Good Grief?!?

It is important to note that what follows is most of a complete chapter of my book, Good Grief, which I am currently working to get published. It is the account of the day Amy died. I apologize for the length. I’ve read and re-read it multiple times and cannot find much to cut out of the account. 

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There’s that moment when everything around you is more real than anything has ever been real. It’s that moment when your ears pick up the slightest brushing noise from the fibers of the carpet across which you walk.  It’s that moment when your eyes see six or seven different hues of red and purple and yellow, all at the same time.  It’s that moment when the stillness is so palpable you’d swear you were swimming through silence – and drowning.

It was 5:46 a.m. The alarm on my phone had been going off for over a minute.  It was the first day of the second week of school – a Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. I was a bit disoriented, having slept in the recliner downstairs. Trying to find the obnoxious chirping emanating from the misplaced SMART phone took about a minute, maybe a little less. I’d left the phone on the kitchen table. Connecting with it, I flipped it over, ended the silence murdering noise, and placed the phone where it should have been…on the counter, next to the charging station.

I stood up straight. That’s when the moment hit me. I was awake, more than awake. My heart tuned in to the beckoning of the Holy Spirit, shutting off my typical intellectual “run through the day”.

Looking back, I recognize the whisper. On that morning, I’m not quite sure my heart heard the words that now echo in my soul: “I’m with you, Son.” A prickle fled down my spine and stole away into the floor. It was an electrifying message. Immediately I knew what I would find when I crested the stairs and entered my bedroom.

I took the stairs at a run. Bursting into the room, my heart skipped a beat. The bed was empty. My beautiful bride was not asleep in it. I slowly turned toward the master bathroom. Door ajar. Silence screaming. I pushed the door gently, knowing what I would find. Body slumped, sandwiched in the space between the commode and the wall. Fingers dark blue to purple. Eyes closed. Face at peace. Head tilted and resting on the wall.

For a second – which felt like an eternity – I stood, trying to let my eyes notify my brain of what my soul had already informed my heart. The world stopped. “‘Til death do us part” had come much sooner than my life plans allowed.

Without warning, silence, louder than a racetrack, slammed against me, waking me from a stupor. It was so eerily loud.

“Amy!” I reached for her left hand with mine. “Amy!” Grabbing her shoulder with my right hand, I shook her. No response. Letting go, I bolted from the room and plummeted through the door of my oldest son’s bedroom. Frantic. Trying to find his phone.

“Micah! I NEED YOUR PHONE!”

“Whaaah…,” slurred my sleeping giant.

“I NEED your phone! NOW!”

He shot to a seated position. “Here,” he mumbled, reaching for the phone, plugged in next to his pillow.

“I need your help. Get up!”  I dashed out of his room, dialing 911 in the 3 or 4 bounds it took to reach my wife’s final resting place.

“911…What’s your emergency?”

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That’s a job I don’t think I could ever handle. I realize that a significant amount of training and counseling happen with those fearless men and women who answer that phone, not knowing what they will encounter screaming at them.

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“My wife’s dead!” I shouted into the receiver. “She’s dead!”

“Sir, is she in a bed?”

“No, she’s stuck in the space between the toilet and the wall.”

“Can you get her to the floor so that you can perform CPR?”

“Not by myself. But I can get my son! Just a minute…” and I dashed back out of both rooms, colliding with Micah’s door. His light was still off. He’d lain back down.

“Dad,” he mumbled, “is everything alright?”

There was another moment that settled on me. My fleshly panic, my husbandly concern, stopped. I swallowed slowly. My “Dad brain” engaged. How can I prepare my oldest son for what I need him to do? I silently prayed. Micah must have realized the brain stutter. He sat back up in bed, swung his legs out of the covers, and abruptly stood.

“Micah, I need your help. Mom needs CPR. She needs to be on the floor and I can’t move her myself.” I turned and fled.

Lights flooded his eyes and Micah was a breath behind me. I pulled to a full stop just before entering the master bath. I know it may sound like I was wasting time, but I knew she was already gone, and I couldn’t let my son enter the room without a bit more warning.

“Honey,” I turned, peering into his terror-filled eyes, “Mom’s fallen between the toilet and the wall. We need to move her to the floor so I can do CPR. Your phone’s on the counter and the 911 operator is going to walk me through what I need to do. After we move Mom, I need you to go find my phone – it’s downstairs on the counter – and call your aunt. Okay?” He nodded. I could tell my rushed, and slightly loud, directions hadn’t completely donned on my son.

I turned back to the door and entered the room, not stopping. I reached under Amy’s left shoulder while Micah reached under her right. Within seconds my bride was lying on the floor, Micah was fleeing down the staircase, and I was alone with the operator’s voice – on speaker. I’d taken countless CPR/First Aid classes over the years, but I was relying on the faceless voice in charge.

“You don’t need to breathe for your wife. The paramedics are less than two minutes from you. I only need you to perform the chest compressions. I’m going to count. Each time I say a number, you need to press down firmly and quickly. You will be acting as your wife’s heart. Can you do this?”

Oddly, this is when my brain stopped. I was a machine. I remember compressions and breaking ribs. I remember yelling down for Micah to unlock the front door. I remember the speakerphone droning through numbers. And then there were many EMT’s flooding up the stairs.

I stood and stepped out of the way.

“Her fingers were purple when I found her,” I stammered. The EMT just nodded. “Can I go to my son?” He nodded again. My feet wouldn’t carry me as fast as my father’s heart wanted. I stumbled twice down the stairs. My Dad’s heart was pulling me down the stairs; my vows were pulling me back up. I had left a piece of me on the floor in that room.

Micah had fled to the kitchen and was just ending the phone call with his aunt.  I barely heard the EMT’s announce the time of death over my left shoulder.

“She’s getting Dale and getting dressed. She’ll be here as soon as she can,” Micah said. His voice was quavering. He knew what I was about to tell him.

I just looked at him. There isn’t a training manual for telling your son that his mother is in fact dead.

“Dad?!?” It was both a question and a plea. “Dad?!?” this time with a tremor.

“I’m sorry, honey. She’s gone.”

He started bouncing on the balls of his feet. His breath flew inward and halted behind his teeth. His head wagged back and forth, quickly at first, but slowing with each swing.

I stepped the last foot between us and caught him in my arms.

“No!” He was my little boy again, holding onto me through the pain. His voice seemed much younger than his full seventeen years.

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. I was sorry that his mother was no longer with us. I was sorry that I needed his help. I was sorry that he had to see his mom in the state she was in, trapped between the toilet and the wall, dressed for bed, not for kids. I was sorry that he was stuck with me as a single parent. I was sorry for a lot of things.

There was a flurry of activity in and out of my house. One gentleman approached the two of us after a spell.

“Sir, I’m a chaplain for the Beaverton City Police Department. Can I talk with you for a moment?” I followed him to the living room. “I’m not sure of your belief system, but chaplains often go out with the police in situations like this to help the family.” I nodded.

“I know,” I managed. And then, after a pregnant pause, “I’m a licensed pastor myself. I’m not pastoring right now, but I know how it all works.”

“I don’t want to offend; I’m here to help however I can. Usually I stay with the family and pray with them if they wish and help them understand what the police and EMT’s are doing. Would it be okay if I stayed to help?”

“We attend Beaverton Foursquare Church. I need to call my pastor.”

“Would you like me to call him for you?”  I shook my head. “Do you know his number?” I nodded and then retired to the kitchen to retrieve my phone.

“Hello.” He didn’t sound asleep, but neither did he sound completely awake.

“Todd, it’s Thom. I’m sorry to call, but…” The words wouldn’t come out. I couldn’t breathe. This was real.

“Thom, is everything okay?”

“Todd…Amy’s…dead. I…found her…this morning. Can you come over?” In that moment, I felt guilty for asking for help. I had probably just awoken our Children’s Pastor, starting his day on a horrible note (Amy was one of his most faithful volunteers), and I was daring to ask him to come over. Who was I? He’s a busy man! What was I doing?!?

“What?” There was a pause on the phone. “Thom…”

“Todd, the EMT’s and police are here. Amy’s dead. Can you come over, please?”

And just like that, Todd was fully awake. “I’m on my way, Thom. I’ll be right there.”

“My pastor’s coming,” I managed to tell the chaplain after I hung up the phone.

I ascended the stairs, asked for a minute with my wife, and covered her with a clean, new, tan waffle-weave blanket. I knelt down next to her and whispered, “I love you and I’m glad you’re no longer in pain…you’re no longer sick. I don’t know how I’m going to finish raising these three boys without you, but I’ll try not to let you down.”

I talked with Micah again and encouraged him to go upstairs and “say goodbye”.

I’m not sure when my family arrived. Nor do I remember who came first. But all of a sudden, there I was, in my living room, standing next to my sister-in-law and her husband, with my father-in-law seated in a stuffed chair, his wife standing next to him, my oldest son standing behind me, and Todd.

I remember vividly looking directly at Todd and uttering the most ridiculous request: “Todd, can you stay here with my boys? I’ve got to go to work and set up for a substitute.”

Todd simply looked at me and calmly replied, “No. You’re not leaving. Your boys are going to need you here. Do you have your principal’s phone number?” It was only around 7:30 a.m.

“It’s in my cell, but he’ll be driving to work. He has a long commute.”

“Let me call your principal. What’s his name?”

“Kevin,” I stammered, then looking at Micah I added, “my phone’s on the counter in the kitchen.” Todd took my phone outside and called Kevin. Todd returned with our senior pastor (who’d just arrived) and said, “Kevin wants you to call him in a couple of days. He said not to worry. He’s got it covered.”

But I was very worried. I was worried about losing the temporary assignment I’d just been given at the school. And I was worried about money, of which Amy usually handled. The epiphany that I now was in charge of paying the bills landed on me, crushing my ability to think (although, it was quite apparent that I was already impeded and unable to think rationally at that point).

Then I realized Randy, my senior pastor, was standing in front of me. I was dumbstruck. Again, I felt guilty. When you attend a church the size of Beaverton Foursquare Church – of which my wife had attended for thirty-seven years – you don’t expect the senior pastor to make house calls. Don’t get me wrong; we’ve had a personal relationship with our senior pastor for quite a while. He was my oldest son’s basketball coach in middle school for three years. Amy had known him from when she was a kid at camp and he was part of the camp staff. Randy and his family had eaten dinner at our house. We knew him. But that still didn’t stifle the feeling of guilt: who were we to take up his time? There are so many things on his plate.

Randy asked some questions and began to shepherd us through this dark day.

“Can I get you anything?” I remember asking. It’s what Amy would have done. God had given her the gift of hospitality like none other. Had she been catering the wedding feast in Cana, Jesus’ first miracle wouldn’t have been turning water into wine. She took care of everything, usually before people realized it was needed. That hallmark of our ministry together now rested on my shoulders. “I have water and milk. I could make tea or coffee.” No one took me up on the offer.

Many things were said. Decisions were made regarding a mortuary. Lisa, Dale, and Dad had all gone up the stairs to say goodbye. Then the police and EMT’s filed out of the house to un-clog the street so our neighbors could take their children to school.

I found myself standing there in another moment of silence. I could see the lips of those I loved moving, but I heard nothing. I kept slipping in and out of the tangible silence, the one that feels more like a jail cell, not the awaiting arms of the Savior; but this time was really different: the silence was cold and howling – as if I were standing on a mountaintop in a gale.

In the center of the silence, I heard, I’m still here, Son. The cold began to ebb. For a brief eternity, I felt almost as if I were being held.

Daddy, a term that I’ve used for Abba Father before, I don’t know how to do this alone.

You won’t. You can’t. I haven’t left.

My confession was about raising three boys alone, but somehow I understood God was giving me an answer to so much more than my terrified confession; He was reminding me of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and many more who have gone before me.  The conversation was very short. I heard it just as if I was standing face to face with my Maker in conversation, but no one else was privy to that short conversation.

In an instant, the noise in the room flooded back in, my father’s heart switched on, and I said, “How do we tell the little boys?” Gabriel and Isaiah were still asleep – aided, I’m sure by the Holy Spirit and a few soundproofing angles – but I knew they’d be up any minute. The eight of us made a plan. I talked with the mortician, who’d arrived by this time, and informed him of our desires. Then, everyone who my boys wouldn’t know disappeared, either by going outside or stepping into the master bedroom, behind closed doors.

Within a few minutes, my youngest two boys sleepily descended the stairs. I was sitting in the middle of the living room couch and I beckoned the boys to sit on either side of me. I put my arms around them and pulled them closer. They were nervous, looking around at the family members and pastors standing above them.

“Boys,” I began, just above a whisper, “I have some bad news.” My face scrunched up, trying to contain the tears behind the dam and keep the sobs from climbing my throat. I took a deep breath. “Mama went to be with Jesus last night while we slept.” Gabriel shook his head slowly back and forth trying to understand what I was saying. (Sometimes I forget that Autism doesn’t understand figurative language.) Isaiah burst into tears.

“She’s dead?!?” he blurted, burying his head into my chest. And then a little quieter and muffled, “Mom died!?!”

“Yes, honey.” Realization struck my middle son, and there I was, the middle of a tumultuous sandwich, as both boys squeezed and sobbed and cried.

After a few minutes, Pastor Randy took charge. “Boys, they’re going to bring your mama downstairs in a minute so you can say goodbye. I thought it would be appropriate to read some scripture and sing a worship song or two like your mom loved to do. Did she have a favorite verse or worship song?”

When the men from the mortuary had finished bringing Amy down the stairs on the rolling gurney, she was covered with a quilt atop the waffle-weave blanket she had been wrapped in earlier. Randy read scripture. We sang two songs. And then we prayed. At that moment, I didn’t know that I could feel any greater pain. More, yes, but not greater.

As each family member leaned over to say goodbye, some touching Amy’s cheek, others a shoulder, Gabriel nearly climbed on top of his mom, supporting himself with only one toe, wailing. I had never experienced wailing before. Yelling, yes. Screaming, yes. But I had never experienced a broken soul wailing, crying out because there are no words to explain the pain, loss, anger, and loneliness. The room began to slowly spin, picking up speed as Gabriel punctuated each inarticulate wail.

I looked to Todd, Gabe’s childhood pastor. He was praying silently; I could see his heart breaking. I was looking for comfort and help, but Todd was not looking at me. He was praying for Gabriel. That’s when I realized, it wasn’t about me. The next few days, weeks, months and years would be about my boys and how they would walk on in their faith and service, without their mom. I stepped closer to Gabriel, put my hand in the middle of his back, and stood with him while he wailed. Standing there, allowing a boy to grieve over the loss of his mother in the way he needed to grieve was more painful than any experience I have ever had. There would be two more of those painful moments when my other two sons hit the proverbial wall and grieved, rather wailed, for the same loss. Unfortunately, it was not in that corporate setting; it took a little time for one, and a few months for the other.

Gabriel finally stopped wailing, kissed his mommy one last time on the forehead, and then turned to me.

“Why doesn’t she wake up?” he pleaded. “Love’s true kiss is supposed to wake the princess.” His innocence and belief in happy endings shattered. He clung to me, tears soaking us both. Moments later, the gurney was removed and the silence sang once again.