Gravity

My blood thickens through the night
I wake with a heavy heart
Rising from bed requires intention.
Gravity, it seems, has increased.
Every movement takes more energy
Each moment lasts longer
Conversations more measured
Words that once floated now fall to the ground.

Is it that the world has moved closer to the Sun?
Or am I sinking deeper into the ocean?
Is each breath more difficult
because I am breathing underwater?
Or am I being crushed by floating
Untethered in the void of space?

Can the world be this heavy for one
And not for all?
Was Newton's apple an aberration?
Can one man’s grief
Change the laws of physics?

Or will I wake tomorrow
My blood less thick?
Rise without thought?
Speak with less measure
And my words once again float?

I know only today, this moment
That in this time and place
Gravity, it seems, has increased.

The Room

We cleaned his room the other day.  Gretchen went through the piles of clothes on his bedroom floor, sorted and folded them.  She hung his scarves, organized his hats and rearranged the drawers of the nightstand next to his bed.

I cleaned his bathroom.  Hot water and bleach in a bucket I got on my hands and knees and scrubbed every square inch of the tile.  I will spare you the gory details, but use your imagination on what could occur in a bathroom occupied by a 22 year old male with no control of his bowel and bladder and an incredibly limited amount of mobility.  It was a regular shit show, because he regularly didn’t clean it.

Similarly, he hated folding laundry. He had accidents daily which meant daily loads of laundry.  So, the clean clothes languished on the bedroom floor, pushed up against a wall.  We had a daily call and response: “Griffin, please fold your laundry and put it away.”  “Okay Dad.”  He rarely did.  Some days I’d walk in and he would be asleep on the heap of clothes.  Others I’d find him struggling to fold a t-shirt.  On rare days I would walk in and find the floor 100% clear of clothing and heave a sigh of relief.  And then I’d check the closet and there would be two weeks of unfolded laundry stuffed beneath his polos.

The room was a regular source of tension between us.  The messiness was just the trigger for the more pressing issue.  Griffin spent nearly 15 hours a day in his room.  Playing on his phone, struggling with homework or, more commonly, just sleeping.  The paradox of loneliness is that the more lonely you feel the more you want to be alone. We knew Griffin was angry and depressed.  He had regular sessions with a psychologist, was good about taking his anti-depressants, but still he was generally down on himself and his life.

We’d beg and plead to get him out of his room.  “Call some friends and go see a movie,” we’d say.  And then realize that the wheelchair was a barrier to the simplest of group activities and as a result Griff had very few friends to call.  We’d invite him to watch a movie with us and he’d make it about 20 minutes before heading back to his room.

His loneliness is what drove him to binge drink.  “I don’t really know why I do,” he once told me.  “It’s not to make me feel happier.  I think it’s just to not feel anything.”

The tragic part of this story is that over the past four weeks Griffin was making strides.  It was his choice to head to rehab.  He was taking seriously our heed to not only sober up but grow up.  We had a number of phone conversations about it in the last week and he had a resolve in his voice I hadn’t heard before.  When he left rehab his plan was to move out and live in a sober living house.And then he collapsed one rainy Monday afternoon and left us.

So, we spent a day cleaning and organizing his room the way he was cleaning and organizing his life when it ended oh so too soon.  As I breathed in chlorine fumes in his now pristine bathroom, I wondered if it was all a futile gesture.

And then last night as I walked down the hall to bed, I found Gretchen asleep on his bed, breathing him in, his pillow still faintly scented of Griffin.

The Lyft Ride

As some of you know, Griffin was in rehab for alcoholism when he collapsed on Monday, February 24th.  It was a long road to get Griffin to treatment.  There were bumps, bruises and heartbreaks.  The night before we were going to drive Griffin to rehab, he chose to consume a bottle of cooking wine he found in the garage pantry.  It convinced us of two things: 1) Griffin's problems were bigger than us; and 2) he needed to be in charge of his path to recovery.

So we chose not to drive him.  We had him order himself an Lyft instead.  As he rode in the back of the Lyft, here's what I wrote him.  There may be something here for you.  Or maybe not.

Read this on your Lyft ride to Ridgeview.

A Message To My Son,

I love you.  You must love yourself.  And to love yourself you must love not only the parts of yourself that are wonderful (your wit, your laugh, your love for others, your determination) but you must also love your failings, your sin (the times you’ve given up, have slept till noon, have failed, have gotten drunk, gotten angry).  

You must love all of yourself because you’re going to fail. We all do.  “All fall short of the glory of God.”  And to hate the falling is to hate yourself.  I’m not saying to revel in your failings or to use them as an excuse to fail further.  But you must love them because they are a part of you.  

This is the beginning of wholeness and self-forgiveness.I love you.  You must love yourself.  And to love yourself you must love not only the parts of yourself that are wonderful (your wit, your laugh, your love for others, your determination) but you must also love your failings, your sin (the times you’ve given up, have slept, have failed, have gotten drunk, gotten angry).  You must love all of yourself because you’re going to fail. We all do.  “All fall short of the glory of God.”  And to hate the falling is to hate yourself.  I’m not saying to revel in your failings or to use them as an excuse to fail further.  But you must love them because they are a part of you.  This is the beginning of wholeness and self-forgiveness. To My Son,Message To My Son, Message To My Son,

Alpha Omega

This morning we prepped Griffin for a private viewing for our immediate family.  I think an important part of beginning the grieving process and giving closure to the life lived is to spend time with their body.  Though their soul has long left and that absence is palpable, the reality of the time to come without Griffin had a chance to sink in for everybody there.

Gretchen and I arrived an hour early and were escorted down to the prep room.  It's a lonely, empty room as the corporation that owns Sandy Springs Chapel has a centralized preparation operation down the road, so it was just Gretchen and I in a no longer used room.  Since we had opted for cremation Griffin required no embalming and we were able to handle his preparation ourselves.  We played Third Day's "Cry Out Jesus" on repeat as we worked.

He was still wearing the hospital gown from when we saw him last. But a look under the gown showed a body battered more by the autopsy.  It seemed fitting that after being cut open 23 times in his young life he would endure one last time being cut, explored and sewed back together.  It was the first of several pieces of the Alpha and Omega of Griffin's time here on Earth and our journey raising him.

On the way to the funeral home Gretchen insisted on a stop at Target to get fresh towels and wash cloths to work with. We had brought soap and hand lotion from home that I use.  It was always important to Griffin to use products I used.  There was many a call from the barber shop asking me what number I use on the sides and what my current hair product was.  So it was just fitting that we bathe and moisturize him with my products.  Alpha.  Omega.

We began to wash him.  From his bent, beaten, deformed toes to his stitched chest, we bathed our son just as we had bathed him hundreds if not thousands of times.  He had difficulty reaching places on his body. He often asked us to help him in the shower him as he lay prone on the floor while we washed the most delicate parts of his body, well into adulthood.  It was a frustrating task when he was with us.  But this morning it felt healing to wash him.  One of Jesus' last acts on earth was to wash the feet of his disciples.  There was a love and a humility and above all a privilege involved in such an act.  And we felt it.  Alpha.  Omega.

While Gretchen dried him, I borrowed a cheap razor and shaving cream and began shaving him.  He hadn't shaved in weeks (he hated it; his fine motor skill deficit made it difficult).  So, just as we had done the first time he shaved, I took the razor gently in my hands and did it for him.  Careful to avoid nicks, repositioning his nose to get those hard spots, moving with and against the grain as needed, I shaved my son for the last time.  Alpha.  Omega.

Time to dress him.  Khakis.  White t-shirt.  Navy Polo half-zip.  His favorite dressing up for dinner outfit.  And as we moved his now less pliable extremities, we recalled together the number of times we had helped him dress.  And as we log-rolled his pants on, we laughed. Log rolling is a method that ensures the pants find their way all the way up to the waist.  It was a method Griffin refused to employ which left him often looking more ready for a hip hop performance than for school.  And when we finally got his pants all the way on, I realized we had forgotten a belt.  Another accessory Griffin found difficult to use and therefore never wore.  Perfect.  Alpha.  Omega.

Our time with Griffin was meaningful beyond words.  We wept, we laughed and we held him as we prepped him. We blessed him and were blessed by him.  Our last moments with Griffin were just like nearly every moment we spent with him.  They were exhausting.  They were frustrating.  They were rewarding.  They were most of all holy.  Alpha.  Omega.

My final thought on this incredibly meaningful final morning with my son is this: we know that God is the Alpha and the Omega.  And if it is true that we are made in God's image, we too share some of that Alpha and Omega.  Ours, though, is mortal.  We know when the moment of Alpha occurs.  We do not know when our Omega will come.  But every moment in between is holy.  And it's our job to find the holy in those moments.  Our proximity to Griffin because of his disability made it, possibly, more necessary to find the holy because those moments could be so difficult and often humbling.  So finding the holy that morning was just natural.  My challenge to myself now is to find the holy in those more unnatural moments.  Because we just don't know.  Alpha.  Omega.

Frozen Sun

The sun shines bright in the Georgia sky

Bright as any summer morn

A gentle breeze passes
through the trees I see
Through the window.

But a step outside, a snap of cold

And I am shaken
from my slumber.

It is still February and he
is still gone.

Taken from us in a moment

That stretches to eternity.

The sun through the glass
lulls us into forgetting

that it is yet winter

the ground yet frozen.

like our memories of him
before they fade.

And shiver as I may,

I hope summer never comes

lest my memories thaw and he

become more distant, less real.

I prefer the raw, biting wind

that reminds me I am here

That he was here

Just a few short days ago.

Lengthen Your Stride

I have been writing this blog on and off for more than ten years.  This year I committed myself to making writing a priority. My writing is a way to force myself to ponder, to challenge myself and to live out my desire to evolve as a human being and reach ever so timidly for the One who created me.  I am really only writing for myself and you, those few who find yourself in my musings, you are my accountability.  For words spoken to oneself create nothing.  Words spoken to others create our world.  God spoke the world into existence in Genesis and dozens of other creation stories.  And so I am attempting to speak into life a different reality, a different me.

You might wonder, why now?  Why commit to writing now?  Let me take a moment and write more for you than for me and explain.

On September 25^th I suffered a stroke.  It was at the base of my brain stem, in the cerebellum.  My neurologist described the cerebellum as Grand Central Station for our mind-body connection.  Every nerve and function in our body flows through this part of the brain.  And I had five small explosions there, leaving me blind in my right field of vision and numb on the left side from the top of my head to my toes.  I was lucky: strokes in this part of the brain can be major explosions.  Those are the ones that leave the patient locked in: fully aware but unable to move anything but their eyes.

So, though the stroke was mild the complications were serious.  Where we have two large arteries feeding blood to the back of the brain.  I was born with one.  And this lonely highway of life giving blood had developed a plaque and a clot right at the point where those that artery, the vertebral artery, meet the basilar artery, the main artery into the brain.  The usual simple procedures weren’t an option due to my being born with only one of two vertebral arteries.  And thus I found myself being airlifted less than ten miles from Emory St. Joseph’s to the Stroke Clinic at Emory University.  I spent a week in the ICU, my body being flooded with Heparin to gently loosen the clot without causing any further strokes.

Fast forward.  Within a few weeks I recovered full eyesight.  Over the course of a few months I recovered my balance, my strength and my agility with the help of some phenomenal physical and occupational therapists. Over the holidays I began to recover my sense of balance emotionally as I spent time differently than I have with my family and friends. 

But the whole experience had stripped me bare.  I felt vulnerable in ways that I had never felt before.  I had my first real glimpse at my own mortality.  For the first time truly understood how much I am loved by my family.  And I ultimately had to face the fact that I was not centered spiritually and that true joy in the third chapter of my life was going to come from finding that connection.  And writing is a huge part of how I am wired.

I’ll end this post on a cold, rainy Atlanta winter morning.  I was tempted to get on the stationary bike but Birdie gave me the look only a Springer can and I suddenly remembered that I grew up in Seattle.  We went for our usual 3.5 mile run, just like we had the morning of the stroke.

As we hit the half-mile point Birdie gave me a look that said, “this is colder than I anticipated and I think I regret my decision.”  Rather than pulling me along with her poorly functioning adenoids causing her to heave breaths like the Tasmanian Devil on those Looney Tune cartoons, she was trailing slightly behind me.  I was surprised by the cold as well.

So I made a decision to get this over as quickly as we could.  I lengthened my stride and ran like I hadn’t before the stroke.  We ran those hills at pace and Birdie had to at points actually run rather than trot (and if you know Springers you’ll know how rare that is).  First the in months I was running rather than jogging.  I was lengthening my stride rather than limping through he motions.

And that has been my choice for this year.  To lengthen my stride.  To hit the road not just in spite of but because of the cold and rain.  Lengthen my stride in my career, in my writing, in my life.  And most importantly, lengthen my stride toward God.

Which leads me to ask: how are you lengthening your stride this year?  Is it with your family?  Or your job?  Or your physical health?  There are no answers too small or big to the question.  The important thing is just to choose.  And lengthen your stride.