Four years and eight months ago, at almost this exact moment- 10:30 AM, on what was that year a Sunday morning, our beloved son Michael, twenty-six years old, ended his life.
The heavy weight and razor-sharp edges of this loss never change. Sometimes we feel them more acutely and sometimes they sink below the surface, but they never diminish and they never leave.
The closest thing I can think of to living with loss, especially a shocking and brutal loss, is the sudden amputation of an arm or leg. Over time, the initial wound does heal, and the person learns to adapt to life without that limb...but the arm or leg never grows back. That place is permanently empty, and that void affects life in big and small ways every moment of every day for the rest of the person's life.
This is how the death of our son feels to me, nearly five years in.
Yes, there has been solid, deep healing of that initial bloody wound. We are not as shell-shocked and wide-eyed with horror as we were in those first days. Our lives look...normal, now. This is where my amputation analogy breaks down. Unlike with a missing limb, our devastating loss is not readily visible. Its impact is felt, though, in many ways.
I have learned that my reserves of energy- physically, emotionally, socially, mentally- are limited. Those tanks are far shallower than they used to be, and they leak. I seem fine to those who don't know better and that confuses people. Looking at my seeming strength and capability from the outside, they may be puzzled that I don't do more. They can't see, and don't know, unless I - again - explain the tragic why behind my limits. They don't know that, emotionally, I am missing a leg and that makes it hard to run the way others do.
What enables me to function so "normally?" There are two answers to that question, both springing from the same source: Jesus.
***I have intense, unbearable regrets as a mom. Every parent fails their child in some ways, because we are imperfect humans. Those failures are thrown into a painfully bright spotlight when that child dies, and if they leave by suicide that hindsight only gets more vivid and harsh. No kind and comforting assurances can change the raw facts of my failures in my relationship with Michael. Nobody else actually lived that relationship. I did. Michael did. He and I are the only people who really know the ways I let him down. Yes, I fought for that relationship and did some things very right and loved him and hung in there with him when it wasn't easy. I did the best I knew how, to love him well. I loved him and he loved me, and I found out from others after he was gone that he was very proud of me, and that means the absolute world to me. I also let him down in important moments and ways that only became clear in blood-stained hindsight.
There is only one thing that makes this hard truth bearable: the mercy of God. The first time I deliberately waded into these hard waters of truth, a friend threw me a lifeline of God-laced hope: "That's rough. I'm so glad God has mercy on our failures." Those simple words were a spark of help and hope that I needed desperately. To this day, this truth is the only thing that helps me keep breathing when those regrets hit hard. If I could look Jesus straight in the eyes and say, "Lord, look at the ways I failed my boy," I think he would not pat me on the head or try to brush away my regrets. He would look at them honestly with me. He would speak hard truth, and as he did so many times in Scripture, he would say it with love and follow it with mercy. He might say something very similar to what my friend said; something like, "Yes, beloved, while you got some things right you also let Michael down in ways that hurt him." And he would turn to me, and rest his hand gently on my shoulder and look me in the eyes and say, "Beloved, I forgive you for your failures. They are covered by my mercy. I know they pain you deeply, but I will hold that pain for you."
There are aspects of our loss of Michael that are actually unbearable. This is how we are able to bear these unbearable things: Jesus carries them for us. When I am overcome by the searing weight of pain or regret, I let the pain out through tears and then I turn to Jesus and say, "It's too heavy for me. Will you carry it for me, please?" This is what I do with my regrets as a mom. The weight is unbearable, but I am not alone and I do not have to try to carry it on my own. Jesus carries all my sins and failures, and this one is no different. He looked down the halls of time before I was even born, saw every single way I would ever falter and fail and said, "Beloved, if you'll let me, I will carry that for you."
***"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18) "When you go through deep waters, I will be with you; when you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown." (Isaiah 43:2) "Yet not I, but through Christ in me..." (lyrics from a song, paraphrased from Galatians 2:20)
These words of life and truth have kept me sane and breathing for the past four years and eight months. The only reasons I am functional at all are the powerful tenderness of Jesus, that carries me when I can't walk and holds me close when my heartbreak boils to the surface, and his love that holds my deep and painful regrets and covers that bleeding wound with his mercy.
God doesn't shy away from the hard truth of our failures, but while he looks at our messy lives under the clear, revealing light of his holiness, his eyes do not hold scorn or disgust or condemnation. He looks steadily at us with clear eyes that lay bare our most uncomfortable truths. He may look at us seriously or sadly. He may get intense in his urging us away from paths of destruction. But all of that, always, is fully infused with his intense love for us, and our pain and regret and repentance are met with unbelievable mercy.
This is how I am able to live with apparent normalcy-
The mercy of God for my failures.
The tenderness of God for my great grief.
The comfort and strength of God to hold me close and keep my chin above water.
His capacity pouring through me, to enable me to carry on when I do not have what it takes.
The mercy of God and his tender care for my heart are the answer; the reasons I am still standing. They are the reason I am not only sane and mostly functional, but able to laugh and love and live.
