Losing a son is hard

Friday morning, around 4 AM, I got a call I was afraid I might get over the years, but had not really thought would actually happen.

The kid was super-sweet when he kept on his meds, a little bit slow. If he missed the meds he was “off” but when he was taking them as he was supposed to do, he was the sweetest kid, just a bit slower than most of us, though not utterly stupid. He was easy to like, and he just simply liked everybody. He was also a bit gullible, and wanted everybody to like him, a desire common to most of us.

In his good moments, which were most of them, he spoke to everyone he could about Jesus and how much God loves them and whether they were “saved”, trying to share something precious he knew was good for them.

He didn’t always understand why things didn’t go the way he thought they were supposed to, so he often met with disillusions.

He had been in a group home, and had a relatively stable situation with professionals around him who understood him but who were trying to let him learn his own way forward as much as possible. Let’s say it this way: there was no better situation for him than there.

But the Christmas week was a bit much, I guess. This time, he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t go where he wanted to when he left the hospital this time, went off on his own and was later found by the police.

I’m totally bummed about it and like I think most parents would, I wonder what else I could have done different, and all kinds of things run through my head. But this scenario has run through my mind a hundred times over the years, and I guess I can pull out a quote from Job, “That which I was afraid of has come upon me”.

And it’s the same regret you always think about, I wish I had spent more time with him.

But in review, I think it was inevitable it would turn out this way someday. He was in his own world, in a way, and like one brother consoled me with, “It seemed like there was nowhere for him to go”.

His friend Chris spoke to me in shock, a former neighbor and real friend who was irritated with the people that tried to take advantage of him, because he was a trusting soul. He said David had inspired him, sharing verses with him, and watching “Bible on DVD” with him, a video with quizzes for learning scripture.

He is survived by both his mother and father, and by fourteen brothers and sisters by parentage and by marriage all of whom loved him dearly and cried hard when they heard the news and will miss him.

I did my share of crying too, and I will miss our days together, as we all will.

A lot of people have called me and expressed their condolences, and I appreciate it much. I thank God I have my wife and children who love me and they help me through this time.

Let us appreciate each other here among the living in this world. This is my takeaway from this. To treasure my time with the ones I love.

And I will see him again:

I Thessalonians 4:16-18 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God [is] faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear [it].

17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Isaiah 55: 6 # Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

8 # For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

9 For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

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