It is lent again, or still? In truth, it feels as if we have not had an Easter since Justin’s death. The first lent came so fast after his death, we immersed ourselves in work and projects. Doug had been invited to present his meditations on the “Stations of the Cross” at our parish and so lent was spent in much preparation and rehearsals. In the opening there is a trumpet solo, Doug had a recording of Justin playing it, one of the few moments we have captured on tape of Justin playing. Doug is an amazing sound wizard and was able to seamlessly integrate Justin’s solo into the presentation. I was sharing the narration privileges with a dear friend who had worked with us before on this project, his wife had died suddenly, only weeks before Justin’s death. We offered that evening in memory of them.
I didn’t have to memorize the narration, but was deeply familiar with the script. Even so, at that first dress rehearsal I was unprepared for the wave of emotion that hit when Justin’s trumpet rang out, so clear, so achingly haunting. You learn to partition your emotions and do your job, but I was concerned of missing cues. So when I mentioned to Doug during rehearsal that I needed a stronger cue for a certain narrative, many interpreted my tone as short and angry. I was ashamed and shocked. I would rather take a bullet than hurt my husband, especially in public.
I was only 17 and Doug 19 when he was my sound guy for the very first time. I had the lead in a one-act play and he had just returned from a year on the road with an inter-denominational theater group. We had pages of complicated sound effects and script and he had my back the whole time, he could make magic happen when I screwed up. So after working with each other for over 30 years, I knew all I had to do was look over and tell him exactly what I needed and he would make a note and it would happen. I asked him if I had offended him and begged his forgiveness, he looked at me like I had two heads and said he hadn’t even given it a thought. On later reflection, I realized that he knew what I really meant when I asked for a stronger cue was “that was our boy playing, and now he is gone”, and his response to add the cue was “I know, I know, I miss him too.” The only thing I remember from that first Easter was that I was so tired I literally fell asleep at my brother’s dinner table.
The second lent without Justin was strange. So many people asking “what are you giving up for lent?” Asking a bereaved parent what they are giving up for lent will earn you a glassy-eyed stare as they try to comprehend what you just said. The internal dialogue goes something like this, “giving up, I have already given up my son, what more do I need to give up?” Being bombarded on all sides about heroic Lenten disciplines to where it borders on a competition, one more apropos to the men’s room rather than a simple conversation, is exhausting. The helpful “why don’t you give up your sorrow to God, why don’t you offer it up? You first. Grief, mourning, they are not vices, they aren’t bad habits, they are not sweets to deny ourselves. Grieving a child’s death is a discipline all its own. We retreat and grow quieter from a world that no longer looks familiar to us. Easter came and went, another day of lent.
And here we are, our third lent without Justin. A recurrent thought comes to me about lent, a voice gently coaxes me to consider giving up wanting to die. Don’t panic, wanting to die is not the same as suicide. We personally have experienced death in our families from suicide, I know the difference. Wanting to die is driven by a need to know what your child suffered, what they felt, where are they now? It is driven by wanting to have gone first, not have them travel that unknown road before you. Parents naturally want to go first, to see if its safe, to look for danger. A part of our hearts did go first, so we live this strange dichotomy of being in two places at the same time, but not being able to know or touch that unknown place where our heart resides.
To not want to die means having to rediscover a desire to live, really live, not simply exist. I can’t believe that I am vastly different from other people who have suffered a great loss. Simply existing and breathing is not a bad thing, first rule of triage is to assess the victim’s respiratory function. So to be breathing is a good thing. But we are called to live and engage life. As our minds and bodies transition to our different heart rhythm, as we learn to breathe without a part of us, we can learn to live again. If my hypothesis is right, our capacity for life should increase, but it takes years for this metamorphosis to occur.
I believe we skew so much of what lies in the heart of God as we fashion Him into our own image instead of seeking His true image, or as we accept what others offer us as God’s image. Easter may never again arrive for us, if we are to live lent for the rest of our lives, I will attempt to search out what it means to be truly alive.
“the glory of God is a human being fully alive.”
