Who Are You?

I came across the obituary of someone I've never met today. A local mother and businessowner succumbed to a long illness in her mid-40's. I never met this person and have never met her family, but it struck me; What must it be like to die at such a young age and leave behind a young family? And what must it be like to grow up without a parent?

There's a hilarious scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David encounters his "friend" Funkhouser in their neighborhood following the death of Funkhouser's elderly mother. Funkhouser informs Larry that he has been grieving his mother and the fact that he is now an orphan. Please note what makes this scene hilarious is that both men were in their late 60's at the time. 

Parents are supposed to get elderly and die. They're not supposed to die in their 40's and people are not supposed to die before they even get the chance to become a parent. 

I wonder how those children are managing their grief. Experts say that the brain does not fully mature until the age of 25. And I know how difficult it is to manage grief and loss at 43 so I can only imagine what it must be like at 13. But what about the inverse? If you're dying of an incurable illness, you not only have to accept your own death but also grieve what you'll miss. Weddings, proms, grandchildren, etc. are all things you will not get to witness. At least as Kyle's parents we still have Leah. And hopefully she gets to achieve all these milestones of life. It's not something you think about before you suffer indescribable loss, but which would hurt more: Losing someone special or losing any ability, period? It's like choosing whether or not to take a bullet to the back of the head or a knife to the heart.

The irony in grief is that it frees up your mind to many portals your brain had previously closed itself of to. You begin searching your spirituality for messages and pathways to connect to be near to things that connect you to the one(s) you've lost. I've written about signs before, but in the last few weeks Erica, specifically, has opened herself up to nontraditional methods to learn more about Kyle's death, which have been fascinating and haunting at times. These are her experiences to share, but they lend credence to the explanation of Kyle's seemingly untimely death as unavoidable and predetermined. 

Grief also takes away a large part your personal fears and anxieties. Now, I'm not going to stand in front of a coal train and try and stop it with my bare hands, but I don't fear getting struck by one. I don't fear getting a phone call about Leah being sick. And I certainly don't fear hearing that my parents are gone, and I've been turned into a 43-year-old "orphan."

Which takes me back to the children of that young mother. Does death take away their anxieties about loss? I can't speak for them, but my assumption is that it does not. Presumably you have another parent that you could possibly lose, and you may begin to question your own long-term health. Like I said, in adolescence your brain is not fully formed and managing these anxieties may not be as easy as when you reach middle age and beyond. And I am certainly not without my anxieties about death and loss. It's not like, "Kyles dead and I no longer give a shit." But I will say that things that used to matter, the topical matters that can at times make up so self-centered and insular, seem trivial any longer.

"My kid didn't make the team."

But they're alive.

"The neighborhood kids were mean to my son."

But they've alive.

"My daughter has a C in calculus."

But they're alive. And calculus is hard.

These blips on the radar of life are all things we experienced, too, with Kyle and will eventually do or have already done with Leah. My hope is not to sound condescending but to serve as a cautionary tale. To remind yourself daily of what truly matters and how fleeting this all is / can be. Because eventually the anxieties can manifest into the physical and turn your life on a dime and you're left thinking, "What was all that for?"

I was emotional reading that woman's obituary, a stranger I never knew. I grieve for the children and husband she left behind. And the parents and extended members of her family and friends. And as I ponder which type of loss is worst, I am reminded that it's all terrible for its own specific reasons and there is no hierarchy of hurt. Grief not a competition because if it were, we'd all seem like losers.

But the silver lining is the freedom grief gives. Grief offers one the ability to focus on getting to the core of what really makes life matter. Six months ago, I would have never read that woman's obituary and never thought about her widow of her poor children. Grief tends to soften your emotions and grants you the compassion and empathy to channel other pains, which I believe is a gift.

I end by offering a quote by Martin Prechtel that was sent to me just this morning, 

" Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses."

I'll be thinking and praying about that woman and her family, and I hope they'll pray for me, too, and for many other too suffering through loss. Because instead of looking at grief and suffering as a societal taboo, rather embrace it and be grateful for the connection and freedom it allows for. 

 

Silent House

I attended my first individual grief counseling session this last Monday. The hour spent with my counselor was therapeutic even if we just scratched the surface of the circumstances surrounding Kyle's death.

After we exchanged pleasantries, she said that she read Kyle's obituary and the first thing she noticed was how handsome he was. The picture chosen for his obituary was quintessential Kyle - a smile on his face, wearing Tennessee orange and, what was cropped out of the picture, a big plate of food he had been eating at a tailgate. I'm sure he was wearing half of it on his jersey, but that was cropped out, too. 

Kyle, to me, always favored Erica. He has her bright, brown eyes and thick head of wavy hair. And an impossibly bright smile. His braces had closed the giant gap in his two front teeth, and he was scheduled to get them off this Spring.  But most importantly, he was just a kind and loving person.

I told my counselor that while I've accepted Kyle's physical death, what I'm really having difficulty processing are these Rites of Passage moments you take for granted as a parent of a young man. A few weeks ago, I saw some girls from Kyle's middle school, one in particular he had mentioned he may or may not have had a crush on. (Now, even in death, his secret is safe with me). But what hurts is that he'll never get to ask her on a date or take her to Prom. Hell, he'll never get to experience getting dumped by this or any girl.  He'll never get to have his first kiss or to fall in love. 

Erica and I used to joke, "Kyle will go to UT, get married and live 5 minutes from us. And Leah will move to New York and have 200K Instagram followers by her 15th birthday." But now, we'll never know. Just another thing you take for granted - the future - that is anything but guaranteed. You take things like the future for granted because you don't prepare for what happens when you suddenly lose a child. People say to me all the time, "I can't imagine what you're going through." And it's hard for me not to condescendingly answer, "Well, why would you?" No one wakes up on a Tuesday and thinks, "I have to go to work, get the kids from school and then prepare for my son to die in his sleep." It's not what a normal, sane person thinks about. 

I think the Rites of Passage, whether it be school, sports, girls, etc., is what will haunt me the most about losing Kyle. It's one thing to grieve the loss of a loved one, but an entirely other thing to grieve the hallmarks of being a father, a dad to your son. 

Erica spent this past weekend with girlfriends on an annual get together they do every MLK weekend. She's been going to this annual event since we were engaged, without children and living in Nashville. I used to enjoy the solitude of those weekends alone. I'd cook steaks and listen to loud music and have the whole house to myself. And as an only child, the time alone never bothered me...I was used to having to be by and entertain myself. 

But as you grow and mature and start a family you become accustomed to the noise, controlled chaos and rapidity of life with active children. Yes, you come to appreciate those silent moments alone but always seem to find yourself longing to be with and near your family . 

There were moments this past weekend where it felt too quiet. The door to Kyle's room is closed and he's not coming out. Erica is gone and it's just me and Leah and the dog, Bubba. And Bubba doesn't bark or whine or howl. Seriously, I've heard him bark 4 times in 5 weeks. It's like owning a pet mime. I think the thing I miss most about Kyle at this time is his voice. I miss his constant questions, his sarcastic remarks and his play by play as he tossed the football to himself in the front yard. That the last thing he said to me was, "Love you. See you in the morning." is of great comfort and leaves me with no regrets.

I've delayed posting my recent experiences because I didn't feel inspired to write about anything specific or impactful. I don't want to turn this forum into a stream of consciousness platform where I share every detail of my thought process...there's far too much of that on social media. But part of the grieving process is making yourself uncomfortable with your emotions and doing things that may be difficult. Just because it's easy doesn't mean that it's right. I'm finding it difficult to articulate how exactly I feel at the moment. Maybe I should turn off my brain and just sit in silence. There can be peace in silence and solitude. I used to tell Kyle, "If you listened half as much as you talk, you may learn something." Maybe I should heed my own advice. If I listen to the silence long enough maybe, I'll allow myself to open up and hear my son once again. 

Can't You Read the Sign?

When is a sign an acknowledgement from another place and time and not a happy coincidence? Follow me, you purchase a new car then all of a sudden you see that exact same model all over town. Is it someone or something telling you that you made a wise choice, or has you brain been opened up to a new level of perception and recognition? 

While a more serious matter than buying an automobile how do you recognize signs or messages from loved ones and how does it reinforce spirituality and belief in a higher power? Once again, when you receive a supposed sign from a departed loved one is it for real or has your mind opened up to new possibilities? Or both.

I ask Kyle for signs all the time. While not of deep faith, but much deeper than 2 months ago, I believe he is somewhere watching over us. Within the span of two days, we had a waiter named Kyle, then a character named Kyle in an SNL skit. Heck, there was even a repertory character from SNL literally named Kyle Mooney. But Kyle's not an uncommon name so I'm left deciding between whether or not these are happy coincidences or messages from beyond. 

After Kyle's death I was convinced I was going to jump headfirst into faith and the church as a way to stay connected to his memory. The congregation and leadership at Fellowship Church were so kind and protective following Kyle's death that I felt as if I owed God the opportunity to reenter my life. And I have to a certain degree; I pray, and I go to Church. I have a brand-new copy of a Bible on my nightstand and a rosary gifted from a dear friend. But I've always struggled with the idea of Heaven as its described to us and have viewed God as more of a larger entity as opposed to a singular being. 

However, I often come back to the idea that as someone living on planet earth, I am an impossibly small part in a galaxy that is one of what is estimated to be between 100 to 200 billion other galaxies. That past planet Earth there is very likely other living creatures or beings inevitably created by someone or something. That's the trump card. You can test the theory of gravity. You can freeze water and turn it into ice cubes. But you cannot disprove God. 

And while we practice Christianity in our house, our next-door neighbors are Syrian. And the people across the street are a mixed Jewish and Catholic family. We celebrate Easter, the Jews celebrate Rosh Hashana and the Muslims honor Ramadan. Our practices and cultures are very different, but we are all trying to get to the same place...eternal happiness. Which brings me to the concept of spirituality, faith and messages from beyond.

I don't need to have relationship with God to believe to messages from the dead, but I believe it helps. Why? Because it helps me to have faith. And with faith comes the expectation that I trust good things will befall me and my family. You may wonder how someone who just lost their son can trust that good things will happen to them, but after the last two months, nothing scares me. I have faith, it has been reinforced whether by Kyle's spirit, his death or my own self-confidence, but I don't fear because I have been through the worst and I am still standing. That alone should be a message to us all. The triumph of the human spirit. 

Last week Erica, Leah and I all dreamt about Kyle. It was the first time I'd heard his voice since the night before he died. That night I laid in bed and begged for him to come to speak to me. My dream was brief and centered around he and I talking about school. Erica's dream was similar only she was driving Kyle to and from practice / school with Leah in the backseat. And Leah's dream was the four of us at the beach together. Not one of us has dreamt about him since he died, yet all of a sudden in the span of three days we all have vivid dreams where we are speaking to him. Once again, did he hear my pleas or was it all a happy coincidence? Had I opened my mind to his presence again and did me discussing it with Erica and Leah open up their minds to the possibility? Regardless, it was a welcome meeting and one I hope happens again very soon and very often. I had faith he would return to me, and it happened, thus reinforcing my trust in the inevitable good that's right in front of me. 

Last July we were readying to leave town for an extended weekend with family. As I was getting ready for (aka getting out of the shower) I heard a large thud coming from Leah's bedroom. She had fallen out of her lofted bed which sits 7' in the air and landed on her back / head / neck area. Like Kyle, I knew something was wrong and ran into her room. She was partially blocking the door making it difficult to reach her. When I did her eyes were rolling back in her head, she was seizing and in and out of consciousness. Erica was crying on the phone with 911, Kyle was screaming in our room and crying, "Is she dead? Is she dead?" After 30 seconds, which seemed like an eternity, Leah woke up, looked at us and said, "I have to go pee", then proceeded to go about her day like nothing happened. The EMS arrived, gave her the full battery of concussion tests, blessed her with a clean bill of health and left. They compared the blow she took to a prize fighter getting knocked on the canvas. Her brain shifted when she hit the ground, and she was trying to readjust before she came back to a normal state. It was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me up until that point. It gave my stomach pains to think about it for a few days following.

Now I know that what happened to Leah was a test. It was a test to see how we reacted in the moment and looked to prepare us for Kyle's death. There are so many parallels in what happened to my children that it's impossible to deny the connection. It was a sign, a glimpse into the future and a mental exercise to unlock the possibility in our psyche of losing a child. 

Leah's here and today is her 8th birthday As I type this, she's asleep in the same bed she fell out of 6 months ago and will soon come down to unwrap her presents. Just this past week she went to a pediatric cardiologist to determine whether or not she is afflicted by some of the same genetic deficiencies that affected Kyle. Long story short, she has a normal, perfectly healthy heart and nothing of concern to the doctors. More consultations and testing are possible, but as of her 8th birthday she is a healthy, happy little girl. On the day she was born Kyle laid in the hospital bed, cradled her in his arms and told her he was going to love her, "Forever and ever". We have the recording on our phones and watch it often, especially today. I justify his passing in this moment by remembering that video, her cardiologist and the message he gave her, gave us. Kyle's affliction affects 1 in 100,000 and the odds that a normally healthy adolescent boy would die from cardiac arrest are even smaller. Which leads me to the question I've asked myself all week; "Was he chosen for this?" If I have faith, I believe he was chosen. I believe he was chosen to protect his sister from a similar fate. And he was chosen to protect the child of someone reading this blog that may want to curiously probe into their own genetic heart health and that of other family members.

Have I opened myself up to a new level of consciousness about the cruelty of death? Or is everything that transpired with my children's health over the last six months just a series of unfortunate coincidences? I choose to believe the former. I choose to have faith in something greater that myself. And I choose to believe in the great big sign with the arrow point to the right that reads, "One Way". And if I follow that sign, where will it eventually lead me? I trust that it will lead to the solace I need, the answers I crave and another day with my son. 

(Un)Happy New Year!

I had a friend in Nashville that was a heavy smoker during college. He smoked so much and was so synonymous with nicotine that his friends nicknamed him, "Cigarette". But I never saw my friend smoke. Not once. And he told me something about how he quit smoking that I think about quite a bit, especially now.

 

Pick a date that's significant to you and quit then. This way you can look back and always know how far you've come.

 

Over the years, I 've adopted this philosophy to quit my own vices, albeit temporarily, - nicotine, alcohol, fast food - because it seemed like a good idea. Which brings me to New Years. New Years is, for many, a hard date to augment behaviors, forgive past sins and restart anew.

 

Now, I get a lot of my news from Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). In fact, I get about 99% of my news about friends and extended family through Facebook. As 2024 winded to a close you see a lot of similar posts; people posting their Christmas cards, Santa pictures and New Year's celebration photos. You also get the self-assessment - "2024 was filled with ups and downs..." post, too. I'm not judging it's just pretty a pretty typical post.

 

I don't do the 'Year in Review Post' and I certainly don't think anyone would expect it from me now. But here's the bitch of it all - 2024 was actually pretty good. Until it wasn't.

 

Ninety percent of our 2024 was overwhelmingly positive. Both kids did well in school. Kyle played a lot of meaningful baseball and made the middle school team. Leah tried softball and continued with dance, doing well at both. Our teams won multiple championships. We went to Chicago in July as a family and then outran a hurricane in Florida back in October. In fact, our last night together was as an entire family at my 43rd birthday dinner. The Last Supper.

 

So, January 1, 2025 - new year, new outlook, right? A hard date where we can pinpoint exactly where we started a new version of ourselves, like my buddy Cigarette. Incorrect. 2025 began about as poorly as one could imagine. 

 

We normally have a big family party with our friends then organize a large sleepover for all the kids. We cook steaks, drink bourbon, watch football, play Yahtzee and enjoy each other's company. But this year, Erica didn't feel like coming. The party is always wall to wall kids and she was convinced it would be too hard for her. Then around 11:30 at night Leah got sick with the stomach bug. The same stomach bug I had the day after Christmas. So instead of ringing in the new year drinking cheap champagne and singing "Auld Lang Syne" we're cleaning out bowls of vomit and Lysol' Ing the TV controllers. 

 

The morning of January 1 wasn't much better. Now the dog is sick, Erica's not home as she's helping her dad recover from a recent hospital stay (he's fine) and I'm hungover on the couch reading a book about grief. And I'm angry and jealous. Angry that my son is dead and jealous of all the other parents last night with families that are whole. I said in Kyle's eulogy that, although necessary at times, there is no value in anger. I don't find that to be true any longer. Because without anger, how do you find calm in your life? You have to go through one in order to get to the other. No one is perpetually cheerful. 

 

Now here is the hard part - what is my role in how I feel? Where does the blaming end and the personal accountability begin? I can blame God or Kyle's doctors for his heart. But if I do that, how do I trust the doctors and medical professionals responsible for identifying potential threats in mine, Erica's and Leah's health? 

 

I can stay jealous and angry at my friends and their children, but why? The same people that rallied around us the day Kyle died and during the process of arranging his memorial service. The same people that brought us groceries, helped bathe Leah and opened up their homes to us in fellowship.

 

Much of how I felt on New Year's Day was a combination of a lot of emotions that were exacerbated by an overindulgence and reliance on alcohol. I have a lot of feelings and challenges to face, especially in the first few months of 2025, but my drinking is one that needs to be a priority. I can't process how I feel and begin to accept my son's death without a clear frame of mind.  

 

I told Erica two nights ago that I'm dreading 2025. I told her I was dreading our doctors' appointments, going back to work next month, the upcoming baseball season without Kyle and a host of other events. And one by one, she calmly explained to me why they matter and how integral they are to my day-to-day life. Calm is the opposite of anger. Calm is ownership. Calm is acceptance.

 

The mistake I made was assuming that January 1 was going to be a start of an entirely new life for me. So, when I spent most of Wednesday morning miserable, I went looking for someone to blame. The fact of the matter is that my new life started on November 14th, 20024 whether I liked it or not. 

 

I remember the moments after Kyle passed. I was getting out of the shower when I heard Erica scream from his bedroom. I threw on some clothes, rushed in, ushered them out of the room and called 911. I remember, my adrenaline was pumping, but I was clear and focused. I knew he was gone and told the 911 operator so. But I waited in his room until I could hear the sirens outside of our home before I hung up. I kissed his lips, rubbed his forehead and told him I loved him. In the worst moment of my entire life, I was focused and relaxed...not angry, not bitter and certainly not blaming of anyone or anything. 

 

What happened to our son isn't fair. But like I used to tell Kyle all the time, "Life isn't fair and it doesn't run on your feelings. Act accordingly." Maybe it's time I take my own advice and learn to accept what happened to my son is larger than the desire to make me feel good about myself. 

 

I pray to Kyle each morning. I kneel alongside his bed in the place I found him, and I pray and ask for his guidance and protection over our family. When Leah and my father in law got sick for a second, I thought, "Maybe he's not hearing me." But that's not what an accountable person thinks. An accountable person doesn't blame something they can't see, they find solutions for their problems . 

 

At that moment I stopped blaming God for my son, my son for his sister's stomach bug and myself for being angry. Instead, I got Leah and popsicle and worked on nursing her back to good health.