My aching heart: can pain be redeemed?

A young friend who lost her twenty something brother earlier this year posted a comment on Facebook this week about aching to be with him.

I sent her a comment and my thought that our aching and longing to be with those we have lost run as deep as our love for them does, and this phrase has been swirling in my head ever sense.

I still ache for Daniel and long to be with him.  This aching seems to be a permanent reality of life for me now as a father.

In other posts on this blog I have explored the longing I felt to be Daniel as if there is a perpetual magnet pulling me toward this person and my desire to be with him.

I believe that God gives us deep relational needs and when relationships are interrupted or severed by absence, a gaping hole is left in our hearts that in some respects will probably never be filled again.

And so we ache, acutely aware of our hole ridden and broken hearts and the pain we feel over the person we miss.

Can this pain and the aching that it causes also be redeemed?

God:  please continue to redeem my pain.

Living in two time zones: now, and Daniel time‏

Living with loss seems to include living in two time zones coincidently.

One zone is the present - I continue to experience what is happening right now - I get out of bed every morning, go to work, talk to people, do a job, engage in activities with my family and friends, and much, much more.  I really do live a very rich life, filled up with meaningful daily work and a lot of people to care about and who love me very deeply and well.  I am very blessed.

At the same time, I feel like I live in this other time zone that completely stopped moving when Daniel died.  

"Daniel time" is where a part of me simply exists in this space where I seem to sit and wonder what has happened - how has this person left this earth and how is life really going on without him here?

I watch my other children continue to grow and thrive and I watch Daniel's friends finish college, fall in love, get married, and now I have even met the baby child of one of those friends.  My children and all of these other beautiful people are flourishing and it absolutely warms my heart and soul to be in these relationships and get to witness their lives and growth.

But still, I feel stuck in time, sitting somewhere else and wondering about that other unanswerable question - where would Daniel be by now in his earthly life if he were still here?

Sometimes these distracting thoughts feel very selfish and I will myself to come back to the "reality" in the current time zone and pay attention to what is going on right now.  Other times I let my mind wander and stay longer in my other time zone - my other reality where I sit and imagine a life that Daniel might now be leading, fantasizing about where he would be, how he would look, what relationships he might be experiencing by now, including my relationship with him as his father.

Is this healthy or normal for a father who still grieves the loss of his son more than five years later?

I pray to God that is it so.

Amazing grace comes full circle

September 1, 2013

 
We stood in the field house at Whitworth University last night and sang Amazing Grace.  It was the final event capping off the day that we moved Ben into Mac Hall, the same dorm that we moved Daniel into six years ago to the day.
 
Of course the journey to this place this weekend included some bittersweet moments for Carol and me.  This is a great school for Ben, with fantastic and dedicated faculty, staff, and student leaders who will inspire and envelope him in the same learning community that was so rich for Daniel during his time here that was way too brief. 

Ben is very excited and it is great to see him launching into his new adventure so rich with opportunities.  It is thrilling and feels so right for Ben and we can't wait to see him blossom and flourish here.
 
But, carrying his stuff into Mac Hall included many trips walking past Daniel's dorm room right inside a main entrance, and then out to the memorial bench we had erected right across the walkway from the front door.  Coming back here with our second son is complicated in so many ways. 

And, several of the Whitworth faculty and staff who connected with us over Daniel have again reached out and very intentionally welcomed and embraced us as we completed our second journey as parents delivering a son to this wonderful campus.
 
Our quiet longing for Daniel courses through our hearts and souls as those memories are stirred, while we also look on with excitement and anticipation as Ben dives into his new life, with his own memory-making experiences unfolding before him.  
 
So singing this song of Amazing Grace – the very words that came to me as I began this journal the day Daniel died – these words and the reality of amazing grace in this journey all leave me in deep wonder and awe at its “coincidence” at this time, in this place, for this troubled soul!
 
Truly, amazing grace is flowing in seemingly perfect circles around my still broken heart – thanks be to God and to the wonderful people who embraced us in God’s arms this weekend!