Shattered Glass

I’ve been holding it together for some time now. Yes, I have my brief moments of deep grief where I lose control of my emotions but, for all intents and purposes, I am managing. 

As I've mentioned previously, I've continued coaching. I have been tasked with being the dugout coach for the West Middle School baseball team - the team Kyle finally made this past Fall. Being out there brings me closer to him and allows me to continue to do something I love very much...coaching. And I don't spend the games being wistful about him. I am there to support and teach and am typically very "dialed in" so there's not much time for melancholy. Yesterday however, was different. We played a team that was outclassed by our more talented squad. A game that, by the middle of the first inning, was over. It was a boring game which led my mind to wander. Alas, I made it through and was happy for the boys.

Strike One.

Then last night Tennessee beat Alabama in a thrilling basketball game. A game that was an emotional roller coaster. A game that Kyle would have normally been right next to me watching and yelling and possibly curing at. When Tennessee hit a last second three to win, we all celebrated and I left the room to text Kyle the following, "Vols beat 'Bama on a (Jamai) Mashack three! Love you and wish you were here to watch."

Strike Two.

Then today, I packed my bags for two nights in Memphis. My first out of town, overnight trip for work since the week before he died. As the anxiety filled me for a 6-hour drive across the state, I began to get very emotional. I fell to my knees begging for Kyle's protection then I found myself hysterical on the floor crying. Filled with anger I found the sounds coming out of me almost guttural - like from a wild animal in severe anguish before being put out of its misery.

                                                (View from my hotel in downtown Memphis)

Strike Three. Game over.

As I stopped crying and rose to my feet, I felt like a 500 lb. anvil rested on top of me. I slumped around the room dragging myself like a man crossing a baren desert, desperate for water while I packed the last of my things before jumping in the shower. Hoping to cleanse myself of the ugliest of thoughts that had entered my head.

"Why did this happen to you?"

"Why am I not dead and you are here instead."

"What do I have to do to get you back."

I haven't felt so emotionally vulnerable since we saw Kyle in the funeral home three days after his death. There he was, laid out in an orange TN jersey, wearing his West Middle baseball hat and surrounded by pictures, books and sports memorabilia that was quintessentially Kyle. There was my son, but not Kyle - his soul gone forever and (hopefully) in a better place and free from pain.

And then it dawned on me as I drove across the state today - I mourned his death, but now I have to also mourn all these landmark things he and I will never get to experience again as father and son.

Driving to and from baseball discussing his game, his team and strategy. Enjoying the highs and lows of any sport and in particular, Tennessee athletics, Kyle's favorite. And the seemingly banal and endless business trips where he was always there to see me off and greet me with a bear hug when I returned.

Grief has multiple stages, but those stages are not fluid - the zig and zag and are filled with wrong turns and a seemingly endless amounts of roundabouts. I remember that scene from European Vacation - "Hey kids, Big Ben, Parliament" as Chevy Chase, lost in London, drives around the same circle for an hour.

"Hey Brennan, there's a kid playing baseball. There's a kid going to school." Only it's not funny, it just sucks.

I skipped Church today. I was down on myself and anxious to get on the road and sent Erica and Leah on their way. And I haven't been sleeping well lately so I decided to take a quick nap before driving to Memphis. I set my alarm for 25 minutes, which, as a nap aficionado, I have determined is the perfect length for a quick nap. You get a quick boost without being drowsy. But I tossed and turned and cut my nap short at 14 minutes. And when I picked up my phone to silence my alarm the clock read, 11:11, Kyle's birthday and number in baseball. I see 11:11 on clocks all the time now. Just last week, at 5:30 AM, I made a cup of coffee and our coffee pot, which has never been set properly read, "11:11." You may ask why our Keurig clock is always off and my answer is, because no one since the discovery of the sundial ever asked for the time and received the response, "I don't know. Go look at the coffee pot."

It's subtle reminders like this that allow me to receive messages from my son and keep going, knowing that he's looking over and communicating with me.

I'll be back in town Tuesday night in plenty of time for West Middle's game. And I'll be wearing the hat he wore the day we saw him at Rose's Funeral Home. And instead of a 500 lb. anvil wearing me down it will be a 4-ounce blue and red hat. And it will be really good to have that on my mind instead.