Denial and Acceptance

The shock of Stephen’s death and the ensuing despair and guilt soon began to give way to a feeling of denial.  I think in all situations like this that our mind somehow loses its balance and its grip on reality.  The hurt and pain of the moment shakes us to the very core of our existence and we begin to retreat into our thoughts to try to process all of the flood of emotions we feel.  The denial began for me the second day, as Kim and I went to bed and I tried again to sleep.  The physical and mental exhaustion was taking its toll on me and I wanted and needed to rest if I were going to make it through the next few days.  My thoughts were full of Stephen and my imaginations of his last moments before he took his life.  A restless sleep was soon to finally fall upon me as I fell into a light and labored sleep praying to God and asking Him why Stephen had to do this.

I have never been a sound sleeper.  The depths of sleep are very shallow for me and always have been.  My dad said that when I was a baby that if a fly was walking on the wall on the other side of the house that it would wake me.  I would apparently awaken a lot during the night and as a baby, he would go about the task of picking me up and walking the floors of the house to quiet me and then put me back in my bed.

This night was no different from any other for me in the regard to a sound sleep.  But these first few nights I was extra sensitive to every sound the house made.  The creaks and groans of the house when the wind blows or as it settles would awaken me into lucidity for a moment and I would slowly drift back off to a light sleep.  But this night as the creaks and groans jerked me to attention, my mind was so emotionally exhausted that I imagined it to be Stephen coming home late as he often did.  This would create for me a momentary lapse of reality as I processed these night sounds and for a brief moment, all of the preceding days were just a bad dream and everything was right, the way it should be.  But these thoughts did not last long as the lucidity that comes with being fully awake returns us to those things that are real and we come face to face with life.

Unfortunately, sleep was not the only time that these feelings of denial about his death would come.  During the next couple of days, I would continue to disappear into my thoughts and somehow rationalize to myself that this was not real and he would come walking into the house and everything would return to normal.  The shock of a tragic situation can make us lose sight of reality, and I was still trying to process the shock and the range of feelings and emotions.

Stephen had taken his life early Monday evening.  It had only been a few minutes later that the sheriff deputies had triangulated on his cell phone and found his body.  The grim task of retrieving it, assessing the scene and notifying the medical examiner took place quickly over the next few hours.  Since his body was in Osage county, it was under the jurisdiction of the Tulsa medical examiners office.  His body was taken to Tulsa for examination as was routine in these types of cases and it would be the wee hours of Wednesday night before his body would be available to be picked up by our funeral director.

My feelings and thoughts of denial would soon fade.  Since we had not seen him since Monday around lunch time, the absolute reality of his death was not fully realized until late Thursday morning when his body had been prepared for burial.  The moment we saw him, it became real.  That reality was so hurtful and painful for all of us.  As much as it hurt and as many tears that were shed at that moment, it was a step for us to move forward individually and as a family, without our youngest son and brother to go with us.  

After reading his final letter to us, the hurt and pain that led him to the moment of death was heavy upon us.  No one knew the extent of inner turmoil that was weighing on his very heart and soul.  But we knew in our hearts that all that hurt and agony inside him was no longer there.  It was gone.  He was finally at rest and at peace.

Years earlier as a boy, he had accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.  We knew in our hearts where he was that very moment.  He was present with Jesus and all the confusion and chaos that tormented his heart was now over and the things he pondered and questioned in life were all made clear and plain as he walked with Jesus and he knew the truth of God’s Word.

Sometimes even now, five months later, there are flashing moments when the door opens that there is a momentary expectation that Stephen will walk through that door.  There are still fleeting moments when the reality of his death are gone for an instant flash in time.  But that is part of the healing process.  We moved from denial to acceptance the moment we saw his lifeless body.  We realized that acceptance of its reality is also a journey.   Each time we think of him, that acceptance happens all over again.  For me, it happens many times, each and every day.

Stephen remains a big part of me as he lives on in my thoughts and in my heart.  Although he is no longer with us physically in this life, he is alive as long as we remember him and think about him.  And as a family, we know where Stephen is right now and we know that someday we will see him again as we know our eternal destination.  What about you?