Standing Together: A Father’s Reflection on Early Grief
The dogs are barking less with fewer people coming to the front door. The flowers have mostly run their course, a few bouquets, late in coming, are still alive with color, but are beginning to wilt. The food is eaten, and various snacks litter the kitchen landscape- even in grief there are limits to how many snacks one can eat in good conscience.
The beautiful, heartfelt cards have slowed in arriving, text messages are scant, the emails, gone too. My phone rings less. I frequently talk with my wife, daughter, to my mom, a little less so with my brother, and I stay in touch with our sons living out of state. They are not big talkers.
I knew this day would come. But the silence, the “bounce” as my neighbor describes it, arrived more quickly than I anticipated.
Most family and friends want to get on with their lives, regain their own balance, and move forward. This is completely understandable, I would too.
Understand, we (my wife and I) can’t move forward that fast. To be fair, I am okay with this period of relative silence. I need the time and space to process, reflect, and grieve. It’s important to me, in honor of my son, that I make as most sense out of this as I can. I am spending a lot of time going through Coop’s digital history looking for clues, trying to make sense of things. In fact, there are some things coming up that, while hard, are filling in the gaps.
My wife is home, she has been off work from teaching her “littles,” as have I, and we spend a lot of time together talking and reflecting. We do tend to end up talking in circles sometimes, but I think this is okay. We are processing together. While I am weepy in the morning, my wife is weepy in the evening. We are working through our grief in different ways and at different speeds. I need to make sense of this, my wife spends time looking at pictures and feeling. I create timelines and read through texts and emails, my wife sends pictures for printing at Walgreens.
I am still shocked by how suddenly Cooper vanished, he was here one moment, and gone the next. I had a hamburger and a beer with him Saturday at a tailgate party, and then Sunday morning, gone.
As I previously wrote, the finality of losing him is crushing. Man, it hurts. It hurts me too because I know, I believe, with quality therapy and good medical care there more than likely would have been a different outcome.
Friends ask, “how are you doing?” In truth, I think I am doing okay. I am being sincere. As I respond to this question when it’s asked, I wonder, what’s the barometer for losing a child, the gauge, to know how you are really doing? What is my basis of comparison? While I think I am doing “okay,” I have no past life experience to draw from to compare this event to.
Friends, I will explore counseling or grief therapy, I am not against it. My wife has already scheduled a meeting with a counselor. She’s on it, I applaud her. I am still “feeling”- not thinking- about how I want to process this loss in a manner best for me.
Some days, I just feel like getting in the car and driving for a long, long time. A road trip. Road trips allow for that quiet processing time, just thinking it through.
Sure, I have had hard times in my life. I wonder, maybe hard time x 1, plus hard time x 2, plus hard time x 3 creates an ability to deal with hard times no matter the context? I mean to say, I have had some steeling in my life and I think this has helped me.
I am walking 30 minutes per day, eating decent food and a reasonable amount, drinking water, sleeping reasonably well, reading, praying, and otherwise caring for myself and my family. My wife is doing the same. Oddly, I do find that I am drinking coffee throughout the entire day, this is new for me. It seems I have to have something in my hand.
I have a morning routine. I get up, take the dogs out, pick up the house a bit, start the coffee. I am still cracking the window and turning the lights on in Coop’s room, you know, so his soul can visit. I light a candle and say my prayers for Cooper and for all of our family and friends, for healing in this grief.
Our long, wooden dining room table has become an alter. Pictures of Cooper, crosses, ceramic Cardinals, water color paintings, angels, candles, the Bible, and flowers cover the table. This is where I pray my morning prayers, after lighting the candle for the day.
I am functioning, but I do notice I have a diminished capacity for sustained cognitive activity and remembering. I can’t work through mental complexity as I have normally been able to do. My normally poor listening skills are at an all time low. What?
My emotions come in waves, and they are difficult to name. I am not sure where and how to describe these emotions showing up in my body. I am dealing with emotions I have never had.
On some days, I feel good, I have hope for a brighter future in the midst of this suffering. I know there is a positive future ahead of me. I say a new mantra out loud to myself, “the best days of my life are ahead of me.” I know I am sort of lying to myself in saying this, but my brain is pretty naive, it believes the things I tell it, funnily, even when it knows itself it’s being deft.
In some moments, on given days, I do realize in absolute clarity what a huge, life shattering event this really is, and I can’t even hide it from myself.
The magnitude of losing my son hits me hard, and I weep, in my grief. I loved him, I miss him, and I am heartbroken he was in so much pain and I did not know the depth of it. He was such a good soul with such a bright future ahead of him.
I know this sudden, tragic event has impacted many, many people- friends and family. We, as parents, are not the only ones grieving. All of us are. We all hurt, and I know this.
Here we are then, standing together. And I think, if I didn’t know any better, that for today, standing together is a noble act.
Written by bereaved father, Kelly McCoy.
About the Author
Kelly McCoy is husband to Tori, 30 years, and father of four children: Connor, Carson, Cooper, and Alina Grace. Cooper, 23, recently took his own life and Kelly is learning how to navigate the complex spiritual, emotional, and mental landscape of child loss. Kelly is a retired fire officer, faculty member, and state fire training director. In the wake of the recent loss of his son, Kelly resigned his position at the University of Kansas to focus on healing. Kelly does not know what comes next, but he would like to help young men and prevent this from happening, and help other parents in the initial throws of chaos. Read more from Kelly and his grief journey at www.endure.blog