So Loved

It was one of those inspirational signs that got me thinking.

It referred to Jesus as God's unspeakable gift. While I didn't really get the word choice (Unspeakable? Wouldn't indescribable be better?), it set me to thinking about God's love.

Parents who have lost a child may find themselves questioning God or their own faith -- I know I did. I was angry at God for allowing Ethan to die, full of questions and rocked that my prayers and faith had not led to his recovery from addiction. I was so certain that it was just a matter of time, that God would put the right people in his life or open the door that would allow him to see what his life had become. It was not that I stopped believing in God -- the whole idea is incomprehensible to me -- it was that it felt like He didn't really care.

Yet eventually this terrible loss took me to different place. In this place I feel God's love in a way I don't think I ever comprehended it before.

We're not perfect and from the time Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, we could never be. Yet God wants us to be with Him. Sure, it would be easy to say that everyone got a free pass, but then what would be the point of life and what kind of souls would we possess if we'd never faced any challenges or had to make choices? So from the beginning, He had a plan. To show His love, He would forgive our imperfections. So that we could understand how hard that was, it had to involve a sacrifice. For a time He allowed lesser sacrifices, but He knew that a time was coming when the sacrifice had to be huge. It was.

He sacrificed His son, Jesus, for us. He sent him out of his eternal presence to earth to live as a mortal man, He allowed men to beat him and crucify him. In order for Jesus to die, He had to sever for a while that eternal connection.

I've lost a son. I know the pain of a child's death. Would I let my son die for a bunch of people who didn't even know or care about him? Soldiers' families do it every day. Would I let him die for people who might care? Law enforcement officers' parents do it all too often. Would I let him die for someone I loved? Maybe, if he were willing, but just imagining that choice brings tears to my eyes.

Would I have let him die if it had been within my power to stop it? No way in this world or the next.

God did all those things.

Had He even thought it, the crowds crying for Jesus' death would have dropped dead, the soldiers would have crumbled to ash, Jesus would have soared back to His side. He could have stopped it, but out of love for people who would one day realize the sacrifice and people who never would even acknowledge it, He didn't. Jesus died for our forgiveness. There is nothing within our power that could ever equal that sacrifice; all we have to do is believe and accept it.

There are people who lose a child and say, "How can a God who loves me do this?" I have been that person at times. But I've become the person who says, "How could God love me that much?"

With all the mistakes and baggage I've accumulated through my life, how could He love me enough to send Jesus? How could He love any of us enough to accept, even for a little while, this pain?

Sure, He knew how it was going to turn out. He knew Jesus would triumph over death and rise from the grave. Don't we know the same thing?

I know that Jesus' victory is Ethan's as well and that while Jesus was in the grave for three days, Ethan flew from his body into the arms of the God who loved him enough to make the sacrifice of His own son.

No, that doesn't heal my grief. I'm still floored by it sometimes. I still cry and my arms ache to hold my son, my ears strain for the sound of his voice.

But sometimes when I cry, like now, it's not because of my loss. It's because I finally understand how much God loves me and the rest of humanity.

Perhaps, after all, it was an unspeakable gift He gave.

Ethan's First Real Easter

Easter meant more to me this year.

Sometime back I realized that although we say we are not supposed to bury our children, God has quite often set our lives on just such a course -- not merely now, when we lose our children to accidents and illnesses, addictions and suicides, wars and crime. No, even in Biblical times we mothers have buried our children.

Mary buried her son, Jesus.

Yes, He came to her on miracle and she knew from before His birth that He was God's son. When He began His ministry, He was followed by thousands and performed miracles of His own. She must have been amazed that the babe she had held in her arms, a child who may have seemed fairly regular much of the time, had grown into the man He became. We have no inkling that God or His angels ever revealed to her the ultimate plan.

Mary didn't know when she watched Her son be reviled by her neighbors, crucified between two thieves, and then taken from the cross, battered and bleeding, still warm but without life in His body, that there was some greater purpose to her loss. During that most human of times between the time He was crucified and Easter morning, she was just as I have been for four months -- a grieving mother.

Surely during that time she questioned God, "Why?" Surely she asked, "Why work such a miracle to give me your son? Why spare Him from the soldiers' spears as a baby? Why grant Him the power to work miracles and minister to thousands? Why would you do all of that, take Him safely through so much, and then let Him be taken and killed? Why is my baby dead? Why is my son laying cold and lifeless in a grave during this holy time when he should be here with me and the people who cared about Him?"

Any mother who has lost a child, a son, has the same questions in essence. We don't wonder about the miracles, but we do wonder why they may have been spared one ailment, walked away from a car crash, made the right choices for so long to suddenly be just as lost to us as Jesus when they rolled the stone across His tomb.

Like I have been, she was surrounded by people who cared about her, people who loved her son, people who were as bewildered by how things seemed to have turned out as she was. None of them knew what was coming. Like me and my comforters, we had all thought things would work out for the best.

But I also realized this Easter how it was so much worse for them. I had thought, how wonderful that her grief only lasted those three days before the miracle at the tomb; how unimaginable it must have been to suddenly have Him back and be lifted from the pit of despair by His return. Then I realized how much darker those days were, not just because of the persecution and uncertainty, because they did not know the world had changed and that the impossible had become possible.

As several grieving mothers posted messages about their children spending Easter in heaven on Facebook, I came to a realization that had previously eluded me. Before Jesus, death and hell had not been conquered. When you died, had you not managed to live a spotless life, unless you were one of the old-time prophets who walked with God, the grave was an uncertain place. Had there been adequate sacrifices on your behalf? Had you broken one of the laws that your religion decreed were necessary to be just? Had you been good enough for a reward?

Even knowing how perfect Jesus was and that He was the son of God, once He was taken and crucified, Mary and those closest to Him must have doubted. Beyond all the questions about why His life had ended as it had, beyond the horror of those final hours, there had to be an uncertainty that went to the core of their beings. What now? I don't think they understood the gift they had been given and they had no way of understanding what was to come, even though they had been told repeatedly.

We don't have to have that now. I don't have to worry that my son had messed up and squandered the gift of his life, that he had sinned and that his eternity is in question because Jesus took care of that. He wiped the slate clean and kept wiping it clean every time he messed up. He does the same for me and for those who will call upon his name. When Ethan died and his body was subjected to an autopsy and then buried in the ground, I didn't have to worry about what came next. When I got the call that he was dead, I knew he was already in heaven. Although he was struggling on earth, his ultimate fate had not been up for grabs for a long time.

At the same time, I don't know how anyone gets through this without God and the belief that what He promised is real and that our time in these earthly bodies is just a brief part of our existence. I know there are people who find ways to cope and survive, people who are like the professor in "God's Not Dead," denying God's existence because they are angry at how life turned out, when they are actually angry with God. I've been angry with God as well, not just at Ethan's death, but at the turns his life took and sometimes at what has happened in my own life. Not understanding, being angry and hurt doesn't undo my faith.

So this Easter it was even less about baskets and presents and eggs and new church clothes. It was about peace and resurrection and new life and belief in the promise of the empty tomb.

It was about knowing Ethan was celebrating Easter with the one who conquered death and the tomb and made it all possible. That was, almost, enough to get me through the day dry-eyed.

An Unexpected Gift

I don't have any "real" gifts from my son.

When I say real gifts, I mean the things we buy with money. When we grow up and start working and we want to give things to the people we care about -- sometimes just because and sometimes for special occasions. Sure, there's some compulsion there, some expectation, but we do it because we love them. Ethan never took his own money that he had worked for and chose to spend it on something for someone else.

He bought things he thought would bring him happiness -- video games and drugs. He "loaned" it to his "friends," people who never expected to repay him and found a spirit that wanted to help others but somehow didn't really know how, so was willing to give what he had to people who manipulated him.

The first Christmas after he had been in jail for a few months, when he was clean and working, he wanted to buy me a juicer. He told me to be looking for it because he thought I'd enjoy it and he saw it on TV and called and ordered it. But his credit card was overdrawn and I never got it. I still wish I had it. In fact I can sit down and cry over it a hundred times and probably will because one time he wanted to give me something.

The Christmas before he died he was living in a homeless shelter and the shelter director took the residents shopping for Christmas so he was able to buy, on someone else's dime, gifts for his nieces. Someone donated some items to the shelter and among them was a woman's football jersey in pink and white, but it was for the Carolina Panthers and he knew I liked football. He asked if he could have it as a gift for me. I know I'll treasure that second hand shirt with the wrong quarterback's name for the rest of my life.

I never received a Mother's Day card or a birthday card from my son, either. He never spent time standing in a card aisle looking for some commercial way to tell me he loved me. I don't know what part of him never felt that need to recognize a societal convention that way. I have no cardstock treasures to remember him by. He didn't even call to tell me happy mother's day or happy birthday. Ever. They were just meaningless days on the calendar to him. If the family had a gathering to celebrate he would usually show up, but last year that didn't even happen.

But as self consumed as he was -- and as all addicts tend to be -- when he ran into a need face on, he wanted to help. He'd scrounge through his cabinets to feed a stray dog or cat, or even birds when he had an apartment with a fire escape where crows sometimes lounged. If he ran into an older lady from church at the grocery store (when he was going to church) he's keep her company while she shopped, push her buggy and get things off of high shelves. The friends who used him pleaded needs he thought he was helping with, a little boy going hungry so he'd spend his food stamps on him and the friend would give him cash for drugs, if he got around to it; or a broken down car or insurance due that he could take care of with a loan of Ethan's meager savings, until there were no savings left, no money repaid and the friend was doing time.

His generosity though was for strangers. For me and his grandparents, he would seldom do a chore without expecting to be paid and then complain that he wasn't paid enough.

That disconnect within him is one of the things I struggle with sometimes. Perhaps there was a streak of Jesus in him that he gave himself away to others, but at the same time he was so miserly with the people who really loved him. And to be quite honest it just breaks my heart that I don't have something he thought enough of me to buy me, stupid as that may be. And among all the things I've been broken-hearted over the last three months, that is a small thing.

So when I opened a pink envelope in the mail this week and took out a necklace with his name, an angel's wing, a crystal that could be his birthstone, and the saying "I have an angel watching over me," I felt overwhelmed with the perfection of the gift. There was no card, but I had a hint who it was from and was able to confirm it later that night when we were actually both awake on opposite sides of the world.

A young woman approximately Ethan's age, since she graduated high school only two years ahead of him in Sydney, Australia, had sent it to me. I didn't know her before Ethan died, I'll probably never meet her or even talk to her on the phone, but we connected through Ethan's death, through my blogs about addiction and loss. We chat on Facebook and she asked if she could call me Mom instead of Angela, because... well, maybe because I need another child and she needs an extra mom (who doesn't sometimes).

Then last night, when I took it off to shower, the terrible dichotomy between what was and what should have been hit me and I cried and I'm still crying off and on. Ethan should have loved me and bought me things to touch and think of him. Ethan should be sending me hearts and hugs and messages on Facebook. Ethan should have given me something to hang onto before he left me feeling so lost and bewildered and wondering what the hell happened to my life and more importantly to his. Ethan should not have left me at all; he should have got his shit together and been the person he was meant to be.

At the same time, I have not been left with nothing as it initially felt.

Out of my loss, I've been given other gifts: friendships I would never have had; confidences I would never have shared; the chance to love people I would never have known; opportunities to help, minister to and support people I could not have reached. I try to put it in the balance and it doesn't replace my son, but then I realize that my son had his salvation and I know where he's gone, and perhaps in his journey or mine we'll be able to show someone else that direction as well. Because my tears and prayers are no longer just for the two of us, they're for what seems like a world of people facing the same pain and heartache, and the love that breaks my heart has also set it free to love as Jesus told us to love.

So I try to remind myself not just of the things I've lost, but of the things I've found, without and within.

My necklace is symbolic of all of that, even though the giver probably never knew the chords it would strike would run so deep. In a way, I know it is something Ethan would have wanted me to have, had he ever thought to give it.

My son never gave me any "real" gifts, but because of him I've received many gifts. One of them is a necklace.

A River of Tears Seems to Water My New Life

I cry too much. Sometimes, I think I should be dehydrated, just from the tears.

Headed home the other night with tears running down my cheeks, I thought, "I wish I wasn't a person who cried all the time."

There was nothing really to cry about. I had just dropped the girls off at home and was headed home myself. I had money in my wallet, gas in my tank and a safe vehicle to drive. I think it was a song on KLOVE, or maybe something they were talking about on the radio, and suddenly I'm crying.

It wasn't Ethan, or grief, or overwhelming despair. Just tears.

Of course, that thought was quickly followed by another.

"No, I don't."

I realize I tread this ground repeatedly in my thoughts, but I guess that is part of making it my new reality. Each time I cross this bumpy terrain the path is a little wider and a little easier to walk. Each time this part of my journey becomes a little easier to embrace.

This fragile, caring, tearful person that I've become over the last few months is deep down a better person than the woman I was before losing my son. Although I'd give any possession I have and even my own life to have him back and whole (not just like he was before), I would not want to return to the person I was three months ago.

While I grow tired of the tears and the smeared mascara and what sometimes feels like a constant ache in my chest, losing Ethan opened my eyes and my heart to a world that I was content to ignore or brush off.

Now the pains of other people, even casual acquaintances and friends of friends, can move me to tears.

A stranger losing a child is almost more than I can bear.

The mothers I've met who are still struggling to deal with their child's addiction, or who like me are grieving, have a place in my heart and my prayers.

People who are no more than a few sentences and a picture on a Google+ site or a Facebook friendship, people who are on the other side of the world, or even not identified by a place, move me to tears, prayers and reaching out.

I find myself counseling people I would have never dreamed of counseling, or reaching out through cyberspace to let someone know they're not alone, or crying over a song on the radio, and I'm glad.

God made us to care about one another. Jesus told us to love one another and bear one another's burdens.

The world and life itself tells us to not do these things, to look after ourselves and let everyone else do the same, to keep our distance from things that don't concern us. We insulate ourselves from what and who we are meant to be, not just with one another, but with God.

We think we can take care of ourselves and we don't need to let other people into our lives. We think we can do it with God as a backup plan, a Sunday morning savior, a daddy in the sky we run to when things get rough.

Losing Ethan stripped away all that insulation and pretense.

I'm not doing it alone and some days I'm hardly doing it at all. Some days, God is doing it through me, and sometimes it's only the prayers and the realization that this is what I have to do that keep me going.

I'm so grateful for everyone who hasn't felt this pain who has reached out to me when there is nothing I can do for them. I'm so thankful for the exchange of support with others who know my pain. I'm so blessed to have found a better me through all of this who appreciates the miracle of each day and wants to feel, even when it means tears.

I still stumble. I still wish sometimes that this wasn't who I had to be, or more accurately that I didn't have to go through what I have to be this person. But I'm still trying to accept that I had to be broken to be made anew.

I'm still singing "Keep Making Me," sometimes with tears and sometimes with a thankful heart, still fearful of the words of this prayerful song, but at the same time aware that life is beyond my control. My prayer now isn't to be broken, it's to be healed and to be filled and to be this better person that I catch a glimpse of sometimes.

The one with smeared mascara because she's crying again.

Prayers Are More Powerful Than We Know

I'm praying for you.

Often when we say those words, we often feel inadequate. It means we don't have anything more to offer, other than kind words that may not be heard, or a shoulder that won't be strong enough to share the burden.

During the last month, however, I've found that those words are a lot more powerful than we think.

There have been many days when it feels like the prayers of my friends are the net that catches me when I fall. Yes, I still fall, but it's not the bone crushing landing that I expect. Instead, I bounce back like the high wire walker making a misstep who bounces on the net, then comes back to his feet and climbs back up the ladder to go again. The fall is frightening and I feel like I'll plunge into the dark pit of grief and never climb out, but before I disappear into the abyss, the net of prayer catches me. I climb back up the ladder of life and start walking again.

Yesterday morning I received an unexpected sympathy card. For a couple of weeks the sympathy cards and Christmas cards mingled in my mailbox, a sad statement of the mixed joy and sadness the season brought, but there hadn't been any cards in a while.

Yet this friend, who I've worked with on some animal rescues, remembered me. She sent a card to tell me, beyond the sweet verses, that she was praying for me still and that my friends love and care about me. Far more than the card, which was nice, her handwritten words buoyed me up for another day.

Occasionally friends will message me that they are praying for me. Sometimes it's in response to a new struggle, and sometimes just a note to remind me they are there and care. Yet I know in my soul that there are prayers being said that I don't ever know about, because without them I could not be making it day to day.

I'll pray for you.

Those words are so much more powerful than we give them credit for being, because a prayer is a message to God and although we aren't always sure of the answer, He listens and responds. Without that response I know that I'm not alone in being a person who could not make it through another day.

We've all heard the misused saying that God will not put upon us more than we can bear, when in fact He regularly allows more than we can bear ALONE to come into our lives. (The actual verse 1 Corinthians 10:13 reads in part But God is faithful; He will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which ye are able to bear and refers to temptation). Instead He gives us more than we can bear so we will turn to Him, and the way to do that is through prayer and faith.

In order to really rely on God and trust in God, we don't need to believe that He won't allow us to suffer more than we can bear, we have to believe that we won't be alone and He will be there to see us through. That's facing up to our limitations and knowing that we're not strong enough. That's a reality that I've had to face. When people look at me and say, "You're so strong," or "I don't know how you can bear it," the answer is I'm not, and I can't, at least not alone.

Alone I would stay in the bed and be of no use to anyone. Alone the sorrow would consume me. Alone I would have no hope that this has a purpose and that I have to work and suffer to fulfill my part of it, just as Ethan had to suffer for a time to fulfill his part in it.

I have to admit that there have been times in the past when I've looked at people and wondered how they went on. I've wondered how they had the strength, the courage, the faith to face another day and let the tragedy that had overtaken them become not just part of who they were, but a blessing to others. Now I know that it is a trial by fire and from the outside it's impossible to comprehend. It's clinging to the small lifeline of your own faith and allowing prayers and God to do the work that puts you back together and keeps you moving.

I still look at some of those people and know I'm a long way from there, but I feel the net of prayers holding me up and I know I have to get up and keep moving. I know it's not my prayers alone, because I'm just one voice and sometimes my voice falters and grows quiet. Without those who remember me, I believe I still might fall.

So instead of prayer being our last resort when we cannot think of anything to do ourselves, it should be the first thing we think of. We shouldn't undervalue its importance in times of tragedy, or in our day-to-day lives.

Ask for prayers. Send up prayers. Strengthen one another with prayers.

And don't feel like you're doing nothing. Recognize that you're doing the absolute best thing you can do.