Only Spring

I've been reading a lot since the summer.

A few weeks ago my cousin gave me the book, Only Spring by Gordon Livingston.  I just finished it.  The author lost 2 of his sons within a 13 month period.  He lost his older son, Andrew to suicide, then his 6 year old son Lucas, to leukemia. 

Livingston's book is really a journal that he kept while his son  Lucas was in the hospital, battling his illness, and then his journey after Lucas passes away.

It was heavy to read at times, especially at the beginning during their hospital stay with Lucas.  He talks about how their days were filled with lab tests and reports and it has just reminded me so much of Nathan and our days at the hospital when everyday was filled with the same lab tests and blood gases and ultrasounds and x-rays and urine output measurements.  And we clung to every single result. 

Nathan had many good days,  so when his numbers were good, we rejoiced.  A few times, the numbers were not so good, so we'd pray for the next test results to be better, and they usually were.  Nathan never failed to amaze us.

Even though I knew ahead of time what was ultimately going to happen to Lucas, as I read Livingston's words, and about how he knew Lucas was slipping away, I couldn't help but hope and wish that things would somehow turn out differently for Lucas and his family.  I wished that his Lucas's family wouldn't have to lose him.

Reading this book has helped me because Livingston is able to articulate some of the exact feelings and thoughts that I've had.   I guess it's helped me to know that I'm  not alone in these thoughts.  Two passages stand out because they seem to describe precisely where I'm at right now at this point in my life.

Towards the end of his book Livingston writes,
      
     "A case can be made that we all see life through a different lens.  It is this feeling -- that my lens has been forever altered -- that weighs on me now.  Nothing has looked the same to me since Lucas's death.  It is the reverse of the moment in The Wizard of Oz when everything changes from black and white to Technicolor.  For me the transformation has been to shadows of gray in which I struggle to find moments of brightness."

Before I read this book, I've thought about the metaphor of my own view of life now.  If I had rose tinted glasses on before Nathan passed away, now they are probably more like gray tinted glasses.  Things seem to look a shade or two darker than they did before.

At the very end of the book, he writes,

     "Parents who have lost a child speak of the 'zero point.'  Our lives are  divided into the time before and the time after our children died.  No event -- no graduation, no marriage, no other death -- so defines us.  At one moment I was one person, then suddenly, I was someone else.  The task we face is to create with our new selves something that, in some measure, redeems our suffering.  We plant gardens, establish memorials, cherish our children's memories and help those who must struggle, as did we, with despair.  We read stories of other parents bereft; sometimes we reach out to them with our experience of bearing the unbearable.

     We see, always with longing, children who remind us of what our child was or would be now.  . .The lesson of Lucas's life and death remains: We love those who need us as well as we can for as long as we can. . .

     I think of Lucas with exquisite sadness and profound gratitude.  He evoked in me a capacity for love that I did not know I had.  Those feelings did not die with him, nor will they, I pray, die with me."

I've thought about these things too.  I feel like I'm a different person than I was before.  My life has been divided into two parts, one part is everything that happened before Nathan, and the other, after Nathan.  Things that used to matter to me before, just don't seem to matter anymore, and vice versa.

I have been touched by other veteran bereaved parents who have come to my side, simply because they've been there and they know.  They inspire me and strengthen me more than I could possibly say.

I've also been touched by the friends and family who have stayed by my side and have supported me and loved me.  They give me reasons to smile, and if I do need to cry, or I'm having a bad day, they are here for me.

I've also had to learn that there are things in life we wish we could control  but we can't -- death being one of those things.  It can happen, often when we least expect it.  If we can't control death, then what can we do about it?  Nothing, except to love those around you as hard as you can so that if they are taken away from you unexpectedly, you'll have no regrets.

- - - - - -

It's actually been just about 20 years now since Lucas passed away.  I know that Livingston has written other books recently, but I wonder if he were to write, "Only Spring: Part 2," what he would say?  Would things be much different than they were when he first wrote this book.?

Would he say that he has been fully and completely healed from the loss of his sons?

Would he say that he no longer misses Andrew and Lucas?

(The answer to these last 2 questions is most likely, "no.")  I don't think it works like that.  I don't think you ever stop missing your child.  You never stop wishing they were here.  Your heart probably never fully mends itself.

But I suppose, like Livingston says, it's what you do with the rest of your life that has the possibility to redeem your suffering.  It's what you do to make sure that this pain is not for nothing.

My son's life will not be for nothing.  I will make sure of that.