Month: April 2017

It is amazing how things can change so quickly.  This picture was taken last Easter and I look back and still shake my head in disbelief that we are now on this path.  I find it so hard to accept that Adam was suffering so much that he ended his life and with so little to indicate that he was in pain.

I recently read a book called The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis. The book is about a pair of Israeli psychologists and there identification of unusual patterns of behavior that defy status quo assumptions about human beings.  One theory they developed is called “The Theory of Alternative States”. This theory details the need of humans to create alternate scenarios when tragedy occurs to help us reconcile what has occurred to our new reality.  The tendency is to constantly run scenarios in our head where the tragedy does not occur.

Amos Tversky, one of the psychologists wrote”The present world is often surprising, i.e. less plausible than some of its alternatives. We can order possible worlds by i)initial plausibility and ii) similarity to the present world.” In other words to cope with Adam’s loss we create outcomes where he doesn’t die.  If I had come home sooner or asked him how he felt then this would not have happened etc.  I am sure everyone who knows Adam is going through this exercise in their heads because it is how we try to deal with it.  We even do it with people we don’t know that we see on the news.  If he had changed flights or if that girl had left her house ten minutes earlier.  It is a futile attempt on our part to try and minimize the pain we feel due to loss.  We empathize with the person who is gone and with those who feel their loss the most.

The point of all of this is that it is normal but a waste of energy and not very helpful in progressing through grief.  Adam is gone and will not come back to this world and anything we could have done to change the outcome is now moot.  Any “unfinished business” with Adam is now finished and all we can do is realize the futility of this type of thinking and the damage it does to our psyche.  Also, we must honor the possibility and I would say extreme likelihood  that the life that exists beyond death is a more compassionate, understanding and forgiving place where our actions or inaction involving Adam will not matter.

There was an article on CNN today stirred up by a new Netflix series on teenage suicide called “Thirteen Reasons Why”.  The series, based on a book by the same name confronts people in a teens life whose actions lead to her choice to end her life.  The article I read was titled “How to spot depression and anxiety in children”.  As I read through the article and saw a lot of the symptoms Adam suffered with I wondered about how you know if your child is considering ending his life?  We all suffer with anxiety and even depression to a degree but understanding the severity is tricky and it is easy to be lulled into security because of medications or to be distracted by life.  One interesting point the article brings up is that talking about suicide will not cause your child to start thinking about committing suicide.  It is important to be direct with your kids and make sure they are not harboring these thoughts.

It really doesn’t matter any more what we could have done to save Adam.  He is gone and nothing will change that.  Be at peace knowing he is in Heaven and no longer suffering.  For those of us who are left let’s make sure we are effectively communicating with those we love and not avoiding subjects we should be asking about.   There are no guarantees but all we can do is try our best and show those around us that we care.  I miss Adam every day and would never want anyone to have to experience this kind of pain. Confronting fear, depression and anxiety and not accepting them as the norm is a good first step in caring for those you love.

We recently passed a milestone of sorts when we sold our old house. What should have been a time of happiness was obviously different for us.  It was just another painful reminder that Adam is gone.  We struggled with losing access to Adam’s room and to the house he had lived in most of his life.  It lead to a discussion about where do we go to be close to Adam, to remember him.  It is a common question when someone dies. Writer Pearl Buck shared this thought on her own loss”Was he still hovering about the house at home, the essence of himself, and were I still there would I perceive his presence?…I fought off the mighty yearning to go in search of him, wherever he was. For surely he was looking for me, too.”

Selling our house and moving was not much of a choice for us.  We were already in the process of moving when Adam took his life so we had already mentally moved on when this happened.  Both Anne and Ashley struggled to go upstairs to his room and Ashley was sleeping on the couch in our den. We all knew we needed to move from this space but it was very hard to do and we all had conflicting emotions.  That was one of the reasons we waited so long to put our house on the market and now that is officially gone we definitely have mixed emotions about no longer having access to the place where we lost Adam.

Anne’s psychiatrist said that it was important that we moved Adam with us to the new house but I am not sure what this really means.  Does it mean we keep his things around the house? (we do) Does it mean we have a room especially for him? (we don’t) I am just not sure what to do with this advice.  The real problem is that we don’t have the answers for this but we long to connect with him and really there is no hard and fast rule about this.  We all will connect with Adam where we choose to and that could be different for every person.

The real answer to the question “Where is Adam?” is that he is in Heaven with our Savior Jesus Christ.  We know Adam was a believer and John 11:25 says “Whoever believes in me will live even though he dies”. But what are we supposed to do with this while we are here in this world?  I think the answer is to find comfort wherever you can,  Adam’s grave is a place of God’s beauty and you can certainly feel him there.  Looking at Adam’s things can give you a sense of him or thinking about his laugh and smile brings him back to me.  Just know that he is waiting for us all and he loves us as he did before he left and when you think of him he is with you.

Most of us are familiar with Psalm 23:4 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” But how often do we take it to heart in our lives out in the world.  Fear is an interesting paradox.  It saves our lives by protecting us from danger but when it takes over our minds it can destroy us.  Even more confusing is that we are taught to fear the Lord. Psalm 112:1 tells us “Praise the LORD! How blessed is the man who fears the LORD, Who greatly delights in His commandments.”  Figuring out when fear is good and when fear is bad is one of the keys to our survival and happiness.

When Adam was diagnosed with anxiety and mild depression I thought to myself “wow I am glad he only has mild depression”. What I should have been asking myself was why does he have anxiety and what can I do to help him to get rid of it?  I did not realize he was probably depressed because he was so anxious.  Throughout the bible Jesus tells his follower not to worry despite the fact there is much to worry about.  He understands what worry can do to us.  Simon Sinek, in his book Leaders Eat Last talks about the harmful effects of fear to our bodies. When someone is in fear, their body produces a chemical called cortisol. In a fight-or-flight situation, this chemical makes them more alert and allows them to prepare to defend themselves.  If this chemical is produced consistently it can lead to adverse health conditions but most importantly it diminishes our cognitive functionality.  In other words if we are in fear or anxiety our brain doesn’t work properly.  Our judgement is impaired and we can’t make good decisions.

I thought that Adam fearing me was a good thing.  it meant he would try harder and that he would obey me.  In this model I was playing the role of God and like the Bible  says it was good for him to fear me because it would lead to him doing good versus evil.  Obviously, I am not God so this was a big mistake on my part. I decided one morning to have Adam drive me to get breakfast. He had his learner’s permit and on a couple of other occasions he had driven me to the front of our neighborhood.  I assumed he had been working on reverse with his mom and the driving instructor so we jumped in the car and I told him to begin.  He promptly put the car into gear and slammed into a fire hydrant.  He was too afraid of me to tell me he didn’t know how to back up and his fear caused him to press on the accelerator too hard and jump the curb.  In the big scheme of things it was a typical teenage car accident but in hindsight it is pretty telling of his state of mind.

We are consumed by our fears for our children.  For their future and their safety.  These fears poison their psyches because they are contagious.  Our love for our kids is being warped by these fears and to avoid this we must trust in God. “For God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7.  Life is dangerous and bad things can happen but when we dwell on our fears it creates an environment that can end up creating self-fulfilling prophesies.  It is way more likely statistically that good things will happen to you and your children and dwelling on those possibilities is just as real as worrying about what bad things might occur. Be aware of our tendencies and understand that fear has a very limited role to play in our lives.

I will leave you with one last verse from Phillipians 4:6-7 “Do not worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need, always giving thanks. And God’s peace, which is so great we cannot understand it, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  I wish I had spent more time with Adam in the Word because I think this verse not only tells us not to worry but what to do instead.  I would make sure you have it in your heart and so do your children.  Hopefully it can help quell fear and leverage God’s help when you struggle.

A common theme in many of the books on grieving I have read center around time.  We are all familiar with the saying “time heals all wounds”.  I am pretty sure time will not heal this wound for me or any of my family.  Time has helped me gain some perspective on my loss but the interesting thing about time is really about our lack of perspective about it.  We as humans lack the understanding of time especially when we are young.  I think this lack of understanding about time is at the crux of what causes teens to struggle and still even affects us as adults.  Nothing lasts; whether it is good or bad.  All things pass given enough time and if we have the wisdom to wait then anything bad in our lives will wane.

Waiting on God to answer our prayers is tough but it really is related to time and our inability to understand and be patient.  They say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  I have always believed this but it sounds pretty trite now considering Adam’s loss.  Trite or not it is true.

Whatever we are going through in life will pass and there will always be a exit provided from the valleys in our life, even if we don’t see it or understand how it will occur.  The key is to believe this and wait in hope.  Romans 5:3-4 tells us “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,”.  This is easier to say than to do but it is true that overcoming adversity in our lives does build character and this needs to be conveyed to our children so that when they experience adversity they know that it is temporary.

We are struggling with time.  We are waiting on God to provide us with a vision of our future without our son and we cannot imagine it at this moment.  We pray that God will give us hope for the future.  I pray that others in despair will also understand their suffering is temporary.  Joyce Meyer does a great job of capturing how this looks,”Battles are fought in our minds every day. When we begin to feel the battle is just too difficult and want to give up, we must choose to resist negative thoughts and be determined to rise above our problems. We must decide that we’re not going to quit. When we’re bombarded with doubts and fears, we must take a stand and say: “I’ll never give up! God’s on my side. He loves me, and He’s helping me! I’m going to make it!”

We will always love our son and his loss will never fade but I do have hope for myself and others that loved Adam that we will come to a point where we will smile when we remember him and just knowing we had the privilege of him in our lives will ease the pain.  I also ask God to help those struggling with life especially those who lack experience and perspective to be patient and wait on God to help them overcome whatever issues they are struggling with and to not give in to despair.  There will always be hope no matter what.