And then there was peace...

So it looks like I have not written anything on this blog for 11 months. So much has happened since I last sat in front of a keyboard and computer screen to write anything down. I've experienced the worst year of my life these past 11 months, I've never known so much pain before. In April, I met my son Elijah. After only 12 hours I had to say goodbye to him forever. His body was more complete than I thought it would be on the outside, but inside he fought for his life until the end. I put myself in grief therapy this past summer, for better or worse, to discover that I have attachment issues. The week of my birthday I went to the ER with the worst headache I have ever had. After my first CT scan and spinal tap I was diagnosed with viral meningitis and spent the next three days in the hospital, for the very first time being the patient.

The man that emerged from this past year is not the same one from 2009. This is an obvious statement of course but the changes are not all physically apparent. There is a new darkness somewhere in my heart, a new anger. Sometimes, I have noticed that my carefree sarcastic demeanor has a new edge to it. There is a sharpness in my words that at times sound cruel. The world of color that existed before the death of my son has been replaced my a world of black and white.

This past weekend, while my family was together at my parents house, we sat down Christmas Eve to our family tradition, watching "Miracle", the story of the 1980 US Hockey Team win over the Soviet Union in the Olympics; before Santa would arrive. The movie's climax is punctuated by the famous Al Michaels's line "Do you believe in Miracles!?" The movie hasn't lost any of its entertainment value over the past 5 years, though some of the extended family does not understand why it is a family tradition, when none of our family even play hockey(on that Olympic team were 6 of my mom's classmates from High School in Northern Minnesota). The story, and the movie, are both classics.

The following morning my mother told us at breakfast that it was the first time watching the movie that she did not answer to herself that she did indeed believe in miracles. While my siblings found her new outlook on life depressing on Christmas morning, I left my mother's new found clarity untarnished by criticism.

Later that day I misplaced my wallet. The quest to find it included tossing my wife and my suitcase several times, overturning couch cushions, digging through wrapping paper, eight trips to 4 cars to look under seats, even a 15 minute detour during a beer run to look in my town home three miles away. My friend, the darkness began to surface, and after a three hour search I found my wallet exactly where I had left it, on top of a tupperware container in my old closet. As I was leaving my old room I was stopped by my mother. "Come back in here so we can talk," she said in her best motherly tone. She asked me how everything was going, her instincts have always been right when it comes to the emotions of her offspring. She also told me that she had been praying to Saint Anthony that I would be able to locate my wallet, and asked if I had been upset with what she had said about not believing in miracles.

I had not been upset with what my mother had said. I informed her that I was actually quite glad that she had said it. It is hard after the loss of a child to believe in anything good in the world. Any concept of God that I had formed over the past 25 years is completely changed. A similar reaction that I had felt several times in my life before. The truth about Santa and the easter bunny, Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot all had their masks of truth cast off in similar fashion and the mask of God was no different. Here was an entity that I grew up loving and fearing, a ultimate father figure that looked out of all good people, and made sure justice came to the bad, now all of a sudden a light of truth melting away the mysteries. The rareness of my son's fatal condition, the lack of someone or something to blame left only one person responsible, God. God could have saved my son I was led to believe, God could have intervened, never caused any of this to happen to my wife, the pain she feels for Elijah is an everyday struggle for me to watch. I started to become insulted by aquaintences of mine that would respond with "God has a plan for everything," and "God works in mysterious ways," when hearing of my son's passing. Was that their real belief? All the bad that is allowed to happen in the world gets a pass because God works in mysterious ways? Where was God during all of this? What was his reason?

I let my mother know that it was comforting that she has trouble believing in miracles anymore because I no longer do. I told her that even though that may be the case, that doesn't mean good things can no longer happen, acts of kindness are still out there, decency is not dead. I told her it was comforting, knowing that someone else in the world felt like I did. That my beliefs would now be formed out of my own experience, not out of some ancient book of psalms.

Before we left the room and headed to dinner I let her know one more thing. How was I supposed to believe in someone who lets so much pain and suffering to befall his innocent and peaceful children? I told her that if God were real, really real, mortal and walking on Earth, I would do anything in my power to kill him for what he put the people I care most about through.

fin.