John

Missing

 

            Recently, Mary Ann remarked to me that my recent posts seemed to indicate progress through my grief, that I didn’t seem to be as disconsolate as I have been during the past two plus years.  This comment makes me think it is time to offer an update as to how this whole experience feels right now, as opposed to how it might have felt in the past.

 

            While on vacation here in Cape Cod, I have been reading Killer Angels, a historical novel about the Battle of Gettysburg in which General James Longstreet of the Confederate Army is a principal character.  As the author imagines Longstreet’s mindset, what in French is called mentalité, he comes back again and again to the fact that the general had recently lost all three of his children to a fever in Richmond during the same week.  The author makes a point of maintaining the reality of this ultimate loss in the story of one of the most celebrated military minds of his time.  However disciplined, however high the stakes, Longstreet cannot suppress his feelings all the time.  A grand and enthusiastic poker player, Longstreet gives up the game after losing his children, and in many scenes is portrayed sitting to one side of his officers while they play.  Concerned about him, they often beg for him to enter the game, but he cannot and always refuses.  These are not unsympathetic men.  They are his closest aides, but even they do not understand the pervasive pain, sense of loss, and feelings of inadequacy that fathers feel when they lose a child.  Longstreet suppresses his feelings through intense will to compartmentalize his thoughts.  The author makes clear that he pushes such thoughts away as much as he can, but that at night, when there are fewer interruptions, this discipline breaks down.  I believe whether through personal experience, or through observed experience, this author has gained an understanding of how men in particular are affected by such tragic events.

 

            Perhaps because I am now distracted by the joys of instructing college students, I am less aware of the pain of losing John for much of the work day.  In a similar way, Mary Ann has committed herself to a bulging sack of philanthropic and work activities that keep her busy most of every day.  For me, the career-long joy I have taken in observing undergraduates learn has gone a long way to maintaining my balance.  I have been blessed with some of my strongest classes during the past two years, and my involvement in the academic lives of my students has filled a great void in my life.  However, this is not the void left by John’s absence.

 

            There are moments when it seems almost impossible to believe John actually existed.  I mean, we live in the same house, Courtney and Russell continue to move on in their careers, the same friends in Mahomet stop by, the dogs have the same routine.  In these moments of cognitive dissonance, it is very difficult to recall the reality of John.  Did we really have to worry every waking moment about where he was?  Was I constantly attuned to his feelings, his needs, deciding whether to intervene or not?  Did we really live that way for sixteen years?  It all seems so foreign now.

 

            At other moments, the pain of having lost such a special young man is so real that I stop breathing.  I can’t say as I cry very often, hardly ever anymore, because I push away before the tears start to come.  People have moved on, it makes everyone uncomfortable.  The one sure place I am certain to choke up is the cemetery.  To see the last tangible marker of such a remarkable life be reduced to that stone is still heart-breaking for me.  Consequently, I go to the cemetery much less often.  It was so important to me that John not be overlooked, it is hard to visit his grave marked by such a small stone on the back edge of the cemetery.  The exact marginalized place away from which I tried so hard to bring him.  A constant jabbing pain of having failed to guide John to the fullest realization of himself.

 

            One of the great losses in my life associated with John’s death is how I have ceased to remain involved with the several organizations to which John brought us:  CIDSO, Special Olympics, Challenger League Baseball.  Mary Ann has remained involved in John’s Friends, a ministry for people with special needs at the church we have attended in recent years, but I can’t seem to do it.  Partly it is my reluctance to face other parents with my unresolved feelings of responsibility and guilt for John’s fatal accident.  Partly it is that I am not always very comfortable with other people’s children.  Partly it is fear of the Isannah experience:  falling all too easily into old patterns of relating to these kids leading to unmanageable feelings of loss.  Partly it is that I was never too involved with the parents, with the exception of Coach Ed, the Jewetts, and the Stantons, and there is no natural reason to remain involved with them now.

 

            I miss the Harpers the most. (We see the Stantons, or at least Mary Ann does, fairly regularly, and we feel deep affection for them.  We see the Jewetts more often but way too little.  I never fail to feel like myself when I am around them.)  Coach Ed, who lost a daughter-in-law about a year after we lost John, has proven to be one of the most understanding men I know.  We have spent several hours around the kitchen table talking and laughing and commiserating together, and it has been wonderful therapy.  I am really not sure why I have not done a better job of staying in touch.  The guilt thing?  Too many reminders of John?  I am not sure.  The Harpers have been wonderful providers of that kind of love that knows no limits and asks for nothing in return.

 

            I do not expect to “recover” from John’s death.  I do not expect to lose the feeling of pain so deep they take me to the edge of sanity.  What I do hope for is to learn to live with this pain and the diminished image I have of myself, to manage my feelings and thoughts so as to be able to function and be of some use to somebody.  Beyond that, at this point, I don’t care.  I still laugh a lot, especially when the four of us are all together, but I have even less to say in public, feeling unqualified to offer an opinion of any worth.

 

            So there it is.  I try to remain faithful to the purpose of this blog, to share remembrances and understandings of my son John, while sharing with those of you who truly want to know what I experience following the loss of a special child.  Comments are always welcome, and I rely upon you to keep me honest.