Permission for the grieving

My wife and I have long admired the Deal family. We met them at church many years ago. They lost their son, Connor, back in 2009 when he was 12-years-old. Remarkable kid, Connor was. Indescribable loss. The world was robbed of future Connor. Life isn’t fair. The Deals have long since moved away, but we’ve continued to follow their journey.

I will always remember attending Connor’s funeral back in 2009. At the time, even though it was a pain we couldn’t fathom, it was a pain we could feel…a pain everyone could feel. There were many tears.

Fast forward 10 years to 2019. Our son, Isaiah, reached the age of 12; and, we found ourselves sitting in an ICU having our first, “I’m so sorry. There’s nothing more we can do,” conversation with Isaiah’s medical team. I’ve thought of the Deal family often over the past few years of our journey.

By the grace of God, our son is still with us. Though he can’t move or communicate, we can still hug him. So, thankfully, we still can’t fathom the depth of the grief of losing a child. But, we do have a better understanding of grief and pain and loss.

I’ve had this YouTube video saved in my “watch later” for awhile. We’ve had a brutal couple weeks with hundreds of seizures and many, many hours-long battles to maintain Isaiah’s oxygen. 4 out of 5 days this week, Isaiah was actively seizing when I walked in the door from work. That said, I didn’t have the emotional capacity to watch the video until yesterday. I’m passing it along today, because it may resonate with some of you as it did with me. Ron and Nan Deal understand grief. When you’re living an utter nightmare, you it’s oddly therapeutic to hear others—others who have experienced the worst things life can throw at you—articulate your thoughts.

I won’t summarize the video. There’s zero chance I will be able to articulate anything as well as they did. It’s worth watching in its entirety. The honesty and “realness” with which they’ve wrestled with grief has always been inspiring to me.

Though it wasn’t the main point of the video, I walked away oddly comforted by this thought: it’s ok to give yourself permission to grieve. Permission to rest. Permission to avoid gatherings sometimes—even church. Permission to cry. Permission to laugh. Grace. I hope Ron and Nan bless you as much as they have blessed us.