Elizabeth Brady has spent the 12 years since the sudden death of her young son, Mack, thinking and writing about grief. In a new collection of essays, the Penn State professor shares what she’s learned about pain, perspective, and acceptance.
The following essays appear in Oil for Your Lantern: Sharing Light After the Death of a Child, published last November by Sunbury Press, with the exception of “The Fierce Winter of 2013,” which is published here for the first time.
Mack was here and then he was gone. A whole part of me was severed. After years of constant love, daily care, laughter, energy, how does one survive such an amputation?
Our son, Mack, died suddenly of a blood infection on New Year’s Eve 2012. He was two weeks shy of his 9th birthday. My husband, Christian, our 15-year-old daughter, Izzy, and I were surrounded by family and friends who shared our shock and broken hearts.
In the days after Mack died, there was tremendous energy uplifting us. We heard from friends and family far and wide who came to be with us, and others who reached out on social media to share their sorrow. Somehow, we managed to address the practical demands of the funeral home arrangements, obituary, coffin selection, burial plots, and church service details.
When I read that the banquet of heaven will feel more like a wake than a wedding, it felt right to me. Upon reflection, I think it’s because there is a refreshing authenticity in the wake of death when difficult relationships are softened and old hurts melt away for a time. Perhaps it is a glimpse of our own homecoming, when all the crooked places will be made straight.
But there are also excruciatingly quiet moments.
These first days and hours of loneliness were a foretaste of life in the months beyond death. The casserole train eventually ends, energy and relationships that expanded for a time contract, and time trudges on whether or not we are prepared for it.
In the nights after Mack died, I lay in my spot on the left side of the bed, on my left side. I had cried so many tears they had dried up. One night, I was exhausted, dozing, regarding the winter moonlight streaming into the room underneath the shade.
“Mom. Mom!” Mack roused me. I heard him clearly. More than 10 years later, as I write this, I can recall this moment, his voice. It is seared into my memory. I opened my eyes widely to listen.
“Yes, I’m here,” I answered, not out loud, but clearly inside.
“Tell Z,” he said.
Z was a friend of his who was special to him. Z knew Mack had died, and I sensed he wanted me to assure Z of his love.
“I will,” I said.
I lay there for a long time, every hair on my body alert.
“I love you, Mack.”
He said nothing more directly to me that night, but I was strangely, deeply, comforted by a certain knowledge of his familiar presence.
The next morning, I got up early, filled my mug with coffee, and sat at my desk. I had formed a practice of morning prayer, reading, and writing in my journal during 10 months as a short-term missionary in West Africa many years earlier. Time and spaciousness in the quiet hours continue to be my life’s single most nourishing habits.
But that morning was different. After Mack spoke to me, I knew he was still there and that the bridge to him was within my soul. What had always been an enjoyable morning ritual of peaceful reflection became a lifeline.
I said out loud: “God, I am knocking, loudly, on your door. I know I can’t follow Mack, but I hear him, I feel his presence, I sense his love. I want to know more. I want to understand. I don’t want to be afraid of my own life. Help me to enter in. Help me.”
Over the years, I have written my way toward greater clarity and a deepening understanding of living with Mack’s death. I am still learning.
I am a Christian, and I write through the lens of an active faith. I have found great wisdom and practical help in the contemplative writers of old and new. As an Episcopalian, I write through the seasons and celebrations of the liturgical calendar. I have no spiritual agenda other than to share how, after Mack’s death, I was abruptly tossed through a threshold into a disorienting new terrain that I am still finding my way to be in.
When I first began reading and actively engaging with the writings and the communities of bereaved parents, I was frankly exhausted by the idea that bereavement is measured in decades. The fact that grief enters your whole remaining life flies in the face of our consumer culture that urges us to fix, numb, or ignore the pain of death. The truth is, the death of our loves is something we learn to carry throughout our own remaining lives. It is endless, as is our love for them and their love for us.
I had a vivid dream shortly after Mack died. I walked into our house through the front door and immediately realized we had been robbed. I made my way tentatively through each familiar room, surveying overturned furniture, shattered lamps. I noted the computers were taken, and the silver.
But something inside assured me that they didn’t make it upstairs.
On New Year’s Eve 2012, we canceled our plans because Mack had what we thought was the flu, and we were looking forward to a quiet evening by the fire. We did not know, and we will never know, why or how an infection entered the bloodstream of our athletic, vibrant, almost 9-year-old son and stole his life in a matter of hours. I had never heard of “sepsis” before Mack died and did not know that it is a silent killer that arrives like a thief.
When I had this dream, it seemed obvious to me that we had been robbed of a beautiful person in our lives and the joy of watching Mack grow and continue to achieve his dreams. It wasn’t until later, as I began to learn to live with the loss of Mack, that I came to appreciate that the thieves did not make it upstairs.
Our upstairs is intimate. In our home, built in the 1970s, the four bedrooms are separated by a narrow hallway, carpeted down the middle, making it cozy and warmer than the rest of the house.
My husband traveled frequently, so the kids and I would often head upstairs early and take our showers, put on our jammies, and snuggle together in our king-sized bed to read or watch The Voice when it was in season.
It is an intoxicating feeling, one I can close my eyes and recall with ease: my arms around each of them, their heads resting on my shoulders, Mack’s hair tickling my nose, Izzy smelling like baby powder, so safe and warm and peaceful.
On that afternoon of New Year’s Eve 2012, I scooped Mack into my arms and carried him upstairs for a bath before his dad took him to the doctor’s office.
“My Romeo,” I said to him, then kissed him, bathed him, and dressed him in his favorite D.C. United sweatshirt, an everyday act that now seems sacred.
I have learned that death doesn’t rob us of everything. Some areas of ourselves are untouchable, even to death.
The upstairs of life remains. My love for our children, our most intimate moments of care: bath, bedtime stories, prayers, nights of sickness, hurtful days at school, hiding treats and notes under their pillows, sneaking in to watch them when they sleep. All these remain.
Death stole none of these; the memories have come into sharp relief as unreachable treasures outside of death’s grasp. Love is stronger than death, and this awareness has empowered me.
Death is a downstairs thief.
The kids’ bus stop was at the end of our small cul-de-sac, in view from our living room window. I returned from campus by 3:15 p.m. each day to meet Mack and, later, Iz, when her bus dropped her off at 4 p.m., before the whirlwind of evening activities and homework.
In the early days of January after Mack died, I would stand in the window at 3:15 and watch the bus pull up, the kids run off, but Mack wasn’t there. I felt like a woman on the widow’s walk of her house, waiting for the ship to return to the harbor, knowing full well it would not.
How often had I watched Mack get off the bus, run across the street, and then slowly walk down the cul-de-sac with his baseball cap pulled tightly on his head and his backpack fastened across the front of his chest? He knew I was watching him and would sometimes break into dance or stick his tongue out for my delight. I would open the garage, and he would walk up, kick off his shoes, hang his hat and backpack, lift his cheek for a kiss, and dive onto the couch.
Our good friend, who happens to be a psychiatrist, visited us for a few days in late January, shortly after Mack’s death. He asked me how I was doing, and I shared with him that there were key points in the day when Mack’s absence was overwhelming for me: in the early morning, and at 3:15 p.m. when we shared time alone each day.
“Change your routine,” he suggested.
Instead of coming home, I offered to pick up Iz when the high school let out at 3:17 p.m. She was pleased to have a warm car waiting for her and to forgo the 45-minute bus trip!
This change became a new, enjoyable ritual Iz and I kept throughout the rest of high school. I was amazed by how much she shared about her school day, having just walked out the doors instead of enduring the bus ride to detox on the way home.
“I like that you’re here for me, Mom,” she said one day, the snow swirling as we drove to the coffee shop drive-thru for afternoon beverages.
“Me too, babe,” I said casually.
But my mind raced with all kinds of thoughts from Mack’s wake, when a friend whispered to me that, when he was Iz’s age, his own brother had died, and his parents essentially died as well.
“It was like collateral damage,” he said. “I lost all of them.”
When my phone alarm vibrated in the winter months after Mack died, I would lie there in the dark for an instant before the reality of Mack’s death washed over me—again.
“God help me,” I said out loud every morning. “Truly, help me. I will not lose one child to death and the other to my grief. Help me be the parent Iz deserves.”
I would sit up in bed, then lift one leg at a time to place my feet firmly on the floor and will myself to stand. And every morning, I repeated a little ditty I’d picked up in my reading:
“How do I respond to fear? Face Everything And Rise, or Fear Everything And Run. It is my choice.”
Rise. Rise. And rise again.
I smile when I recall many wintry days teaching Public Speaking in the Thomas Building. Everyone was bundled up in stadium coats. Wet, snowy boots squeaked down the hallways of the general classroom building. Between classes, many students stretched out and snoozed on the long wooden benches that lined the walls, their backpacks tucked under their heads as makeshift pillows.
The winter of 2013 was particularly frigid. I remember it well because our son, Mack, had died suddenly on New Year’s Eve 2012 of sepsis, two weeks shy of his ninth birthday. In an effort to regain some sense of normalcy, I returned to the classroom having missed only the first week of classes. I taught three classes in Thomas throughout the day, so I packed my backpack each day like a day camper: books, papers, computer, change of shoes, cans of seltzer, and my lunch.
I came to recognize several other students who had similar schedules. Over the weeks we assigned ourselves designated benches, and we would smile and say hello but largely kept to ourselves. One student I have never forgotten was a veteran—a double amputee with two prosthetic legs. Many times I watched as other students or staff would come upon him in the hallway and stop: “Dude. Respect,” and shake his hand.
I felt that Mack had been amputated from my life. I was in deep pain, barely holding it all together. In shock that Mack had died. Exhausted by what lay ahead for me and our family as we learned to live again.
It struck me how often we can’t see each other’s wounds so visibly. But, once we give one another a chance to speak out loud in a safe space, something awakens within us. It is the discovery of our voice. It is like sap in a tree, it is there, but it takes freeze and thaw to help it emerge. I have heard again and again the emergence of a student’s voice. It is empowering. Listening to the students share their stories helped me to find my voice again.
One day in late February 2013 the snow was blowing sideways. Most students did not brave the weather. There were a few of us regulars scattered around the benches in Thomas, including the veteran. He made his way down the hallway to his bench and sat down carefully. He said hello as he shook the snow off his hat and coat. Then, he pulled a towel out of his backpack and wiped down his prosthetic legs.
“They don’t like the cold,” he announced to us in the hallway, to no one in particular.
I watched him tend gently to himself. I was moved by his dedication. He kept showing up. And, I decided that if he could show up to life and care for what had come to him—not what he deserved—not what should be, but what is—then I could keep showing up, too. I only wish I could thank him in person.
We hosted a college graduation party at our house for our nephew in May 2014, roughly a year and a half after Mack died. My husband’s family came, including his 95-year-old great-grandmother and all four grandparents in various levels of physical health. Five generations gathered on our back porch to celebrate.
I sat next to my beautiful 16-year-old Izzy, listening to the toasts and thinking that, before too long, she would be graduating from high school and heading to college. But our sweet Mack was not there. Mack: hilariously funny, silly, and determined, is ever present, ever absent to me.
It is a real tension those of us who are bereaved understand. We are keen to celebrate the joys of life with family and friends, and we are all allowed to live! But, I have grown another eye that senses another space and time—with Mack, in the eternal.
As I prepared the flowers, organized the buffet table, and filled the pitcher with ice cubes, I sensed Mack’s presence. He loved when we entertained. I recalled a sentiment from Martha Whitmore Hickman’s book, Healing After Loss. “Keep the door to your soul open” to your beloved. During that time, I carried Whitman’s book in my purse and read it for a little daily courage. I learned from Whitman to allow these moments, not to dismiss them or explain them away.
I felt Mack’s joy and smiled through my tears, remembering how he skipped around the house, complained about having to dress up, filled bowls of Fritos and munched on the extras, and huffed that lighting candles was still the realm of his big sister. I laughed out loud at one point during the day, remembering when he told me guests would be “personally offended” if I served them stuffed grape leaves for appetizers.
I miss you, I whispered out loud to him. I love you, Mackie.
Once the last guest left, I was exhausted and had to rest on my bed. My daughter curled up next to me, reading funny stories from Buzzfeed. I chuckled to encourage her to read more, but I really just liked the sound of her voice.
Each fall, as Facebook posts fill up with photos of the first day of the new school year, it is easy for each post to be a poignant reminder that there are no new photos of Mack. Every milestone is an opportunity for self-pity. After I shed some tears, I take back the emotional reins, log off from Facebook for a few days, and center myself again.
Meanwhile, I come to my desk every morning with a cup of coffee and spend time in prayer. I read. I think of Mack. I picture his face, I remember a moment, I laugh, I cry. Then, I ask God to help me choose gratitude for his beautiful self, his beautiful life, for life with my daughter and husband, for this day. And tomorrow, I will be back here at my desk, and I will need to choose gratitude again.
In Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Lament for a Son, he reflected on the passage of time after the death of his 25-year-old son Eric in 1983:
Rather often I am asked whether the grief remains as intense as when I wrote. The answer is, No. The wound is no longer raw. But, it has not disappeared. That is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is worth grieving over. … Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides. So, I own my grief. I do not try to put it behind me, to get over it, to forget it. … Every lament is a love song.
As I approach the 12th year of life beyond Mack’s death, I still fill my coffee in a glass mug each morning and sit at my desk to rendezvous in the spaciousness of the quiet hours. I am surrounded by my books, journal, Bible, photos. Icons, sticky notes full of quotes, the titles of more books to be read, and even my own modern memento mori in the form of a brightly colored skull planter with a succulent.
Soon after Mack died, I knew I would find him in this space, and I have. It is a journey of endless discovery.
“If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it,” wrote Richard Rohr. And that is the hard but necessary daily work of ownership that each of us must take on ourselves.
The dailiness of life is just as necessary in our physical lives as in our spiritual lives. Just as I need to attend to the daily and unending care and keeping of my body, people, home, job, pets, and plants, I have an unending need for connection, prayer, scripture reading, and reminders each morning that I am loved by God.
In this space, I come to lament, as love song, in memories, tears, and laughter, to face the truth of Mack’s absence and presence in my life. Mack still is. My time here is not done. Our story is not yet finished.
I wish I could tell you there is a quota in life for suffering, but I don’t think there is. Loved ones continue to be born and die, people get sick, there are weddings and graduations, relationships fall apart, and some are renewed.
In short: life continues in all of its beauty and terror. But maybe I am a little less afraid.
Within all of this, we can only control our response. It is our great power, our only power. “God spares us from nothing, while unexplainably sustaining us in all things,” James Finley wrote in The Healing Path.
One of the yellow stickies on my desktop is a quote from St. Francis of Assisi, and I say it out loud each morning as I wrap up my journal and prayers:
“God, help me do what is mine to do.”
And I wish the same for you.
Elizabeth Brady is an associate teaching professor of Communication Arts and Sciences in the College of the Liberal Arts.
