Category: Grief, Personal Development

Who am I?  I struggle with this question daily now.  My identity was so wrapped up in being Adam’s dad that now that he is gone I am not sure what to do with myself.  So much of what I did and why I did it was centered around him and with his departure from this world I am left with a giant void in my life. I have read comparisons to what people experience when they lose a limb.  There is a phantom pain from the lost limb that they still feel as if it were still there. This feeling I have isn’t quite that but an “amputation of part of my soul” might be an apt description for my loss.

As I start to circulate in the world again I meet new people and they invariably ask me about how many kids I have.  I had mentioned in a previous article about meeting a man who had lost his son several years ago to suicide.  He brought this up to me because I guess he knew it would be an issue.  He told me he tells them he has two children but one took his own life.  While I admire his candor and courage to be so upfront about this I just don’t feel comfortable putting that on a complete stranger or even a new acquaintance.  In my view it puts a huge burden on the other person.  What are they supposed to say?  What can they say?  In my mind I had two kids but now I have one.  Adam will always be in my heart  but he is gone and it is different.  Other people who barely know me don’t need to be saddened with my loss.

I am still a dad to my daughter Ashley but it is a very different thing than being Adam’s dad.  Ashley is older and more independent.  While we share quite a bit in common and I cherish our relationship as much as Adam’s there were unique things I shared with Adam.  Whenever I see commercials for Marvel movies like “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” or for video games or I see “Lord of the Rings” on the TV it is like a thousand tiny daggers piercing my heart.  Those were things I liked and shared with him and now they are so linked to him I can hardly bear even hearing about them.  We went to Disney so many times with him I cannot see anything associated with Disney without being swept away with melancholy.

I recently took up sailing.  I had always dreamed of Adam and I sharing this activity.  I had even booked lessons once on Lake Travis but the wind never seemed to cooperate.  This summer when he went to camp in Michigan I was excited to learn one of the activities was sailing and I hope he would come back with a desire to sail. Our busy lives prevented us from following through on this so I vowed to not let this happen again and purchased a boat just to make sure.  I met with a friend recently who shared a story he heard from another person who had lost a child.  He said that when you lose a child it is like you are sailing and there is a giant hole in your sail.  The wind blows (the world continues around you) but you are stuck going nowhere.  Eventually with time this hole can be stitched.  It will never be as good as it was before but it will hold wind and you can move forward.

It is my belief and hope that God will stitch this sail and fill the hole in my heart.  Hopefully, some day I can take Adam’s friends out on the boat and we will feel his presence with us and be comforted.  You are always welcome on my boat and know that when you sail with me you are sailing with my son because I bring him in my heart everywhere I go. I have lost my identity but God willing I will find it again and I will have peace.

Many year ago I heard a speaker discuss the phenomenon of “negative target fixation”.  It occurs most often in pilots but I think the concept is fairly universal.  When you tell your brain to avoid something ; for instance a tree in a field; for some reason your brain does the exact opposite and you end up hitting the tree.  I have noticed this same thing happening when I ride mountain bikes.  You tell your brain to avoid a rock in the trail and some how you end up hitting the rock.  The reason I bring this up is that I am convinced we do the same thing with tragedy or in an effort to prevent tragedy in our lives.

We knew that Adam had issues with self esteem and confidence from a fairly early age.  He was starting to have issues with classmates in second grade.  When we moved to our new  neighborhood and Adam attended the school in our neighborhood these issues got significantly worse. It was almost if Adam lacked some sort of resistance to the naturally occurring meanness of this world.  Every day he would come home traumatized by the actions of his classmates.  Our natural instincts were to find fault with the school and their lack of response and to question what type of parents would raise children that were so cruel and hateful.  Some of those feelings were legitimate but the underlying question was why Adam was so vulnerable?

We did seek out professional help for Adam and he started working with a counselor but eventually we were forced to move Adam to a private school where we thought the children would be less cruel and raised to be more kind.  We soon learned that this was not the case and Adam continued to struggle with bullying and we continued to struggle with ineffective school administrators.  Eventually, as I mentioned before Adam was diagnosed with anxiety and mild depression and was prescribed Lexapro to deal with his symptoms.  His issues seemed to lessen and he seemed much happier at school.

After his 9th grade year we offered him the chance to attend a bigger school with better facilities and he chose to stay in his current school because of his friends.  Ironically, those relationships ended up triggering the pain that led to his decision to take his life.  To be clear no one at his school caused Adam’s death.  The meanness and hurtful things that were said to Adam were typical of any high school and we all at some time in our lives have experienced what Adam experienced and even far worse and did not choose to take our lives.

The point is in our attempts to shield Adam from harm we failed to address the true underlying issues of his mental illness and helped create the outcome we were trying to avoid.  It is all hindsight and I blame no one, even myself for missing this but it is very clear now.  By not dealing with Adam’s inability to respond effectively to other people’s criticism we left him vulnerable.  It was “negative target fixation”.  We should have spent our energy understanding what was happening with Adam instead of trying to protect him from the external behaviors contributing to his feelings about himself.

It happens to all of us and the way to avoid it is to understand that typically our first instincts in times of trauma are usually wrong.  Our emotions take over and we don’t act in a rational logical way.  I have mentioned how fear causes us to make poor decisions in a previous article and I do think that hindered us on some level in how we interacted with Adam.  We were afraid of him being hurt and wanted to protect him.  This fear is prevalent when it comes to suicide.  It is every parents worse nightmare and as parents we need to understand that our responses to our children and the things that happen to them can be affected by this fear.

Be careful not to respond to events in your child’s life with fear.  This will lead to you missing the opportunity to address the real issues.  Remember “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” 1 John 4:18.  Do not let your natural instincts create circumstances that produce the outcome you are trying to prevent.

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.

I had mentioned in a previous article that Adam had some difficulties when he was born.  Adam was 9 pounds 11 ounces and I suspect his size created some issues for him coming out of the womb.  He came out gray and was rushed to Neonatal Intensive Care.  He quickly recovered but doctors kept him in ICU for a week.  The sight of Adam at his size next to all of the prematurely born babies that typically occupy Neonatal ICUs would have almost been comical except for the circumstances.  The point of this story is that from all outside appearances Adam was a big healthy baby but this was not necessarily the case.

Throughout Adam’s life from the outside he was extremely blessed.  He was very healthy once he got beyond that initial time in the ICU.  In fact he never went to the hospital once during his short life.  I can’t even remember having to take him to the emergency room.  While I am sure I am somewhat biased I also believed he was very handsome and had been blessed with great features.  So by all outside standards he was blessed by God.

He was also blessed with a family that loved him and would do anything for him.  His older sister was very kind to him and spent time with him whenever she could and he had two very committed parents. We took numerous trips to Disney World, California, Boston Colorado etc. to try and enrich his life with experiences that I never had and I am sure most of you did not experience as a child.  He lacked for nothing because his nature was such that you wanted to do nice things for him.  He was so appreciative and sweet it just felt good to do nice things for him.  He never demanded or expected anything and this was what made him such a joy to be around.

He had a rich spiritual life.  He had gone to religious private schools most of his life and we had been active members of churches with him attending youth classes most of his life.  He had gone to Pine Cove Summer Camp the last few years and was involved with Hill Country Bible Church’s Backyard Bible Club.  At the time of his death he was attending  by his own choice a Monday small group at Hill Country and Alpha, which is another Christian based program.

In spite of all of this he did struggle emotionally,  He was very vulnerable to bullying and took everything other people said very personally.  Since about third grade he had experienced signs of anxiety and depression and we sought out recommended counselors to help us with his issues. Ultimately, this led to his seeing a psychiatrist and being diagnosed with anxiety and mild depression and put on a low dosage of Lexapro.  He had been on this medication for over a year and by all indications it seemed to take the edge off his anxiety and depression.

My belief is that based on appearances and circumstances  none of us including his psychiatrist could fathom or understand what was going on inside his mind.  We looked at Adam and saw a bright, funny, gifted boy with an amazing future.  He saw something totally different.  According to an article from Psychology Today titled “Understanding Survivors of Suicide Loss” “the primary goal of suicide is not to end life but to end pain. People in the grips of suicidal depression are battling an emotional agony where living becomes objectionable.”  The problem we had was that none of us including the professionals caring for Adam had a clue he was in so much pain.

The takeaway from all this is that don’t assume because others appear to be thriving that they are.  We were lulled into a false sense of security because we thought we had given Adam everything he could possibly need from love, security, spirituality, etc.  Everyone struggles and it is important to take the time to make sure things are truly as they appear.  Keep this in mind with your own kids and also those around you.  Most of us put on a brave face and no one knows what pains, doubts and fears we struggle with in our hearts.

Recently, I met with a friend who was struggling with some choices he was making in his life.  He had been starting to address some of his issues and was presented with a temptation.  He commented to me that he was sure that God wants us to be happy and he thought pursuing this temptation might result in happiness.  Apparently, God was preparing me for this conversation because a few days earlier I had read a commentary from a pastor discussing happiness.

The pastor’s name is Nicky Gumbel and this is specifically what he wrote and what I shared with my friend. “We all want to live happy lives.”Happiness”, wrote Aristotle,”Is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” But there is something even better, greater and deeper than happiness. Happiness is dependent on what happens; our circumstances. Joy is far deeper and is not so dependent on our outward circumstances.  It is a blessing from God.”  To paraphrase a bit Joy comes from an encounter with Jesus Christ.

The point of this differentiation between happiness and Joy is that happiness is fleeting.  it is tied to people and situations.  People can be taken away or disappoint us.  Wealth can vanish.  Health is also tenuous.  All of the things we think can make us happy can go away in a flash.  The other point that is true is that external things will never truly make us happy.  True happiness comes from within and I suspect this type of happiness is just another form of Joy. Our belief and faith in Christ and his gift of salvation for us and those we love can never be taken away and if you truly buy into this no matter what happens in your life you will still have Joy in your heart.

All suffering is temporary.  It may not feel like it at the time but just like the external forms of happiness this oppression from the world will eventually cease.  When life deals you setbacks it is important to lean into the Lord and to listen.  Wisdom can be gained from the pain we experience. God does not cause our pain but he can help us to learn from it so that we can live our lives in obedience to his will.  I told my friend “God loves you and wants good things for you but true happiness is not going to come from outside people or situations.  It will come from God and it will start in your heart and radiate out.”  I wish I understood this better when Adam was alive because I know it was a big part of his struggle.  He was too young to understand this and I wish I had recognized that this was something he needed to hear.

I was recently talking with another father who had lost his son.  His son was much older than Adam, almost done with college.  He was reflecting on some of the music and writings he found and how dark they were. He also had expressed admiration for another father who had been very strict on allowing his son access to the internet.  I had always felt that if you raised your kids the right way and instilled in them a strong moral compass that micro-managing your kid’s access to music and media would be counterproductive and that you could trust your kids until they gave you a reason not to trust them.  Given the proliferation of harmful content on the internet and how easy it is to get to it I am starting to wonder if my ideas on parenting were incredibly naive.  I can’t help but wonder if some of Adam’s issues were the result of some of the things he was reading and seeing on the internet.

I have read since Adam’s death that the numbers of teens dealing with depression has increased substantially.  One study says that five times as many high school and college students today deal with anxiety and mental health issues than the youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.  Adam had been diagnosed with anxiety and mild depression and was being treated by a psychiatrist who had last seen him in August.  The feedback we had received from this doctor was that Adam was doing well and had responded well to the anti-depressant and was moving towards a point in the future where he would no longer need it.  He had been on the drug for a while so the usual caution observed when people first start on these types of drugs was no longer in our minds.

Obviously, things changed for Adam from August to October and if I look back some of the books he was reading were not the most uplifting.  His interest in science fiction fantasy from a writing perspective caused him to seek out books that were on the darker side.  I assume this was also true for some of his internet interactions but mainly I saw him watching funny videos on Yahoo.  He was definitely picking up something that was not good for his soul but he covered his tracks pretty well on his phone and computers so I will never know for sure.

It is all speculation at this point and Adam’s decision to end his life was a multi-layered choice based on a lot of different factors including his mental illness and possibly the effects of the prescribed drugs he was taking but I do know in hindsight I should have been way more proactive with him on what he was reading and what he was doing on the internet with his phone and computer.  I trusted him and I do think for the most part he followed my wishes but even just consuming depressing, dark, violent content can harm our kids in ways we can’t imagine.  There are a lot of reasons why there is more depression and anxiety among our kids today but one thing I think we can do is to make sure they are not being overwhelmed by violent and dark content in their reading and gaming because I think it makes a difference especially in kids that are already vulnerable.

Just like what you put in your body nutritionally;what you put in your mind matters both for us and our children.  It doesn’t take much dark or violent content to pollute our souls much like the yeast in Jesus story to the apostles. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough” Gal 5:9.  I don’t think you can be too strict given what is at stake and I would encourage everyone to begin open discussions with each other and your children about what you are consuming via books and social media too make sure it is not creating a sense of hopelessness and despair.

One of the more challenging aspects of grief is the constant weight you seem to be carrying with you due to the loss.  Anne, Ashley and I all have commented on how physically drained we are from this experience.  I am sure depression has a physiological effect on the body but it is still surprising how just doing little things can result in a feeling of exhaustion and how daunting even the most trivial task can seem when you are in the throes of grief.

I experienced an example the other day of how powerful the mind can be in controlling perception of reality.  Ashley and I went out and ordered coffee for us and Anne.  Anne’s preferred Starbucks order is a Cinnamon Dolce Latte and Ashley had ordered a Mocha.  When I went to heat up Anne’s coffee I discovered it was a Mocha.   Ashley had consumed Anne’s drink by mistake without noticing it was a very different flavor.  Her mind told her it was a Mocha so she tasted Mocha.  The point of this drawn out story is to illustrate that our physical and mental state is dictated by the perception of our mind.  If we allow it to our mind will keep us in a drained state due to the stress and despair we feel over Adam’s loss.  Faith goes both ways. You can choose to believe you will never be happy again or you can choose to believe God ‘s promises that he will heal you and give you the strength to overcome your pain.

God wants us to be happy and gives us the power within our own mind to choose.  It is hard to find Him in this loss of our dear son but there was great joy in Adam and his life and if we seek it out the weight of his loss will lessen.  It is a matter of perspective but getting to that point takes time and faith.  I hope some day that I can pray as David did in Psalm 30 Verses 11-12 “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever.”  You were and are not heavy Adam you are my son and I will love you forever.