Losing the Future
Stop for a second and think back to when you were 10 years old. Think about little you — your friends, your wants, your fears. Walk yourself through your average childhood day. Now ask yourself — is that person still alive?
Let that roll around in your head a minute — I promise to get back to it.
Today is the 2nd anniversary of Daniel’s death. It is a more melancholy and muted experience for me than last year, where watching the calendar turn to April was more raw. I continue to build the “Daniel is not here” version of my self, but by now it is pretty well formed out. The (almost) end of the epidemic and watching normal life around me seems like the end of a phase, as Daniel’s suicide and the start of COVID arrived together.
Memories are still tough- its hard to think back on fun times with my youngest son without letting the grief run them over. But a powerful observation jolted into my mind a few weeks ago. Absolutely nothing about Daniel’s life before April 2020 is different today. Every soccer game, every Christmas, every bed time story, the prom, family trips , semesters at college — all of it. Unchanged.
Perhaps my favorite memory with Daniel was a father/son trip we took to Philadelphia and New York in the fall of 2018. We wore Falcons jerseys to a night Eagles game, one of the bravest (and maybe dumbest) things I have ever done. But damn was it memorable, and of course we had to dodge a few potential fights with rabid fans over the evening. We watched the UGA game in a sports bar in midtown Manhattan— I am glad I got that experience, though he was too scared to flash his fake ID and have a beer with me. None of that long weekend changed when he lost his inner battle with depression.
Death is not about the past, or even about the now, it is about the lost future. There was no 21 year old Daniel to have that first legal beer. There will not be a “real job” Daniel, a husband, a father, a 40 year old cynic, and maybe a joyous fan at a future cathartic Falcons Super Bowl win. He wasn’t at Sanford Stadium for what would have been his graduating semester at UGA for their national championship.
But in an odd way, we “lose” people close to us all the time without the finality and tragedy of an early death. For parents of adult children, those cute toddlers are gone. They have gradually changed, bit by bit, into new people. Sure their DNA is the same and you see similarities in their faces, but most of their personality and those interactions are missing, other than by memory. This is the root of sadness at the empty nest — your “children” are on the way to being gone, replaced by adults. My older two sons are healthy adults, but their cute Kindergarten selves are no longer here.
So what about us? Think again about 10 year old you. If you could bring him/her magically into the present and stick them inside your brain, would they recognize themselves? Maybe just a little. But I would argue that for the most part our 10 year old selves are in a way “dead” — other than memories.
Life, and death, are about change. A no-warning suicide of a child is the most jarring and sudden change possible. But April 2020 Daniel did not take the life of 5 year old Daniel, or 10 year old Daniel, or the 19 year old Daniel who bowed up at the drunk Philly fan who was dissing Julio Jones. Depression didn’t take the life of the best companion and confidant that he was to so many of his inner circle of friends during high school and college years. No. It robbed us of the future Daniel, and what he would have become.
Throughout most of history, it was not that uncommon for children to move or travel and thus be “gone” forever, though still alive on this globe. There was no means of communication. Daniel has travelled to the next life with our Heavenly Father. I do believe I will see him again, in a different plane of existence. But there is no letter I can write or call I can make now.
Toby Mac, the Christian singer, lost his young adult son just months before we lost Daniel. He wrote the song “21” about it. I lift up this line to all those who loved Daniel and all who have lost loved ones too soon.
21 years, I love every one
Thank you, Lord, for my beautiful son
So thanks Daniel for the memories that I will always have. You too were a beautiful son.