Bethlehem so long ago, we are left to celebrate this day of Ethan’s coming without him, while holding on to the truth that one day he will return to us because this is what the Lord says. It is an incomplete celebration that awaits that joyful morning of reunion made possible by Immanuel. Happy Fifth birthday, Ethan! We love you always and forever.

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Four Years Ago This Day

Ethan’s Mom: I have been getting a lot of those “Remember this day __ years ago” notifications from my photo service in the last few weeks. I always hold my breath when I open those between January and March, both hoping and fearing that the memory will include pictures from 2017. What we didn’t know as February turned into March that year was that we didn’t have much longer to take pictures of Ethan. Four years ago in March, we were in the final days with our son.

Four years ago last week, I received the images from the twins’ newborn photo shoot. Those portraits popped up on my phone and brought me right back to that photography studio. The heat was turned up to keep the half-naked babies comfortable, and I was sweating through my clothes. Ethan was so fussy that day, but between me and my mom, we bounced and fed and burped enough to get some good pictures of him awake by himself and sleeping sweetly with his arm wrapped around his brother’s. I treasure those photos but mourn the fact that there will be no more portraits.

Four years ago this week, we attended an award ceremony for the local fire department at which the crew that delivered all four of us safely to a hospital in an ice storm were named “Firefighters of the Year”. The pictures of the ceremony and the decorated cookies I ordered as a small gift for each of them popped up yesterday. I remember the very parking spot we used at the library on that day. I remember the Fire Chief’s thick southern accent asking which one was Jefferson and which one was Shelby, referring to the fact that the boys were born in two different counties en route to the hospital.

Four years ago today, we were at the cardiologist’s office for a follow up visit. I remember holding his arms still during the EKG and then learning that our son may have an additional heart condition in addition to the ventral septal defect which would require open heart surgery. That was the day the cardiologist attempted to reassure us about the implications of this additional problem by saying that it was OK to let him sleep in his crib, he wasn’t going to die in the middle of the night.

But then there we were, in the emergency room exactly one week later when Ethan did, in fact, die in his sleep. Four years ago next Wednesday – March 10, 2017. I remember what pajamas he was wearing. I remember where I collapsed in the yard watching the ambulance drive away, another kind firefighter taking Ethan’s twin brother before I dropped him. I remember almost running into the sliding glass doors at the ER because they didn’t open fast enough. I remember splashing water on my face before we left and looking up at a person I did not recognize in the mirror.

Four years ago on March 15th, our family gathered around us as we laid Ethan’s body in the ground. I remember the extremely cold but sunny day, the fuzzy blue blankets provided by the funeral home, the train whistle at the perfect time during the eulogy, confirming that Ethan will forever be known as our little caboose. I remember going back to the church and eating mashed potatoes before taking my place in the receiving line, and I remember the faces of those who cried with us that day.

Our friend and minister once used the phrase “deep in the weeds” to describe my state of being that first year. It was true – at that time I could not see anything around me but sadness and confusion. Many of the paths I walk along now have weeds along the way, interspersed with the beautiful landscapes of life, but some days (holidays, birthday, anniversary of loss) those weeds shoot up and block my entire view again. I can think of little else, and there seems to be no means of escape. As one of my children’s favorite books says, “We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we have to go through it.” And here I am at the beginning of March, going through it again. I know in my head that it will pass – Easter is coming and that helps shift my mindset from 2017 back to the present and even to the future – but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like crazy in the meantime. So if you think of us in the next two weeks, pray for us and let us know you are thinking about us down here in the weeds. I’ll see you on the other side.

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Two Years

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“There isn’t any good way to start writing about this. My son is dead. I can write that as a definitive statement but it doesn’t feel like that. It really feels like he is just staying somewhere else for a moment and we will go pick him up. But, of course, we would never do that with a two-month old. We would keep him close; watch his every move; hold him over and over. And then there is the fact that I saw him on that table in the hospital laying still. And then I saw him in that tiny coffin at the funeral home. Those are images I am certain I will never forget.

“….

“This was the worst day of my life. It will always be the worst day of my life. I will never forget it. I will never be whole from it. I will never understand it. My baby, my little caboose, my Ethan, is gone. And my single hope is that one day I will see him again. I will live the rest of my years waiting for that day.”

Ethan’s Dad: Those were the first and last paragraphs of my first written expression about Ethan that I wrote two years ago, soon after he died.  I will not share the rest of that writing because it is too personal, too raw — too much even for this space. But for me those first and last paragraphs are fitting on this day — this day that marks two years from the moment Ethan left us. They are fitting because no matter how much has changed over the past two years, those thoughts remain the same.

Much has changed. I no longer always feel cold or desolate or listless. I now see Ethan’s mom smile when his twin brother does something amusing. I still sit beside his grave, but not with the feeling that the whole world could be rushing past and I won’t care because there is nothing else of importance to do. That dagger in my heart pokes intermittently rather than slicing with incessant fury.

And yet . . . and yet every now and then it still seems to me as if Ethan is just staying somewhere else overnight and we will wake up and see him in the morning. I still long to hold him. I still remember him lying on that metal table, unmoving.  I still remember the awful coffin and a quiet that shattered our world. I still know it to be the absolute worst day of my life, even amidst the experiences of other days of profound fear and heaviness.

This is not a day of celebration. It is not a day of fond farewells and whimsical dreams. It is a day of darkness, a day of mourning, a day of counting an immeasurable loss. It is a day I would never wish upon anyone in all the world, no matter how otherwise evil a person may be, and yet I know all too well it is unfortunately shared by many who also have lost a child, perhaps by some reading these very words.

To you all I can say is that I also still have that single hope — actually stronger now than when I wrote those words two years ago — a hope that I will see Ethan again because of the One seated on the throne who says “Behold, I make all things new!” (Revelation 21:5)

I will not pretend that this hope makes it all better here and now. It does not. This day is still excruciating. This is a loss I still cannot fully fathom. My life, my entire family’s life, will always be different — be less — than what it was to be with Ethan among us. I cannot comprehend how God will rectify such an absence. All I know is that He promises that He will.  This is why Jesus came:

“To proclaim freedom for the captives,
to release prisoners from the darkness,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God.

To comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—

“To bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.

“They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.” (Isaiah 61:1-3)

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Visiting with a Shadow

Ethan’s Dad: I still visit regularly, usually three days a week. For the first full year, I visited nearly every single day. I know some people think it is strange that I would go to Ethan’s grave so often. I suppose in their minds it seems like it would be too painful to visit such a place over and over again. But it is extremely important to remember, when supporting friends, neighbors, or loved ones who have sustained losses, that people grieve in different ways and they need to be given the space to do so. What I do is no better or worse, no more normal or weirder than how my wife seeks to survive in the midst of her grief. She visits his grave as well, though not as often, but she journals, for instance, much more frequently than I have. We are each dealing with an unexpected absence, a weight that may tug on our hearts more heavily at some times than others, but that always remains with us wherever we go. Yet we are different people and so our methods of carrying the weight correspond with our own personalities. And so it is with all who carry burdens of loss.

At first when I visited, I mostly talked to Ethan. I should clarify in mentioning this that it isn’t that I believe Ethan is there — at least not the part of him that matters most. My wife recently wrote a post about some of the awful day that was Ethan’s funeral. And while there was much that was unspeakably difficult about that particular day, one revelation for me occurred when we saw his little body in the tiny casket. We cried rivers of tears. We read letters to him that we placed in the casket. We hugged a lot. But one thing that was very apparent to me was that Ethan was not really there. His precious, frail body was there . . . but it was cold and impassive. . . the light of life was gone from it.

This is a difficult idea to put into words because it honestly can only be experienced, not exactly described, and yet it is not an experience I would wish for anyone. But in that tragic moment when you see your still baby who was so vibrant only a few days before, there comes this clear sense that something is truly amiss: You come face to face with the truth that a person is much more than just flesh and blood. People have spirits which make them who they truly are. The contrast between our real Ethan and what was left of him in that casket was so stark that this spiritual reality was undeniable. Our Ethan — the curious, quiet, lovable, strong, immaculately precious boy — is with the Lord. He is laughing now, rather than hurting, and waiting for us (though the wait will seem like nothing to him because time is nonexistent in heaven).

Alas, time is all too real to us, and to me it seems to go by much more slowly now than before Ethan’s passing. And so I choose to pass some of that time by sitting next to his grave. It is not the most vital part of him, but it is all we have left here in this in-between place we call the Shadowlands. It is my tangible connection to him. It is a place-holder until the joyous reunion.

Over time, my conversations with Ethan morphed into talking to God more often than talking to Ethan because He is my spiritual connection to Ethan. God is the reason a reunion will happen, made possible by Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross. Jesus said He is “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” — of all things. (Revelation 22:13). This means He is also the God of this off-kilter in-between time in which we find ourselves.

At times, walking in these shadows, it can seem as if He has abandoned us, left us to our own devices.

“I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.

“When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands,
and I would not be comforted.

“I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.”

(Psalm 77:1-3). In fact, that is one reason that at first I only talked to Ethan: Because I did not feel God there, all I felt was a black hole, a yawning abyss from which no light could emanate or escape.

But in the end, faith is not about feelings, it is about will, submission of the will really, but will nonetheless. And when you press on through the shadows you discover that there is light there after all.  (And how could it be otherwise?  For shadows are only seen because of the light that illuminates reality). The light is not a bolt that thunders, at least not for me, but a flicker that whispers your name and tells you to keep listening. And so the conversations become less and less audible and more and more reflections pouring over the Bible, His words that come alive because of His Spirit communing with our own when we seek Him.

I don’t mean for it to sound like magic. It is not. There is no trick and this is not fantasy land. I do not live in a state of Zen or blessedness or higher consciousness or whatever else some beliefs choose to call their willful blindness toward the tragedies of life. Nor do I mean to sound super-spiritual, for the contemplation is born from desperation, not holiness. I am weak. I am hurt. I still feel out of sorts. I still cry because of this inexplicable loss that neither Ethan nor we deserved to experience.

And so I sit next to the place where Ethan’s little body resides. I sit still in the quiet (there are few places quieter than a large cemetery).  And in that stillness I know that God is there (Psalm 46:10), and I dare to trust that Ethan is with Him, waiting. My heart yearns: Come quickly, Lord Jesus, Come. (Revelation 22:20).

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Carrying a Weight No One Should Have to Bear

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Ethan’s Mom: Jones kid #4 and I started going on walks after school resumed this fall. #3 is off to preschool MWF. The big two are already at school, and it leaves just me and the little bear on our own. These walks have been good for us both, I think. I started walking this summer as a means of burning off anxious energy and getting out of the house after long summer days with everyone at home. We had a super fun summer, but this girl needs a little quiet in her life to function well. So I would strap on the tennis shoes and head out the door as soon as the lights went out. I started using this uninterrupted time to listen to a new podcast, “The Joyful Mourning,” produced by Ashlee Profitt, founder of the Joyful Morning an online community group for Christian women who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss. I continue to save it for my walks even after changing to daytime strolls, and I look forward every Wednesday to a new installment. I have listened to Ashlee chat with her husband, her best friend, fellow mommas, and a Biblical counselor about topics with which I am all too familiar. Every episode, I find myself walking along and talking to myself like a crazy woman – “Oh me too. That is totally right. Yes, amen sister.”

Today’s episode dealt with planning a memorial service or funeral for your baby. I almost didn’t listen to it. Wednesday March 15th was the day of Ethan’s funeral. It was bitterly cold for mid-March, but bright and sunny. The days between the 10th and the 15th were full of so, so many horrible moments. No parents should be making the choices we were forced to make, but at the same time, Greg and I wanted to be the ones making them. I am a naturally indecisive person about most things, but every decision made at the funeral home, cemetery, florist, and the meeting with our ministers to plan the service seemed very clear cut to me. I don’t know if I wanted to make them fast just to get them over with, or if I knew somehow (I never would have been able to articulate this at the time) that only a baby’s parents would know him well enough to plan a meaningful send -off and that Ethan deserved our best efforts in caring for him in this way.

I guess maybe I started listening to find out if we did everything “right,” even though I know there is no right and wrong in this. I found myself going through a whole range of memories and emotions as she addressed some of the issues surrounding planning a memorial service: gratefulness for the people that were agents of His grace in the worst of places and family that fully supported us without taking over decisions that needed to be ours, bittersweet memories of the soft polka dotted gown that all of Ethan’s brothers wore before it became his burial clothes, the tension between wanting to look like a woman that Ethan would be proud to call his mother and not caring at all what I wore to the funeral, the relief that we would have a written copy of the beautiful eulogies spoken at the service.

But twice in the podcast, I stopped in my tracks and caught my breath as tears fell suddenly down my cheeks.

The first was when Ashlee said that if you choose to have your child buried, you will need to select pallbearers and what a sacred job this is. When we first met with the funeral director, he said that some fathers in this situation choose to carry the casket to its final resting place. Greg immediately knew this was something he had to do. To be honest, I wasn’t sure about the plan at first. But he was certain – I knew that determined look on his face and knew better than to attempt further discussion.

When that terrible, surreal moment came to transport him to the cemetery, someone had to carry the casket to the hearse. It was too much to ask Greg to carry what had to be the heaviest load of his entire life twice, so we asked his brother to do this for us. When I heard the word “pallbearer” on the podcast, I immediately thought of my brother-in-law carefully carrying that tiny white casket from the dim light of the funeral home into the bright sunlight and brisk air and placing it into the back of the hearse. I have never been able to say thank you. I know you are reading this, J., so please know how much I appreciate you caring for Ethan, your brother, and me in such a personal and powerful way.

I composed myself there in the middle of Park Avenue and continued walking until this:
“My last thought dear friend, is to have someone take photos and video. It may be a long, long time before you look at those, if ever, but one day you might want to remember all those special details you planned. And the pretty new dress you wore. And how handsome and brave and strong your husband looked while reading the letter he wrote to your baby boy. And all the friends and family who came to mourn death and celebrate life with you.”

I couldn’t walk another step. Because my husband did carry Ethan from the hearse to the graveside, just as he said he would. I have never, will never, be more proud of him. I cannot imagine loving him more. In that moment, he was everything, everything that a woman’s heart yearns for in a husband. I could not have lifted that tiny white box to save my life, but he would not let anyone else carry Ethan that very last time. As he laid the casket on the platform so gingerly, I could see the anguish on his face. His heart was shattered, but his hands were steady and his arms were strong.

My brother did take photographs for us, and I am glad this moment is captured for a few other very special people to see as clearly as I will always see it in my mind. When our boys grow up and want to know what it is to be a man, I will show them this picture of their father, literally carrying the weight of the entire world to care for and protect his son and his wife. When my daughter brings home a boyfriend (I can hardly type that sentence), I will measure each suitor against her father and nothing less will be good enough.

He is not going to want to put this on the blog. He does not want your admiration or your praise. But if this blog is about our journey walking through the shadowlands together, this entry belongs on it. Just like any marriage, ours has moments of conflict and miscommunication, possibly even more so as we navigate the stormy waters of grief. There are times when he drives me crazy, but I can assure you the man who carried my sweet Ethan on that cold, sunny March day is the man I will trust and love forever.

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Grief is like a Hurricane

Ethan’s Mom: Yesterday was the 13th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact on the Gulf Coast. I lived in Long Beach, Mississippi, from birth until college. In 2005, I was in my last year of graduate school in Nashville. My parents and grandparents still lived in Long Beach. We all watched the meteorologists as they predicted the path of this monster storm until it became clear she was headed straight for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. By the time I woke up from a fitful night’s sleep on the morning of 8/29/05, the community that I knew and loved had been gutted. I remember vividly being at my internship that afternoon, checking the initial damage reports and reading a single sentence that broke my heart, “First Baptist Church washed away.” I had always daydreamed of being married in the same church where my parents said their vows and where I was baptized. It was gone. Totally and completely leveled, as were the homes of quite a few childhood friends and/or their parents. In less than 24 hours, the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast was demolished, and neighboring New Orleans was underwater.

I was unable to take a day off my internship until October. I flew home to maximize my time there, and I remember watching through tears out the window as the plane landed – so many blue tarps, so many empty lots. The southernmost portions of the town were still barricaded, but my mom, as the church secretary, had a pass to visit the site of the church with me that weekend. Piles of rubble. The beautiful stained glass from the mosaic in the narthex lay mixed in with twisted metal, lots of paper debris, and an overturned piano. Only the cross-shaped steeple lay intact on its side. The church sat at the south end of main street and surrounded by residential areas, but you wouldn’t know it. It literally looked as if a bomb had exploded. Nothing was even recognizable.

My parents moved to Birmingham, very near to us, in 2011. In the times I visited my family between 2005-2011 there was a lot of change. The roofing men were in constant demand. Infrastructure was being rebuilt. FBC bought land further inland and built a large multipurpose sanctuary/gym/education building. The toppled steeple stands out front. Friends and acquaintances bought or built new houses. Progress came, but slowly. Still along the shore, things looked wild and depressing. It was better, for sure. No one needed disaster relief volunteers serving food or water or boxes of sheets and towels for their temporary “Katrina cottage” FEMA shelters. There wasn’t an “emergency” but the community was still in the early stages of healing: cleaning out, taking stock, and beginning to plan what they would do next.

My 20th high school reunion was this summer, and I debated long and hard about going. I had not been to the Coast since 2013. In the end, several people I wanted to see in person were attending, and it was a good chance to take the kids to the beach. So off we went.

We stayed in a little guest cottage off a main thoroughfare in Long Beach, which was so much nicer than a hotel. We had room to spread out with the kids, and it felt more like a visit home by staying in a familiar neighborhood. I enjoyed (much more than the kids did, I’m afraid) sharing stories and memories from my childhood. We drove by my old house and elementary school, both of which survived the storm with relatively little damage. I took them to my favorite po-boy restaurant, which was rebuilt almost exactly the same as it was. We dug in the sand and waded in the water that was part of my history in so many ways.

And yet, there were times when I was completely discombobulated. A beautiful town green sat in the middle of main street where an elementary school had always been. Stores were closed; restaurants had moved. Driving along the beach was still a navigational challenge because landmarks I had depended on for years and years were still gone. In fact, most of the lots closest to the beach are still vacant. They don’t have the wild, grown over look as much but they are still vacant. I would be where I knew I had been many, many times before but have no idea where I was.

It was so familiar and so different at exactly the same time.

On the drive home, it occurred to me – that is a very fitting analogy of my life at this point. In 10 days, we will mark 18 months without our precious Ethan. His death has changed me in a way that nothing else ever has, or maybe ever will. Last spring, our world exploded. Everything was affected – our marriage, children, extended family, friends, community, and even (especially) our faith in God. All at once, NOTHING looked like it did, or even remotely like it should. The wreckage and debris from those early weeks and months can be described as nothing but trauma. It was so overwhelming, I could not even begin to think about rebuilding my life or feeling any joy again. People wanted to share stories of friends who were further post-loss and living productive lives, and I couldn’t even comprehend how that could be. I heard people recommend journaling to begin to process my feelings – that was impossible, I couldn’t even begin to pick up a pen most days. All that I could process was basic survival mode.

Slowly, over the past year, we have begun the process of rebuilding our life and our family. We resumed being the primary caregivers for our surviving children. We returned to church, and eventually I made it to the grocery store and the beauty salon. My husband returned to work full time, and I fill in at the hospital when staffing needs arise. After a few months, I was able to read and pray again, and new infrastructure could be laid. We faced all the “firsts” – holidays, birthdays, family vacations – and found touchpoints of the familiar amongst the grief that continues to be so confusing at times.

The thing about my trip home this summer is that the evidence of Hurricane Katrina and the wreckage she inflicted was still very apparent to me. It is a city with a broken past that endured a difficult season of growth. It is not the Long Beach of my youth, but it is still home. After the devastation of 2005, some places were repaired or rebuilt. Other places I saw on our visit were brand new construction, even some really nice and beautiful places. Still other places were empty and awaiting redemption.

“Awaiting redemption” makes me think of the Friendship Oak. A seedling when Columbus sailed to America, this beautiful, enormous live oak tree used to be the crown jewel of a local college and a favorite place of mine. I wanted to take the kids to see it, but instead we pulled up to a decaying tree surrounded by “Keep Out” tape. There is no way to repair, replace, rebuild, or improve on the Friendship Oak until Jesus restores creation to its full glory, and I know there will be places like that in my life as well. Things that just will not be right until I see Ethan again. But in the beginning, that felt like all there was left to my life. Truthfully, that was how I wanted it. What kind of a mom “heals” from her son? Now, almost 18 months later, I can finally see that I am not healing from Ethan or the experience of being his mother but from the storm surge that made landfall on March 10, 2017 – the tragedy that swept my child away from me and destroyed almost everything I had ever known. Almost.

Some things survived the storm intact, but I couldn’t see them for the wreckage. I am starting to identify some places from my “life before loss” that can be repaired, other things that can eventually be rebuilt in a different location, and still other lots which will be vacant for a long, long time to come. I hope that one day, I can even build some beautiful new spaces in my life, like the town green where my classmates gathered with our families and watched our children play in the splash pad under live oak trees that weathered the storm 13 years ago. I don’t know that I am there yet, but the fact that it is even starting to seem possible is only by the grace of God, the love of my family, and the support of a few close friends. Please don’t stop praying for us, checking in on us, and braving the sorrow with us as you are able. We are still very much under construction.

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Back To School

His Mother: Today was the first day of school. We have three enrolled in school this year – 2nd grade, kindergarten, and 3K preschool. I have been trying to prepare myself for this week for a while now. After last year’s back to school festivities caught me off guard, I was expecting the waves of grief this week. But the thing is, you never know exactly what a difficult day or season will actually look like in advance. Some things might be easier than expected, other things are harder.

Back to school is, like a lot of things in our culture, getting to be a bigger and bigger deal. I remember getting new clothes and school supplies for the new year when I was growing up but not much other fanfare. There is a lot of pressure now to look and act in certain ways. You go check the class lists ASAP, milling about with other parents to talk about “who you got” even though technically I didn’t get anyone, my child did. Then there is meet the teacher day, with its obligatory new-teacher-side-hug photo to post on social media. On the crazy first day of school before getting your kids to school on time, you must stop to get perfect pictures of your kids standing outside your welcoming front door with homemade signs that document their grade, school, and what they want to be when they grow up (or some other sweet memory). Our school also has this breakfast social for kindergarten parents called “Tears and Cheers,” so that you can rejoice or mourn with others who have sent their kids on to big school this year.

You could probably imagine, even if you haven’t experienced child loss, that these milestones and photo ops could be painful. Anytime I am around a whole group of people where everyone appears to be so “normal,” the loneliness bears down on my soul: knowing that that most of the folks in the crowd have no basis for understanding what it feels like to know you will never walk your child into his first day of kindergarten. I can’t go to the breakfast because the “tears” that people are sharing over bagels are because their babies are growing up like they are supposed to do, and I have cried an ocean of tears because my baby will not.

But do you know what is the worst so far? The “All About Me” pages. I have filled out 4 forms (and I only have 3 students!) that have asked me to list my students’ siblings and ages. I am waiting to get requests for sending in a family photograph from at least one teacher, maybe more, which is also awkward. My family does not fit neatly into a blank line on a form or into a photograph. I cannot leave Ethan out – he is their brother and usually when asked how many siblings they have, my kids will answer 4. So far, they have always drawn family portraits with some representation of Ethan. I want the teachers to know they are not drawing some sort of imaginary friend! The real difficulty comes in the age part. I list names and ages until I get to Ethan. Then I stare at the paper. I can’t really write 19 months old, as that seems disingenuous. If the teacher knows our family already, I will just list his name. For instance, my daughter has the same teacher my son had during the year the twins were born and Ethan died. She actually came to the visitation, so I know she is aware of who Ethan is. For the others, I am left writing Ethan (deceased). Writing those words hurts my heart every time. The very few pictures of all 5 of us no longer show the big kids in their current ages and stages, so we send in family photos that only show the majority of our family.

I was prepared for that, in a way, given that this is our second back-to-school season without Ethan. One thing I did not expect that caused big waves of grief to crash over me earlier this week was kindergarten parent night. I requested that our daughter be assigned to the same kindergarten teacher that had showed such kindness to us during that difficult year. She loved on and watched over our son when we sent him back to school. I was excited walking in to her classroom, but then as I sat there, I realized that during that first parent night, I was sitting at those same desks with two little babies in my belly about to enter the second trimester of pregnancy. I was overwhelmed with all the changes in my life – pregnant with surprise twins, preparing to buy/sell houses, sending my firstborn to kindergarten. Those feelings came rushing back at me, and I sat there thinking how much more change, very unwelcome change, was unknown to us at that time. One thing my counselor has said on more than one occasion is how this loss changes who a person is at a very deep level. I am not the same person who sat in those small desk chairs two years ago and that realization was distressing and disorienting.

I have heard some people say that the first year after a loss is the hardest and others claim that the second year is hardest. Well, frankly, they both stink in my experience, but they do stink in different ways. The shock is completely disorienting during the first year – waking up discombobulated and having to remember that Ethan wasn’t there, trying to count 5 kids when leaving the house, etc. – and of course the trauma is fresh and causes frequent flashbacks to that horrible, terrible day and more terrible days that followed as well. Every 7th and 10th of the month weighed so heavily on us that first year. With the second year comes the realization that this nightmare is, in fact, permanent. The shock that can be so disorienting is also protective in a way, and now we are left with all the sadness, all the time. Plus, I am just tired of it all. I told my counselor it’s like when you decide to start eating healthy. You can start out with a lot of momentum but then there is a point where you realize this is not just about getting through 2 weeks without cake but a permanent change to a lifetime of carrot sticks. Not that I don’t like carrot sticks, but they aren’t as good as cake, you know? I miss cake.

I had a realization this week that maybe some things will be less painful in the years to come, but I don’t see any relief from the back-to-school grief for a long, long time. Next year, I will send Ethan’s twin brother, Noah, to his first year of preschool. The older kids have gone to Mother’s Day Out prior to preschool, but I have not been emotionally able to send Noah yet. I will pack his backpack and lunchbox, remembering the afternoon that I sat sobbing in the living room while my husband and father-in-law discussed funeral arrangements in the kitchen. My mother-in-law crossed the room to kneel beside me and hold my hand, and I choked out “I am supposed to be the one that picks out his lunchbox, not his casket.” We will take him to the same classroom that we have taken the others to at age 2, with a teacher that we adore. She decorates her room in Dr. Seuss for the new school year. Noah will pass under a door with a picture of Thing 1 and Thing 2 while every cell in my body will be crying out for our Thing 2 to walk in with him. I will come home to an empty house, which I imagine would have seemed like such an amazing thing to a mother of 5. But #5 isn’t going to go to school. Our 3 year-old tells me sometimes that Ethan “isn’t home” – he isn’t home and he isn’t going to school either.

The year after that, #3 will go to kindergarten, leaving me and Noah home 5 days-a-week. He was not supposed to have to endure my solo company – he was supposed to have a built-in playmate, not feel like an only child from 7:45-2:45 each day. Another kindergarten, another tears and cheers to skip out on…

Here’s the best/worst one yet – the next year, 2021, Noah will go to kindergarten. Alone. No debating whether or not it would be best for them to be in the same class or not. No decision on whether to match, coordinate, or just wear totally different outfits. Only 4 big kid backpacks hanging inside the door. As if that weren’t enough, my oldest will go to middle school. Middle School — where kids become teenagers. I had figured that out before the twins were even born, and I joked about how many tissues I would need that day. I think I should probably start stocking up now.

You get the idea… Each year signifies something new, if not for Noah, then for another of the kids. Milestones Ethan will never reach. The “what ifs” and “I wonders” are some of the hardest questions, and it just seems like there are a lot of those associated with back-to-school and the whole educational process, at least to this momma’s heart. I wonder if he would have eaten in the cafeteria or brown bagged it.? I wonder what his favorite subject would have been? What if the boys had totally different friends? Would I have insisted on matching backpacks and would that have resulted in protests?

I could go on and on, but I’ve got to go put snacks in backpacks and get ready for another early wake-up tomorrow. It’s the second day of school, and I have 4 kiddos earth-side depending on me to be present in their lives. I am so incredibly grateful for that job, and I want to celebrate their milestones as much as I need to grieve Ethan’s missing ones. Writing this post is helping me to do both, so thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings.