They Shall Mount up with Wings of Eagles

The day Stephen died was so full of so many different feelings and emotions.  Each one seemed to collide with the next one and sorting each of them out to process them was almost more than I could manage.  Throughout my career I always had to quickly assess a situation and react to it to navigate through all the potential scenarios and choose the path of minimal impact.  I tried to draw upon this skill as I dealt with his death, but the emotions were too numerous and raw, and my thoughts were jumping from one thing to the other so quickly, I could not gain my bearings.  The night he passed, I could not even think of sleep as I lay in bed next to Kim.  I don’t think either of us slept that night. All I could do was pray to God for strength and for understanding.  My thoughts kept coming back to why did he do this and mostly I felt such guilt that I was not with him.  He was going through the most painful time in his life and I was not there for him.

I pondered his last letter to us and began to scan through the annals of time throughout his life to the different markers that were factors that might make him do this and lead him down this path.  As his father, I took this very personally.  All I could think of was what a failure I was, how could I have missed the signs, what I could have or should have done differently.  All I could manage to do was weep.  

Guilt is one of the most powerful and debilitating emotions we can experience, and at this moment for me, it was a consuming fire burning away at my very soul.  When Stephen died, a big part of my heart died that night as well, with him.  This guilt filled me with such overwhelming emptiness that I knew nothing was ever going to be the same for me.  There had to be something I should have done to stop this nightmare.

Guilt and despair are two companion emotions which walk together side by side.  They were definitely trying to overcome me as I tried to make sense of this.  I was trying to be rational and figure out the how and why of it, almost as if I could rewind the hands of time and change the outcome.  I had to somehow fix this and make this event never to happen.  But I knew in the rational part of my mind that was not overcome with the emotions that there was nothing I could do.  I was totally powerless over this darkness called death.  I was broken and broken-hearted.

The reality of the situation somehow wakes us from the recesses of our mind and brings us back to dealing with those things that need to be done.  The first night had passed and it was time that we make the drive from Ponca City to Blackwell to meet with the funeral director to begin the task of final preparations for our youngest son.  I had to put away my thoughts and feelings of guilt and despair long enough to begin the journey of laying our son’s body to his final rest.  I sat down at my computer and wrote his obituary as I had done for my father, my oldest brother and most recently, my mother.  As this was something I could and would do in this moment, this act helped me to return to reality away from my thoughts to begin the process of moving forward.  It was just the beginning for me to begin to pick up the pieces of my shattered heart and be the the leader and source of strength for my family.

I prayed to God for strength for this moment, not only for myself but for my family as we began this painful journey.  I have leaned on God’s Word in times of trial and recalled a sermon on this verse in Isaiah 40:31 (KJV) “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”