Saying Goodbye to Bryant, Joy for the Journey

Some thoughts on the road of healing after the loss of my 14 year old son by suicide

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Wife... Mother... Lover of Jesus... Freedom Writer!

Monday, August 07, 2006

Eighteen weeks

It's been 18 weeks today. Onehundredtwenty-six days. Every day for the past 125 days I have relived that Monday evening. Sometimes it seems like a dream, the worst dream. But every Monday has gotten a little bit better.

Today has been a challenge in other ways. Dh started a new job, his first day back to work since April 3. I spent a couple of hours this morning signing my father into a nursing facility. He is scheduled for a few weeks of rehabilitation but there is a possibility he'll need to stay there indefinitely. ( This was/is soooo hard!) I have two meetings at the same time this evening, one is orientation at my teen's high school and the other is equally as important. (Where is a good clone when you need her? ) I'm also operating in sleep deficit because I was up late last night visiting with a young cousin who was in town for the night. I think we turned in around 2:30 am and she had to be up and out this morning for a 7am flight. Then there are the little ones. Every once in a while I stop and scratch my head in wonder at how I ended up with a 3 year old and a 1 year old at this stage of my life. [ Yes, I do know how they got here. :-)] And I want to raise them well.

So in an effort to stay real and also to stay joyful I'll just say that on a scale of 1-10 ( with 10 being tops) my joymeter reads about a 7 today. My brain is tired but it really is a choice. Everything is. We can't always choose the circumstances of our lives but we can choose our reaction and response to the circumstances. By God's grace I'm choosing to live not "under the circumstances" but above them instead.

Bryant's birthday is August 17th. He would be 15. We're planning to have a party for him with the youth group at our church. I want to celebrate his life with his friends and talk to them about how important it is to keep a rich and steady diet of God's Word, to know Truth. I plan to ask each of them to make a fresh commitment, in Bryant's memory, to an authentic faith in and relationship with Jesus. I want them to write out their own private and personal commitments to be placed inside of 15 helium balloons. As a finale, hopefully just before sundown, we will release the balloons in a little ceremony outside on the church grounds.

Eighteen weeks ago today... in fact it was probably happening in these very moments. My son was ushering himself into eternity. And somehow we have to go on. I am going on. Thru the hurt and thru the pain, "I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me."

2 Comments:

Blogger rena said...

Tears. I have tears.

That idea of celebrating Bryant's birthday with his friends is wonderful. I can see a real ministry arising out of this..God will and is using you to bring clarity, sanity, joy and Himself to the hearts of other teens.
Your story has been such an inspiration to me.

08 August, 2006 16:52  
Blogger Melissa Stevens said...

I feel so inadequate to respond to your blog. Because you have such a strength that has me awed. I realize that is just a MIGHTY, AWESOME, GRACIOUS GOD at work in your heart. I wish I could be there to see the balloons fill the sky on Bryant's birthday, I think that it will be wonderful tribute to your son's life if it sparks his friends and others to a higher relationship with Christ. Thank you for your raw honesty.
Melissa Stevens

10 August, 2006 10:28  

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