Lessons I've Learned from Grief -- Part One

While I've ranted and raved about my own emotional train wreck in the wake of losing my son, I've learned a lot about not only myself but the people around me. I'm not sure which lessons have been the most unexpected.

I've learned the world is full of more heartache than I ever imagined, and that my particular brand of pain -- the loss of a child to drug addiction -- is far too common.

I've discovered other people can understand my pain in many different ways.

By reaching out, I've met people who have experienced very similar losses to addiction. Included in this group of struggling parents are those who are so close to this pain every day, that they can almost feel it. Like I was for years, they're already grieving the loss of the child they thought they knew while loving the one they have. They're fearing that phone call that will destroy their final hope. Others, like myself, are dealing with that final loss. On either side of goodbye, there is a bond that means we can talk to one another in ways we cannot talk to anyone else. In addition to our pain, we deal with so many questions about how things might have been different. We deal with people judging us for not doing enough or maybe too much. We deal with our own inaccurate sense of failure in somehow not producing a child who could face the world unaided by the crutch of an addiction.

There are other people whose childloss is different -- different circumstances, different degrees of preparation, small children as well as those who've walked through childhood, even adult children -- who also share my pain. At it's heart the loss of a child and all the potential we saw in that child from birth is the same. We have lost a piece of ourselves and will never feel whole again.

Still others grieve for something else. Any loss is the loss of dreams, whether it is a beloved pet, a job, health, a parent, or a child, pain is pain. There are degrees of hurt and the duration may vary, but virtually everyone knows about loss. Our grief is a shared bond and I've been humbled by the outpouring of love and kindness from friends, virtual strangers, and people I only met because of my loss.

I've discovered that my friends who are blessed to have no real idea at this time in their lives also care. They've sent cards and messages, they've telephoned and showed up on my doorstep. They've been a good reminder that the world isn't completely filled with pain or uncaring strangers either. Even my friends who seem to have disappeared during this time in my life are a reminder that not everyone is strong enough to share this burden for someone else, and I'm working on releasing the nugget of resentment that I sometimes feel at their absence.

Beyond that are the random people who humble me the most. They are the people who I don't really know, and who, as far as I know have no reason to fear or understand my pain, but who still keep reaching out to me with gestures from the heart. They leave me staggered at their love and generosity and realizing even through the tears, that they are showing me God's love in ways I never expected.

While everyone who reaches out is doing their part to help everyone they touch heal and live, those people who don't feel my pain, who didn't even have names before Ethan died, can bring me to unexpected tears. Out of those tears, sometimes, I find an equally unexpected blessing, not only in what they have done, but what it may take me a little while to see.

Although I rant and rave to the heavens about my feelings, about how God was supposed to take care of Ethan and by gosh this wasn't what I meant and I'm so hurt and alone, I'm not forgotten. The cards unexpectedly delivered and the angel that brought me to tears weren't just the thoughtfulness of people who want me to know they care. They were the works of His hands and feet on this earth.

Proof of Heaven a Good Read for Grieving

On Saturday, I finished reading Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander, M.D.

I didn't go out and buy it after Ethan's death in search of some vision of heaven. Like a friend I made over the summer who had lost her son to a drug overdose a few years ago, or this blog that I began in September, it was one of the many things already in place when the need arose.

The book wasn't even something I picked up during December at all, and, although fewer than 200 pages, it took far longer to read it than I would have liked because if I got it out while the three Es were around, someone was sure to remove my book mark.

But with tears streaming down my face from the poem "When Tomorrow Starts Without Me," which was written by David Romano in 1993 and included near the end of the book, I finally finished it Saturday afternoon.

I had been warned that, being written by a doctor, the terms often slipped into medical and scientific and that it could be a heavy read at times because that terminology would be unfamiliar. But understanding that Alexander wrote the book at least partly to try to persuade fellow doctors that the Near Death Experiences, dreams and visions that he had once joined them in dismissing were real, helped me to skim the portions that were too difficult. They weren't necessary for me to understand to get what I needed from the book.

The book tells the story of Alexander's journey to the afterlife during a coma that should have ended in his death. He contracted bacterial meningitis and lapsed into a coma during which he was effectively brain dead. The part of his brain that could have dreamed or hallucinated his experience was not functioning and when he awoke, his family was in fact being called in to say their final farewells before life support was removed.

Before falling ill, Alexander attended church, but had no belief in his soul, a consciousness separate from brain waves, or an afterlife. He was a secular physician with no room in his mind for the NDEs of others or the visions they shared with him. From a purely scientific standpoint, he gave them no weight.

His trip beyond sent him back with a new understanding of life in that it is only a small portion of who we are and will be. He came back wanting to share the message that we are all loved, that we have purpose, and "All is well," which was his second phrase after awakening.

Alexander's glimpse of heaven wasn't what we typically come to expect or may have read in other stories recounting a NDE. But at the same time, he didn't spend as much of his story trying to describe what it looked like as what it felt like, both in an emotional way and in the way it felt to be there. His vision, however, helped me some with my grief.

The most meaningful bits for me came at the end of the book when he began trying to put what he had experienced back into perspective with his physical life and his understanding from training and years of experience as a neurosurgeon.

He wrote about his first visit back to church and how "I shuddered as I recalled the bliss of infinite unconditional love I had known... I understood what religion was really all about. Or at least was supposed to be about. I didn't just believe in God; I knew God."

And later "I felt like I was doing what every soul is able to do when they leave their bodies, and what we can all do right now through various methods of prayer or deep meditation. Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it's the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal -- and loving us without condition."

"The entire length and height of the physical universe is as nothing to the spiritual realm from which it has arisen -- the realm of consciousness (which some might refer to as 'the life force.').

"This other, vastly grander universe isn't 'far away' at all. In fact, it's right here -- right here where I am, typing this sentence, and right there where you are, reading it. It's not far away physically, but simply exists on a different frequency. It's right here, right now, but we're unaware of it because we are for the most part closed to those frequencies on which it manifests..."

He also writes about feeling at one with the universe and how all things are interconnected and everywhere at the same time in this other frequency.

Suddenly I knew how I saw Ethan in a sunbeam. For just a moment, perhaps, my frequency shifted enough to recognize his spirit there. I knew how my new friend whom I've never felt grieves that she can no longer feel her son, because her frequency has shifted the other way. I understand how sometimes I can almost see and feel him, because perhaps he is there, just the other side of my physical limitations, wanting me to know he's OK, while at the same time he's everywhere else and with God and my grandparents and the girl he knew in school who was killed in car wreck. Time and relationships and the things that bind us in this life aren't important or even real in the heaven Alexander saw.

There have been rebuttal books written from a "Christian" standpoint, but Alexander's book doesn't discuss theology or Christianity, or even very much what heaven itself was like, just his individual experience and his revelation that consciousness extends beyond our physical life and that, despite all his scholarly skepticism there is a God.

How we make our way to heaven, deal with our belief in God and our Savior, and make our peace with life in this earthly realm are up to us, but reading about a one man's conversion from unbelief to belief helped me. I believe it can also help others who are grieving, as well as those who are seeking answers and willing to accept a truth outside the realm of science and a heaven that doesn't need streets of gold to be the place where we can meet our God and Savior.

Grieving the Loss of Unknown Children

Yesterday, feeding the noonday bottle to my smallest grandchild, I was reflecting on the fact that she'll soon be one and that bottles will be a thing of the past. Then it hit me that barring any unforeseen change of plans, she's my last grandbaby.

I'm not baby crazy at any time, but when I started keeping my daughters' babies, Ethan had warned me he would expect the same care for his children. I never doubted that the day would come, probably at about the time I was ready for a break from babies. At some level, having grown into the role of caretaker Ma, I was looking forward to it.

Although I've known many of the things I expected will never happen since Ethan died, yesterday it was suddenly all about babies.

Ethan always wanted to be a daddy. Not just a father, but a good daddy. He didn't really even know what that would involve, because he never had a role model, but it was something he longed for and missed. He would have been a good daddy -- E1 adored him, even though she had not had the chance to spend a lot of time with him. When he was straight, even children who didn't know him were drawn to him. He was funny and could be childlike in his focus. They could feel that he was full of love.

"A life-long goal of mine is to be a good parent if I have kids, because that can really affect a kid's life and what thy do in the future. If their parents get divorced or something, and they don't really get to know both of them because of some stupid law or some other dumb reason then that kid just lost a major role model in their life. They may not get certain talks that they need from their parents and may not know what to do when certain things happen in their lives. When someone offers them drugs or wants them to drink some beer or other alcoholic drink, they may not know how to say no and they could end up saying yes just because they don't know what to do. They may end up doing some bad things because they lost a vital role model in their childhood. There's no telling what they could end up doing when they get older. They could turn to drugs or something else. They could become a criminal and end up in jail for most or all of their life. Some people end up like that no matter what happens in their lives. There is a lower chance if they have good parents and they stay together and other things like that. That just shows how much having good role models like your parents can affect your life in the long run and can decide what happens in your life when you get older, whether you're a criminal or live a decent life, and who you hang out with. So that's why being a good parent is one of my major goals, because if you have that much control over someone else's life, I think you should try to do your best to make their life as good as you always wanted your life to be when you were younger and give them the right choices that they should have. Besides, I figure if I can be a good parent, then not too much else matters."

Ethan wrote that paragraph in high school as part of a project all kids did called "Who I Am," which is a collection of assigned essays. I was already losing him by then, and had been since high school began, although he had not turned the corner that eventually took him away from me. His notebook is one-third the size of his sister's, and while she pillaged photo albums and decorated the covers, he barely took the effort to insert a few pictures of himself and one of his sister.

Reading that, I wonder what bad decisions he may have already been regretting. Reading between the lines, I know what he was missing so often was something I simply couldn't be.

There is no mention in the book of his father, who felt child support was optional and disappeared from his life shortly after the divorce when he learned visitation meant he was supposed to spend time with his children, not leave them with his girlfriend and her kids. Although his father made a half-hearted effort to be around Ethan's sister when she got older, he never did the same for the little boy who was barely a toddler when we separated, the little boy who would call begging him to come get him for a visit, the little boy who soon quit calling and grew into a young man who still wanted his daddy to acknowledge him as someone worth spending time with, but never had that wish granted. I accepted my part of the blame for the divorce, and he was never a good father or husband even when we were married, but I struggle to forgive him his abandonment of his son.

Ethan longed for a daddy and dreamed of being one, and it was that pain that had me crying as I stroked the soft cheek of what will probably be "my" last baby. There won't be any blonde-haired, blue-eyed children who call Ethan Daddy, no little Ethans calling me "Ma." That's another dream dying on the vine that I hadn't really faced up to until yesterday.

I am blessed with three wonderful, beautiful and totally amazing granddaughters and to have dreamed of any more seems greedy at some level, yet it was something I had expected.

There was no version of my reality in which Ethan would not at some point be the person he meant to be and find his way out of the life he was living. There was no version in which he didn't see his dreams come true, no version in which he wasn't a daddy.

The Father he could count on decided that Ethan had been through enough and took him home and reality changed. Ethan is finally with a Father who loves him, and the mother who loves him is still struggling with that.

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.

Can I Really Forgive Him for Dying?

Pushing myself through the rituals of Friday morning, thinking about Ethan, I had an unsettling thought.

Forgiveness.

Last year my goal for the New Year was to find a way to forgive someone in my life that I was struggling to love or forgive because the pain that person inflicted was ongoing. Through a lot of prayer, I was able to do that by focusing on the positive things in my life that were there because of them -- even if those things happened years ago.

When I saw someone's post on Facebook earlier this week about forgiving someone to achieve peace, I thought, yes, I nailed that one.

Then, yesterday morning out of the blue I realized I still have a lot of forgiving to do and at the top of that list right now is Ethan.

Although I learned a lot of lessons about love from him over the last seven years, I had not yet embraced the lessons of forgiveness.

Several years ago when I found him sleeping in his car in my driveway one morning, God drove home to me a lesson about love. Ethan was screwed up and not living the life I envisioned he would live; he wasn't living life to its full potential; he was wasting the gifts of talent, intelligence, love and support. Yet I still loved him with every fiber of my being. In that moment, I realized how the love we read about in the Bible -- the love that God feels for us when we mess up, sin, don't choose the path that He lays out for us to a full and happy life -- is real. There is such a thing as unconditional love, even when we aren't close to one another or denying its existence.

I loved Ethan unconditionally and did my best to make sure he knew it.

And time and time again I forgave him for the things his addiction made him do. I forgave him the physical and emotional havoc he left behind sometimes, because I loved him. Even while I did my best to limit his ability to cause physical pain, I didn't expect an apology after he called on a rant or neglected something that was important to me. I accepted that was the way he was and I was just glad he called again. I accepted and forgave every emotional blow in the hope there would come a time when things would be better and we could put it all behind us.

Until the other morning, it felt like I had done enough forgiving.

Then I realized I have to forgive him for dying. Even though he's beyond all need of anything I can ever give him, I have to forgive him for me. I have to forgive him every stupid mistake and bad choice that put him on the road to dying alone in his apartment. I have to forgive him for shutting us all away so often that no one missed him for days. I have to forgive him for squandering the life I fought so hard to give him.

Just as, at some point, I have to forgive myself for any way I may have failed him (a bridge I'm not ready to cross, and yes I know I did my best), I have to forgive him for things that ultimately slipped out of his control.

I have to forgive him for becoming an addict, because I know that once he found the drug that spoke to him, it was as powerful and insidious as Satan in the Garden of Eden. It whispered to him in lies and promises about special knowledge and gifts, special visions and experiencing the world in a way he could not without it. It made him feel things the real world didn't deliver. I cannot understand addiction and that desire to escape and I'm glad, but I have to forgive him for being overwhelmed by it.

I have to forgive him for not fulfilling the potential I saw when the doctors pulled him from my abdomen and placed him in my arms, a big, healthy, beautiful baby boy. I have to forgive him for disappointing my dreams, for not being able to find himself again and for not sticking around to take care of me when I get old.

Where time and again I've felt some version of survivor's guilt because of the families grieving a lost child who had done nothing wrong, who was caught up in some horrible tragedy of time or place or birth, I have to forgive him for no longer dodging the fate that had for so long been waiting. I have to forgive him for involuntarily choosing not to be part of our lives when he could have been, because now he cannot choose.

Ethan often said he wished he could die, and I have to forgive him for those thoughts and for finally having that wish granted.

I have to accept that he was doing his best to make his way through a world that was more painful to him than it is to me, a world that somehow didn't make his heart sing the way it sometimes does mine. I have to accept that while having people who love and need me is sometimes enough to get me through a day, it wasn't enough for him. I have to accept that he didn't always feel he had a purpose and that being without a purpose leaves you vulnerable to things you cannot control.

So today, in writing this and acknowledging the things I hadn't forgiven, I'm taking what I hope are the first steps toward letting those hard feelings go. Not because he needs me to do so, but because in order to live and breathe freely again, in order to have peace in my heart, this is what I need to do.

Already I feel lighter and I think the journey toward forgiveness is underway.

Walking in The Valley of the Shadow of Death

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Psalm 23

When I was a preschooler, I learned the 23rd Psalm with my grandfather's encouragement.

I don't know why he picked those verses, but I know as a reward I got to go into the nicest department store in town and pick out a dress. They told me I chose the most expensive one in my size and it still hangs in my closet, waiting to be worn by another generation of little girls.

Whatever his reasons for choosing it, that is certainly the only chapter of the Bible I could quote from memory; some of the few verses I could easily identify.

In the last three weeks, those verses have taken a different memory from what I always assumed they meant. Although they haven't changed in that David spoke of God as the one who protected and cared for him in all situations, my view of one of those situations has changed. In verse 4, I'm not sure if David was writing about his mortality which I had always assumed, or his own journey into grief because, like me, he lost a beloved son. I don't know about the history and how it lines up with his songs, but I know that I now read those verses differently than I did a few weeks ago.

To me, the valley of the shadow of death isn't where I go when I die or when my life is endangered, it's where I've been for weeks now.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

This verse has repeated in my head countless times since the call informing me that Ethan was dead.

My walk has been on a dark path because of the shadow of death. It isn't my death. It isn't sickness and the threat of my own mortality. The shadow of death is grief and it has changed the light through which I view the world. It's a shadow that adds a bittersweet edge to everything I do, a fear that some other next time won't come, that all my tomorrows will feel like today.

And yet, the Psalm reminds me to fear no evil, for God is with me and I will have comfort.

I've never considered myself a "good Christian," for lack of a better way to put it. God is as real to me as the sun that shines on my face on the hottest day of July, but I have lived a far from perfect life even when I knew better. I never thought I was favored by God, even when I managed to come through some of my dumber stunts unscathed. I never felt I had an inside track, because my prayers seemed to fall on unlistening ears as often as anyone else.

But as I've walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I've found out that God really is listening, it has been I who wasn't hearing. Time after time, when I've needed help just to keep going, the phone has rang, a song has played on the radio, or I've seen in my mind the answer to my prayer or felt just how wrong I was to let my feelings of despair consume me. I do not need to be afraid that everything is not under His control or that there won't be something to ease this grief.

I'm certain that skeptics would say I'm delusional and that the God I believe is caring for me doesn't exist or at the very least doesn't care. But coincidence is a term that I don't place a lot of faith in, and my life since losing Ethan has been too full of sudden answers and gifts of understanding. No, not the total understanding of why that I would wish to have, but an understanding that lets me accept the way my life has suddenly changed and keep on living.

I no longer see myself alone in this valley through which so many of us are walking. I see myself with new friends who travel the path of life under the same dark shadow. I see us all reaching out to one another and guided by the shepherding hand of God.

My World Hasn't Ended, Even If It Feels Like It Has

Just the other day I sat with my canine family and thought, "A week ago, I didn't know my world was about to change."

Ethan was already dead. I just didn't know it yet.

My world was still rolling along in that pre-Christmas insanity. I had gifts to buy, a meal to plan. I had a cold. Those were the things at the top of my mind -- feeling crappy and the mental to do list that I needed to work through in the remaining 10 days before Christmas.

Then the phone rang and that "to do" list didn't mean a damn thing any more.

Although this experience is singular to me, it's also universal. Unless we're sitting by the hospital bed holding someone's hand, knowing that the slowing breaths will soon stop because we've been thoroughly warned, death catches us unaware.

We don't realize the candle that is someone's life, or maybe even our own, is about to burn out. That all those to do lists that keep us moving through our days sometimes can suddenly mean nothing. And that's really a good thing. Without that to do list, there's a good chance most of us would lack the purpose that gets us through our days. I don't think Ethan had a to do list very often, and we can look around and find a lot of people like him coasting through life who somehow missed the need for purpose. Dreams aren't enough, it's the steps we take to get there that count.

For a week, my to do list was very short, unless the phone rang.

It was caring for my dogs and chickens. It was greeting the dog who comes for day care and her owner each morning (with a hug, because he's tall and solid like Ethan) and taking care of her during the day. It was dealing with my grief and the people who reached out to prop me up time and time again. It was escaping that pain when my three granddaughters arrived full of life and promise and fights and needs that couldn't be pushed to the back burner. It was an occasional shower, an infrequent meal, a lot of coffee and falling into bed when I could no longer keep my eyes open, because the last thing I wanted to do was to lie in bed with my eyes open and my mind spinning like a hamster in a wheel.

My kennel/grooming business was hitting its first lull of the year. But when the phone rang and someone wanted a dog groomed, I welcomed the distraction. For another hour I'd have something else to think about and deal with. A Bichon, or a shih t'zu, or a really dirty poodle. While many of my boarders' families have become part of my informal support group, the dogs who come just for clean and cut aren't part of that group and I didn't invite them in.

But six days out, with the funeral finally behind us, boarders were coming back for early holiday visits. Life had to take a more normal tack, whether I was ready for it or not. So by Saturday, when I went out to spend time with the dogs and let them play, from the outside at least, things looked normal.

Then I had that thought and sitting on the ground with a lap full of someone else's dog, I lost it again.

I raged at myself and God and poured my pain out in white hot tears and gasps of breath. I prayed, once again, for understanding. And once again I got an answer.

Before I go on, let me say I'm not used to hearing from God. I know there are people who in their anger and pain turn away from God, but while God and I have a really informal relationship, (generally, I don't have a lot of time to spend on my knees) I'm in regular communication. Usually it's like my stupid cell phone in which I'm forever muting myself out of the conversation and sometimes whoever I'm talking to hangs up before I can get through; I talk a lot, and I assume God is listening and has nothing to say. But I wonder if He's just muted out of the conversation. I wonder how many of us have that type of relationship, and how often we hang up before we can get a good connection and hear the response.

This week, I've not had my normal distractions, so I've left the line open and I've been surprised to so often get what I need.

When I raged to the heavens and stopped to take a breath, immediately I realized how selfish I was being..

Really, grief is a selfish, narcissistic, all consuming thing.

Yes, I'm in pain, but would I want that pain relieved by somehow rolling back the clock a few weeks and putting Ethan back into his pain? What if he'd been healthy and happy and snatched from life by some totally unexpected tragedy? Would I want him to come back to deal with the pain we all deal with in a "normal" life, just to make me feel better? Would I want him to have to feel all the heartbreak, depression, loss, and the day-to-day pains that we absorb?

No.

So Ethan is gone. His pain is over and in all my grief, I must choose to remember that. I must frequently resurrect the vision of a smiling, glowing young man shaking free the pain of life. I must try to cling to the knowledge that while I'm hurting, he's at peace and he'd had his share of pain. Although I will let myself remember the good times, I must also remember that deep inside he was hurting in ways I never understood and that pain is finally gone.

That doesn't mean I'll be able to stop grieving. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to cry, or that sometimes I won't be knocked on my ass by the pain. But a little part of me has accepted that the grief isn't for him, it's for me, and I'm not the kind of person who can spend my life wrapped up in worrying about me.

I have a to do list, and I'm not at the top of it by any means. It's not the same list I had before, although I still need to get ready for Christmas, three little girls consume my days, and there are dogs to care for and exercise classes to get back into my routine. That to do list now includes this as well -- my navigation through goodbye and my effort to help anyone else facing the same struggle; my dream to do something to keep Ethan's drug of choice away from other kids so they can learn to live with all the pain and joy of life and make choices that won't send them down the same path.

'Don't Cry For Me Down Here'

Yeah, when I get where I'm going
There'll be only happy tears
I will shed the sins and struggles
I have carried all these years

And I'll leave my heart wide open
I will love and have no fear
Yeah, when I get where I'm going
Don't cry for me down here

Melvern Rivers Ii Rutherford

Getting ready to go bury my child yesterday, this song as sang by Brad Paisley began playing in my head. Not word for word, but the chorus. Funny how my country roots have been showing this week.

I fumbled for the right things to wear -- somehow I'd never purchased a wardrobe for burying my son -- finally settling on black pants and a dark shirt, the black leather coat I bought the winter I was expecting Ethan and couldn't button when I was pregnant.

We were running late driving the 30-minute route from our house to Galax. Of course, I was riding shotgun, and the roads were more familiar to me so I might have made better time, but I was reasonably sure they wouldn't start the procession without me. His sister and her family were caught in traffic on the interstate, so I was glad we went the old roads. An accident clogged northbound traffic all day, but she was at the cemetery about the same time we were.

Traveling through Galax, I put my head down to pray for the strength to make it through yet another tough day. I had no more uttered the prayer than my mind was filled with a vision. It was Ethan, stretched out in the floor, but there was a figure of light above him and it reached down toward him and pulled him free of his earthly shackles. He rose up with a light of his own, and his face was split by the biggest smile I've seen in many years. I knew that he'd shaken off the addiction, the pain, the suffering that only he could understand and that he was free. God had sent me what I needed to know and the strength to get through the day. I could miss him, but I couldn't want him back in those bonds.

His best friend and that young man's mom, who had like Ethan and I battled the same addiction, were the first people I went to at the funeral home. They were Ethan's second family, just as in many ways my house was his second home, for years. He has a family, escaped the addiction, had to make the difficult decision to not spend time with my son, and I just wanted him to know that he did what he had to do to survive. I wanted him to know that some of the love I can no longer give Ethan will be his as he goes forward.

I cried with his mother, who had known both the little boy and the angry young man and, like me, loved them both. I am sure there was a part of her that shuddered at how close she came to being where I was at, a part that mourned and was also thankful that she wasn't bearing the full brunt of it. Had the roles been reversed, I would have felt that way as well.

The drive to the cemetery was peaceful and the weather was warmer than expected. The leather coat went in the back seat by the time we reached the rural cemetery where Ethan was going to join generations of his ancestors, my grandparents, and a whole sea of people I didn't ever know. My parents plan to be buried there. The view is rolling hills, trees and fields of cattle. The sun was shining bright as we gathered around the grave.

I expected a small, sad gathering of family members who could get away from work, maybe a few folks from the Hope House where he lived a while (they agreed to be pall bearers) and some people from his church. I was totally overwhelmed by the number of people who were there. It was rush of activity to get us seated and everything ready for the service.

My chair almost toppled down hill when I sat. My first thought was how funny it would be to just fall over and topple the whole family like dominoes down the hill -- how Ethan would love it.

The pastor from the church where Ethan had found the only job he liked, but where he still couldn't manage to stay on track, knew the young man that he spoke about. He said that he knew we were all asking if we could have done things differently, and the answer was yes, because we are all fallible. That nothing could separate Ethan from his God, including the demons who drove him. We shared a few stories and a prayer and the Vince Gill song "Go Rest High On That Mountain" was played. We gathered in a gusting wind and released 23 bright colored balloons into the heavens.

After that, I had a chance to see who had come. I was even more blown away than I had been at the sheer number. There were people from Virginia who knew and cared about him, many of whom I never got to meet. People from North Carolina who knew and cared about us. People who came just for me and brought love and support and an outpouring of grace that I never expected from the time we've spent together. Family that I hadn't seen in years and years. The love poured out on me at the side of my son's grave wrapped round me like a warm blanket and helped carry me through the afternoon.

While the gravediggers finished their work, several of us gathered in the old wooden church and sipped coffee. E1 and E2, who had hardly got the chance to know their uncle, ran the aisles and played, freed from the need to keep their good clothes nice for the ceremony they did not understand. E3 cruised the pews and complained about the disruption in her eating schedule.

Before we left, my husband and I walked back to the grave topped with holiday flowers. We knelt and prayed individually, then stood and prayed together. I thanked God for giving me Ethan and for the blessing that was his life and the lessons I learned from him. I wished I could have kept him longer. I questioned why his life had to follow the course it did. I asked if there was any way to let him know how much he was loved and missed.

Of course, there was food and conversation at my mom's house following the ceremony, more noise from boisterous little girls, a drive home in the cooling afternoon to resume the routines of life, late night texts from a sister who is now an only child and beginning to feel that loss more keenly.

This was the day I buried my son, still with no answers as to how he died, but I think, thanks to a gift from God, some understanding of why. The time was not right for me, or for his sister, or for the many people who cared about him, prayed for him, and held onto a hope that one day he'd be all they knew he could be. The time was right for Ethan, walking with God, to be free of the pain of this life and get on with what comes next.

From a day that I expected only sadness, I found the closure I did not think I'd find. I found a peace that may make it easier to deal with the sadness. I found the strength everyone had said I had, but I found it did not come from within, but from without from those same friends who gathered around me and from the God who made the decision I still wish He had not made.