Light. Dark. Light Again

Thoughts on Death, Life, and Belonging

Photo by Grant McIver on Unsplash

“Rise, fall, rise, life, death, life again
Sky, ground, sky, light, dark, light again”

—Angie McMahon, “Light, Dark, Light Again”

“How odd I can have all of this inside me and to you it’s just words.”

—David Foster Wallace

I don't know how to adequately express what is awakening over these past few days, but I’ll try.

Light

Last Wednesday, March 25th, was by all accounts just another day. I woke up, went to the gym, came home, got my youngest up for school, and then drank more coffee than I should while scrolling social media.

My algorithm fetched world events mixed with conversations around faith for my viewing pleasure, or displeasure. It’s a mixed bag as of late. There was the usual menu of the war, ICE, and whatever ridiculousness came from the White House. And then there was the topic of whether or not a pastor explicitly prayed for God to kill James Talarico. I found myself wondering the same question I always have when I see anyone speak so flippantly about death—those of faith, or otherwise—what do they know about death?

We’re all familiar with the concept. The late-night phone call that generally only means one thing. Dropping the family pet off at the vet, knowing we won’t be returning. Taking a half day to attend a coworker’s celebration of life service. We all understand that death is a reality. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about sitting in the room and bearing witness to death. The choppy gasps of breath. The shallow rising of the chest as the body lets go. The threshold that’s crossed when someone you know becomes someone you knew.

I think back to my first experience bearing witness to the active dying process. A high school junior with terminal cancer. The family surrounding his hospital bed. The nurses moving to untether his body from the machines that stood between him and what comes next. The slowness with which they moved. A holy pace, the family’s eyes following their every move until his body was free enough to be held. They paused and gave the family time to situate themselves around his body. No shirt. Shaved head. Striped pajama pants with a drawstring. Hands reaching toward arm, chest, cheek, hand — anything that allowed human to fully touch human.

The collective dam that had held back the grief behind tightened throats began to give way. The muffled private cries that squeaked past clenched teeth became a chorus of sorrow as they held his frail body tight. The nurses waited. The mother and father locked eyes, tears spilling down their faces — she nodded and took a deep breath. His father looked up and relayed the nod to the nurse, signaling she could remove the ventilator.

“Bye, Dad!” The words interrupted my thoughts as my youngest son waved and walked out the front door. I put my phone away and began to gather my things. Today had the potential to be a great day. My oldest son had an interview with the Shawnee Fire Department and I had an accreditation call with a denominational network that I was really hoping to join. In all my carpe diem eagerness, I left the house to run by the bank, completely oblivious to the fact that it wasn’t even 8am yet.

Dark

It was the spacing that alerted me something was off. As I sat waiting for the light to change, I noticed that the traffic pattern seemed unbalanced. The red became green and almost as soon as the traffic began to move, the brake lights appeared. One after another. Then it was right-hand blinkers.

Steam slithered up from the engine block like wispy white snakes before evaporating into the morning. The vehicle resting over the curb, the front quarter seemingly just gone. Deployed airbags draped the interior. Another vehicle spun sideways in the street. Women in scrubs made their way toward one car and then the next. I pulled into the lot of an office park.

As I crossed the street, the tiniest fragments of fiberglass, plastic, and glass scraped against my sandaled feet. A woman stood on the fence line relaying questions from the 911 operator to the women trying to access the vehicle that took the brunt of the damage. Another woman had parked her vehicle across the two northbound lanes to protect the car still in the street. The driver’s door was open and three women were attending to the driver.

The attention moved to the other car where the driver was trapped. We could see enough to know he was a young kid. Maybe a student. I asked a woman who was somewhat orchestrating this band of good Samaritans how I could assist. She said she’d know in just a moment. They had managed to open a back door enough for a woman to climb in the vehicle. Just then she backpedaled out of the backseat and relayed there was a faint pulse. The woman on the fence line heard the first part and yelled hopefully into the phone, “He has a pulse! Please hurry!” The woman from the backseat continued, “There’s no respiratory excursion.” I didn’t understand the medical term, but I read the body language of the two women.

The downward glances. The reassuring half-smiles exchanged that say “I saw you try.” We moved back toward the other vehicle, stepping over a kicker subwoofer thrown fifteen yards into the side yard of a residential home as sirens approached from the distance.

I had nothing to offer anyone medically. My training consists of being CPR certified seven years ago. So, I did all I knew how to do. I prayed. Honestly, I don’t really know how to pray with words anymore. So, I don’t. But I probably pray more now than I ever have. It just looks different. I pray with my attention. My presence. I pray by not looking away.

So, I fell back and decided that I would stay and bear witness to this moment. To be with this young man in hopes that somehow it might change…change, what? I don’t know. But I thought of my children and I thought of the premise of my faith—wanting for others what you would want for yourself. And I knew I would want someone…even a stranger to be with my child. So, I stayed.

As the first responders came. As they freed him from the wreckage. As they placed him beside the vehicle. As they had us move thirty yards away, I didn’t take my eyes off him or those working on him until they brought out a faint blue square. Pulled it from its packaging and then let the Oklahoma wind unfurl it, doubling in size, again, and again, until it was completely unfolded and draped over him — starting at his feet and then up to his blonde hair gently swaying in unison with the grass beneath him.

I held back the tears as I made my way back across the street to my car. The yellow ribbon taped off all road access, but an officer was kind enough to hold it up enough for me to drive under it and make my way to the bank parking lot, where the sorrow washed over me.

Eventually I went in and made my deposit. Then I drove home and woke my son up so I could hug him and cry a little in his arms.

I told him he was signing up for a hard job.

“I know, Dad. But I’m built for it,” he said softly, but with the confidence needed to assure me he’d be okay. I nodded, smiled, and hugged him again before I left his room.

I made it all the way to our living room before I broke again. Not having the heart to tell him I’m not sure anyone is built for that.

Light Again

I drove to the place I office. I followed up on a couple of emails, responded to a few texts, all of which seemed a bit absurd in comparison to what I assume was happening somewhere else in the city. Somewhere, next of kin were being contacted. Rumors were beginning to circulate. The news channels picked up the story and people began texting those they knew in the area. We received a few ourselves. I’m self-aware enough to know that I’m great at compartmentalizing uncomfortable emotions, but not as good at revisiting them once I’ve stuffed them away. “Conceal, don’t feel” was a mantra I’d once borrowed from a Disney Princess for pastoral practice. Be a calm and empathetic presence in the moment, fall apart with your people afterwards. Truth be told, there was rarely an afterwards.

But I know better now. So, I called my wife and we talked through it. I messaged a dear friend who has her own history with grief and death, and asked her to share with others in our community so I didn't have to rehash the morning verbally — her idea. I’m lucky to have these people in my corner and I wonder who the kid had in his — who they have in theirs to walk with them.

I contemplated reaching out to The Curian Network to reschedule my credentials call, but decided against it. I then mulled over whether or not to share this experience on the call. One of the people who would be on the call lost his daughter in a car accident. In fact, in a roundabout way, it’s how we got connected. His book, Indigo, the Color of Grief, has become a staple in my pastoral toolkit. I decided I’d let the call be what the call decided to be. If it comes up, fine. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too.

The call came and went. My new friend Jonathan and I had a great conversation that ended with my acceptance into The Curian Network. The accident didn’t come up. Within ten minutes of the call ending, the tears resumed, but this time they were a hybrid of grief and joy.

The first time I recall slipping into a full-on depression was the beginning of my freshman year of college. The people who had been my tribe for five years or more were now scattered across different campuses, in different cities, some in different states. The security of belonging had been replaced with the fear of abandonment. I might have been a six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound freshman, but inside I was that lonely six-year-old again.

With the covers pulled tight over my head to keep the sun from reminding me that the world was moving on, I lamented what I’d lost. When you spend your life searching for water and find the sea, the prospect of the desert feels like death.

From that point on the pattern continued, only this time of my own choosing. New job, new city, new friends, new “me” like clockwork every two years or so.

It wasn’t until I came to faith in Jesus-land — aka the evangelical megachurch — that I dared to try to belong again. And we did…until we didn’t. Belonging often comes with a shelf life.

It’s been three years since I left the manufactured safety of Jesus-land for the risky but worth-it terrain of the beloved community…the kin’dom. And while our little community has been the most life-giving community I’ve ever known, we’ve often felt like an island — beautiful, but disconnected from the larger shore.

But in this moment, to find another tribe who not only accepted our mission to love people without an agenda, but welcomed it — welcomed me — felt like being home again.

I closed my eyes and thought of the people in my circle. I saw their faces. My heart held their names. I noticed that what I was feeling towards them — these people I know well and who know me well too — wasn’t much different than the feeling I’d felt all morning for a young man I’ve never met. Belonging.

So, I stayed with all of it this last week.

With my friend’s baby napping on my chest.

With each report of an escalating war.

With dear friends and conversations over chips and queso.

With a young man I never met, at the scene of an accident.

With a new community, and an unexpected welcome home.

Grief and joy.

Dark and light.

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I’m sure there’s a truth in all of this, but words fall short of those truths that insist on being experienced rather than explained. But like those scrub-adorned angels I met last Wednesday…I tried.