Bill and I briefly spoke of what we remember about this sad day 4 years ago ... 

• I remember before I got out of bed, I pondered "What is appropriate to wear on the day your son is going to die?"
• I remember standing at the hospital entrance with my Mom repeating what had been my mantra since our world shattered with the April 25 late night phone call ....  "I can do this day."
• I remember entering his hospital room where they had cleaned him up, removed much of the medical equipment, replaced the hospital smell with something more pleasant (peppermint maybe?) and updated the board as pictured below.
• Bill remembered the staff-lined hallway and corridors honoring Erik as he was wheeled to the operating room where they would make good on his choice for organ donation.
• After Erik died, we went to a park and walked along a river in view of the mountains.  It seemed appropriate given his love of the outdoors ...

In the vein of finding comfort and fighting for joy, I'm grateful to my sister Nicky who initiated a May 2023 visit to our parents to celebrate King Charles' Coronation.  Complete with themed paper goods, 4 English-themed movies, a 1,000 piece Queen Elizabeth puzzle, themed songs for our Zebra piano bar visit, and a delightful tea and scone breakfast, I finally have some good memories associated with May 5-10.  Thanks Florida family for providing such a good distraction this year.

Four years down Erik.  Until we meet again...  💔 Mom

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Last May 12, I mentioned that my sister Joanie challenged me to speak for her sermon series on the Beatitudes.  Joanie's introduction ended "When Jesus says “Blessed are those who Mourn” He’s alluding to the fact that we are highly Avoidant of Grief which, sooner or later, will have its due. Instead, He invites us to choose the Way of Lament. And rather than me stumbling through what it looks like to live this truth, I thought I would instead introduce you to my sister, Jane. In the aftermath of her son Erik’s tragic death, she graced us all with an inspiring model of what can be gained when you refuse to sidestep immense grief. When you trust that blessing can be found if you choose to Mourn. I asked her to share a bit of her journey with us, so let’s listen and learn as Janie, in her own words, guides us along this tough and sacred Way. Here’s what she writes."

If “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit” speaks to something we lack, I think “Blessed are the mourning” addresses something we’ve lost. What happens when we lose something, especially if we believe it was one of the many blessings previously bestowed on us by a generous God?

I contemplate what I’ve lost in my life:

• I lost my position of “the cutest baby girl” when little sister Joanie was born (total BS – I’ve seen the pictures)
• I lost my self-image in grade school as my “nemesis” steadily eclipsed me academically and socially
• I felt like I lost 3 years of my life when I broke up with the guy I dated most of college after finally acknowledging he was not the man I wanted to marry
• Other losses include jobs or promotions I didn’t get, fulfilling work projects that disintegrated into meaningless tasks, deep relationships that ended due to time or circumstance

My biggest loss is when our only son, Erik, was involved in a motor vehicle accident on April 25th, 2019. Just 3 (now 4) years ago, what started as a 11:00 PM phone call from a hospital in Denver, CO resulted in a 17 day hospital stay that was riddled with a loss of clarity, loss of answers, loss of progress, and ultimately loss of our Erik. On the plane ride out to Denver, I grappled with how we would explain to our adventurous, charismatic, athletic son that he had lost his ability to walk due to a spinal cord injury.  On the plane ride back to Cincinnati, my shell-shocked husband and I clutched each other’s hands … at a loss for words as we faced a future that didn’t include our first-born.

It wasn’t only Erik that died on May 12th,

• Also lost was the “Haslem name” as he was the only grandson that could carry it on
• I lost my child whose perspective on life was closest to my own
• I lost the person who would walk me down the aisle at our daughter’s wedding
• We lost the joy of watching Erik finally find his “unique striking surface” after a succession of bad decisions and missteps in his youth
• We lost our dreams and joy at watching Erik become husband and ultimately father

When Erik died, there was no way to bind the wound or fill the hole that it left.  There is no equal, or even approaching equal, substitute. There was nothing to make it better.

So you’re left with what do you do now?  Where do I go from here?

Ultimately, I found myself having to reconcile what was happening with what I had always professed as my faith.  Did God love me? Did He love my children? Was he out for my good?  Jeremiah 29:11 states  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  Is that really true?  If yes, how does Erik dying fit into that? What about our other children and family members?  Will God take care of them?

The space between “Blessed are those who mourn” and “they shall be comforted” can be vast.  I’ve led multiple 8-week grief groups at my church and lamented with others:

• Parents whose children committed suicide grapple with guilt (could I have seen this coming) and remorse (if only I would have seen the signs)
• Siblings and parents who lost someone in a senseless death struggle with anger (why were they around someone so dangerous?), and frustration (they were just getting their life back together… to lose all that now), and shock (but he’s done that dozens of times).
• Spouses and children whose loved one had an extended illness ending in a prolonged or painful death commonly wrestle with self-doubt (did my approval for that medical treatment kill them?) and guilt (I should feel sad, not relieved to have my life back).
  
  

Ultimately we work toward accepting that there is no satisfactory answer to ”Why?”  Far more helpful is “What now?”  God urges our trust knowing that understanding is beyond our capacity.

Scripture contains plenty of examples of God “coming to the rescue.” Jesus provided physical healing of both Peter’s mother-in-law and a lame man lowered through a Capernaum rooftop. He supplied mental or emotional restoration for a man with an unclean spirit outside a Capernaum synagogue and for Mary Magdalene herself. He even rose people from the dead including Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus!

Contemplating these miracles can be maddening and confusing. They don’t reflect my experience. Did we do something wrong? Are we unworthy? Am I unloved? Is God not trustworthy?  Does he not see me?

It’s helpful to understand the miracles as signposts of things to come, evidence of God’s power and God’s love for us. Power that does overcome death, even ultimately Erik’s death, and a love that yearns to comfort me as I wait for that power to be on full display someday.

• God promises mourning will come to an end and all tears will be wiped away when He comes again.
• God promises those who die in faith are with Him, in a joyous realm, secure, safe, and free of sin.
• God promises we will be reunited with our loved ones some day.

Those promises are not only for Erik

     Or the widow at the well

          Or the sheep who was lost

                   Or the prodigal son returned

                             Or the Roman centurion at the cross

They are promises for me. God wants to comfort … me.

I ultimately turned to God because there was no other satisfactory option … nothing that filled the void or mended my broken heart. God uses lament to pull us out of darkness, a lifeline back to Him, to life, to a “new normal”, and on some rare occasions, even back to joy.

There are times at night when Satan assaults me, pulling me back into the mire of despair, sadness, joylessness … the “griefiness” of it all. That’s when I’ve cried out “Jesus show up! I need you! I need you to push away these hopeless, helpless thoughts and remind me of the better. Remind me that forever is not eternity and that although I live without Erik right now, today he is living with you.”

What does comfort look like?

A key piece of my comfort came from Andrea Raynor’s book The Alphabet of Grief.  In the “F” chapter, she beautifully articulates the difference between eternity and forever.  She writes:

“Birth and death are like the number twelve on a clock … Eternity is what we hope to experience with our loved ones when our second hand reaches twelve again.  Forever is the time it takes to get there, the time left living without them here on earth … Compounding the pain of forever are all the nevers that accompany it … These thoughts can run on a painful endless loop, like a record that keeps skipping back to the same terrible place. It’s difficult to move forward when we dwell on that which cannot be changed. If we remain too long in the shadow of what has happened, we can become shadows ourselves. … But our loved ones cannot be found in the darkness of never because they exist now in the light of eternity.“

My belief in eternity has prompted me to acknowledge each May 12th (the day of Erik’s death) as “one, two, and now three (four) years down”; my reality of the forever I’m living here means I do that with tears cascading down my face.

Since there is no way to restore what I’ve lost, comfort comes from a few realizations that act like buttresses to my slow restoration:

• Death has intruded, it was not part of God’s plan
• God lost a child too
• Death is not the finish line, it is only a momentary setback
• The thin red thread of hope reminds me that Christ defeated death
  
  

Clinging to these truths while waves of grief wash over me has taught me that if I stay there letting the despair, disappointment, fear, sorrow, and hopelessness crash over me yet again, I can trust that the current wave will pass, calm will ultimately emerge, and I will have survived this newest assault of sorrow with fresh proof of God’s comfort.

Another “comfort gift” was when God helped me deal with one of the hardest parts about losing Erik – that there would be no new memories of him, no new pictures or fresh stories.  What I'm discovering, though, is that new memories are offered, but instead of images where Erik is featured, they are reflections where his spirit or personality hovers beneath the surface - not nearly as easy to spot, but available as gifts if I slow down and pay attention.

In her book It’s OK that You’ve Not OK, author and therapist Megan Devine describes three mourning paths.  We’re wise to reject the first two:  let’s not deny our grief, leaving our love behind so we can be ‘OK’ … and let’s also not retain our connections to the point that we’re ‘stuck’ to a lifetime of doom.  She encourages a third path “that honors the full breadth of grief, which is really the full breadth of love.”

How can we comfort others?

We just vacationed up in Beaver Bay, MN, staying in a cabin on Lake Superior.  I learned that Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world, spanning nearly 32,000 square miles and holding 10% of the world’s surface fresh water.  Its average depth is 483 feet, the weather changes quickly, producing storms that have resulted in tragedies like the sudden loss of The Edmund Fitzgerald.

The two paths between our cabin and the main lodge serve as a great metaphor for how we can walk through mourning:

The man-made path was paved, direct, reliable, well-marked. It passed beside a little waterfall and skimmed just above the surface of a small stream, but the lake views were hidden by groves of birch trees that deposited their strips and rings of thin white bark on the forest floor. At night, even the lapping of the surf was drowned out by the cacophony of frogs singing from their spots among the puddles and brush.

The man-made path avoided the risk and difficulty of the shore path. It was quicker, more predictable, and more populated, but the payoff was temporary … limited to a hot cup of coffee or a s’more kit handed out at the front desk. It’s not that it wasn’t functional or even moderately pleasurable, it was just … less.

The shore path, in contrast, was accessible only after a short jaunt through the woods, navigating around the mud puddled from recent rains and shallow roots from the many trees. It was comprised mainly of boulders with their various hues of black, gray, brown and amber whose sizes ranged from a bowling ball to a small car.

The first time I went on the shore path I was slow, careful, not really looking at the beautiful view.  Will I twist an ankle stepping on the uneven surfaces, will the rocks teeter or be slippery? Which way am I supposed to go? Where are the safe places, the resting places for when the decisions overwhelm me? I saw other people ‘doing this right,’ why is it so hard for me?

My sweet husband was such comfort during my trek and reminded me how God brought others, and can even use me, to comfort those in mourning. As I made my way along the shore path, Bill simply accompanied me so I wasn’t alone. He observed when I seemed to hesitate and offered encouragement, but didn’t pressure me to take his route or move at his pace. He was simply there, offering a steady hand when I reached out but allowing me to pause if I desired to find my own way. 

So many of us have faced loses. Forged together after a season of mourning, of asking ourselves “what do we do now?  Where do we go from here?” That gut-wrenching acknowledgement of what is lost can begin the slow, painful, difficult process of lament and finding God’s comfort.

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Four years down Erik.  Until we meet again...  💔 Mom