A Lost Son
I hit send and wait. The text is blue for a few seconds and then it turns green and the message on my iPhone reads, ‘sent as a text.” I wonder if he still has a phone. Is he still in Oklahoma? Has he been stationed somewhere else? Is he still with his partner?
The weeks had begun to roll into months and still no word from my youngest son. The rift between us had begun a few weeks before Christmas when in the middle of a conversation regarding Christmas plans, my son had asked, “Ok, so how’s this going to work? Do we need to make plans to get a hotel room, or do you want us to stay at the house?
“Us? We?” I stammered.
“Jerrod,” I started again, surprised at the assumption that his partner was invited – that they were invited as a couple. “Jerrod, I assumed you would come alone.” I tried to figure out how to stay firm in my convictions and still be kind and loving. “I’m sorry.” I stammered. “I thought you would know you can’t come as a couple.”
At the time I did not know they were married. If I had known, I’m not sure how I would have responded. But that day, our conversation ended without plans, and in the end, he didn’t come at all. On New Year’s his older brother, Jacob, and I drove to Oklahoma and took gifts for both. The visit was pleasant enough, but it wasn’t much of a Christmas.
In the weeks that followed, Jerrod quit answering my texts. Then he quit answering the phone. At first, I hadn’t thought much about it, but as the weeks rolled into a month and then two, I began to grow concerned. Eventually, fear and concern collided with grief. I was worried and heartbroken.
My son was alive – at least as far as I knew. But our relationship was broken and the grief of that lost connection with my son felt as painful as the death of my oldest son eleven years earlier. Burying a child was one of the hardest things I had ever done. But this loss – this living loss was just as hard. There is both a grief and a consolation in the finality of death, but the hope that mingles with a living loss stabs deep every time an attempt at connection fails.
Living Losses
Life is full of loss. Living losses often come in the form of broken relationships with those we love. Divorce is a living loss and can be just as painful as death and the pain can linger just as long or longer. Often a lost job or a move – even under good circumstances – can leave us with a sense of loss as we leave behind important relationships. Injury and illness – both mental and physical – can forever change those we love. And just because the people are still there, doesn’t always lessen the loss we feel – especially as numbness and disbelief wears away and the reality of loss leaves us empty and aching.
The problem with a living loss is the lack of finality. We hope that what is lost will be restored, what is broken will be mended, or that what has gone so terribly wrong will once again be made right. But while we may cling to hope, grief still accompanies loss, even when it mingles with hope.
My first real experience with both grief and living loss occurred when my oldest son was left severely brain damaged at age six. My heart went through all the same stages of grief often experienced when a child dies. I was numb, then angry; I tried to bargain with God; I wrestled with depression and despair, and eventually God granted me peace and acceptance. It was a long, hard, journey.
C.S. Lewis once wrote in his book The Problem of Pain, “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Pain
Sometimes pain can leave us bitter and the ugly scars on our heart serve only to harden it. But if we listen, and let God walk with us through our pain, we may find that our hearts can be softened and changed and that we can grow through pain in ways that may not occur when life is pleasant and peaceful. Pain can grow our capacity for compassion. It can untangle our tightly fisted grip on control and offer us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. Pain can destroy self-righteous pride and plant seeds of humility in the ground – once hardened by pleasure and success – now softened by pain.
Pain can force us to look inward when we would rather look outward. If we look inward and upward as we struggle to face reality, grieve what has happened, and take responsibility for our responses, we can gain a more intimate knowledge of both our own heart and the depth of God’s love for us.
If we look outward, we may be tempted to cast blame and hold resentment. Rather than accept loss as an opportunity for change, we want to justify our position and our actions. As Christians, this may initially look like a turning to God, as we search scripture to justify our position, but a deeper knowledge of scripture isn’t helpful if we don’t also gain a deeper knowledge of ourselves and acknowledge our motives, our desires, and our own desperate need for savior.
Another Journey Through Grief
That first living loss I experienced took me on a journey that ultimately grew my faith and helped me begin to relinquish my desire to control others and circumstances that were not mine to control. Although my relationship with Justin was never restored because Justin was never fully restored, I learned that peace is still possible even amid unhappy endings.
My second experience with a ‘living loss’ in my broken relationship with Jerrod also took me on a journey. Both times the journey literally lasted years. Seven months after Jerrod cut off all communication, our relationship was tentatively restored. For years it would remain on shaky ground and be broken many times. There were times when I didn’t hear from Jerrod for more than a year. But God once more used this loss of relationship to pry my fisted hands off things that I looked to for both my identity and happiness.
Sometimes what is broken can be mended and what is lost is sometimes restored, but often things are not quite the same. Loss will change us in one way or another. In November of 2021, Jerrod moved back home. It has been a season of healing and restoration for Jerrod and our relationship. However, our relationship is not the same as it was when he left home in 2011. We have both changed.
And I have continued the journey that started with a broken heart and an unanswered text. What started as a journey to find Jerrod, became a journey to find myself and the woman God has created and called me to be. I found in grief what I didn’t know I had lost.
Tips for Your Journey
Here are some things that I have found helpful in this journey:
- Honest prayer – above all else heart healing is a spiritual journey
- Counseling with a Licensed Therapist – this is a step I wish I would have taken much earlier but I am so grateful God eventually landed me in the office of Dr. Dana Taylor.
- Befriending and learning from others who have navigated similar experiences well – the very best directions come from someone who has already made the journey.
- Podcasts and online sermons
- Books – including the best guidance book of all time – The Bible
- Encouraging community – hopefully a church community
Today, if you’re struggling with a broken relationship or a ‘living loss’ do not despair, there is hope that what is broken can be mended and made stronger in the mending, and there is hope for a mended heart even if the relationship is never mended this side of heaven. But mending takes work. Not long after that first fissure in my relationship with Jerrod was restored, a wise friend told me, “The best thing you can do for your kids be the healthiest you, you can be.” This is a lifelong journey that requires a lot of humility and a true desire to change what is yours to change – your heart.
Thank you for sharing your heart, Sheila…you are a gifted writer! Continued prayers for you and Jerrod and your family and the journey and healing you are experiencing. Love you!!
Thank you for your prayers and encouragement!