February 24, 2006
Untimely Death
She started her part with, "I never expected to be here. If everything had gone as planned, my son would have been burying me--- many years from now. "
Because he was, technically, a Jew, the funeral was held immediately, last Sunday, at a temple -- so swiftly that I hadn't heard about it. Instead, I found myself sitting at a memorial service in a cavernous old sanctuary, updated awkwardly by the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, (next to a friend who also has a challenging, 20ish, adopted son), listening to my old friends, who I hadn't seen in many years --- grieving parents, psychologists, a liberal Jew, and a waspy convert, struggling to make meaning as they eulogized their dead child. They were eloquent. I don't know how they did it.
He died last week driving a Pontiac GTO at 147 miles an hour. They know precisely, because his passenger survived.
At the service his father described the accident, and then, his son's last moments, in excruciating detail -- lying crushed under his beloved car, screaming for help. This was intentional.
Many of his friends were there. Some from earlier in his childhood -- scrubbed, middle class, articulate kids -- others from a later, more troubled, period in his life, AA, NA --"program" friends. They spoke first to these friends, trying to teach in their grief, counting on grim details to penetrate the invincible fog of adolescence, hoping that their son's death would serve as a lesson that would save the lives of others.
He was the only child of this union, a sweet and caring, insatiable and earnest, inattentive and infuriating boy, adopted from Texas, two days after his birth. His siblings, all five, were half -- two from his adopted father, three from his birthmother.
We are told that she, too, had struggled with bipolar disorder, ADD and substance abuse, and had died an untimely death herself, two years earlier, three days before he was scheduled to meet her for the first time. With that loss, his self destructive behaviors escalated, so severely, that nine months before, he had received an ultimatum -- the choice of inpatient rehabilitation, or leaving home.
Rehab had been successful. He detoxed, then spent eight and a half months at Heartland, clean for the first time in years, learning auto mechanics and courting Jesus. If Jesus worked, everyone was happy he found Jesus.
But Heartland wasn't real life. He knew it. He chose to come home to finish high school at the new year, conscious that he was leaving absolute protection for his sobriety. He was welcomed.
Some friends shared memories of him during the service. One spoke, who was there, at the party when he had his first beer, back in his real life. People were shocked. They asked him what he was doing, and he said, 'I'm a grown man, and I can have a beer once in a while'. But he couldn't. On Thursday, he had three.
Don't drink and drive.
And what are the lessons the rest of us learned?
That adolescents lose half of their brain cells at puberty, and those cells are not fully replaced by the body until age 25, accounting for their astonishing lack of judgement.
That it is possible to bear the worst thing that can happen. and to speak about it honestly, with consciousness, and to find the positve in deepest grief.
That we all show terrible judgement sometimes, and that some of us are lucky enough not to pay with our lives. That his father, at age eighteen, had skidded badly while driving too fast on a slippery highway with a friend, and then had driven back to the icy patch, immediately, to replicate the experience.
That both nurture and nature play a role in the development of personality
That adoption is not a perfect solution, and it has repercussions for all who participate
That being high on Evangelical Christianity is a better alternative to other addictions
That it is possible to experience more than six emotions simultaneously
That the testimony of loved ones left behind, if they can bear to speak, is much more powerful than any prepackaged words offered by clergyman
That having a PhD in psychology (or even two) cannot prepare you fully for the challenges of raising children
That your life can change forever, in an instant, when least expected.
That parting in anger is unwise. That it is important to set aside differences to express love for one another. They had, the morning of the accident, and it remains a great comfort.
That the love and support of friends and community are crucial in times of tragedy.
Those are some of the lessons that I learned as I listened to their eulogies. I'm sure there are many more that they will teach me, over time, as they come to terms with this.
Photo note #1: I shot the irises last week. The transition from reality to shadow makes it both a metaphorophoto and a metamorphophoto.
Photo note #2: Yesterday, I stopped briefly in an cemetery, between errands, and saw these tombstones in the snow. A memorial to a more timely death, perhaps. Perhaps bearing the message that as a parent, when you lose a child, you also lose part of yourself.
Posted by Dakota at February 24, 2006 06:45 PM