I remember the feeling like it was yesterday, though it has only been two years. We just came off the most difficult night in our lives, as a family. My son, Brandon, after many difficulties with his health, went home to Jesus the night before, at the age of 24. It was sudden and very shocking. While we worried about him, we never saw it coming so suddenly. Honestly, how can you ever prepare for the loss of a loved one, especially a child?

The day was such a shock, and I believe for much of that evening at the hospital, I was numb and not sure what to feel. I shed some tears but was there a good bit of the night consoling my wife Amber, Brandon’s fiancé Courtney, our other kids, Shawn and Ashley, and father in-law, Dennis. I had conversations with family and friends that came to sit with us, but then the hanging question of what next, was on my mind. The logistics, if you will.

After about 4 or 5 hours there, we head home. We are still in shock, and I was running on pure adrenaline at this point. I do not know I kept myself going, otherwise. We get home exhausted, try to eat a little, but then settle in, not sure if we will even be able to sleep. I think I did a little bit, but then it came to the new morning.

I remember this so vividly. I wake up that Wednesday morning and swing my legs over the side of the bed to sit up. I am looking out of my bedroom window into the dark and then it came. It started with a few tears and then my body started shaking. Suddenly a wale comes from me that was unlike anything I ever remembered. It was a tidal wave that I could not stop. It was what I would describe as a cry from the soul. Amber sat up suddenly and wrapped her arms around me and we sat there in the dark and cried together.

I have had tearful moments in my life. I remember the funeral home, the night before my dad’s funeral, sitting in the parlor and the emotions of that week overwhelming me. Also, both times my wife was hospitalized and we did not know if she was even going to survive. This was something different. It was a soulful grieving that I feel my heart, soul, and spirit needed to be able to move into the, what next. It was almost like a reset into what was now going to be a new way of life and new perspective on things.

So much of that week in the days following were such a blur, from the visit with the funeral home, making arrangements, and people that visited and even the day of his celebration of life service. It all went so fast. Almost, too fast. 

As I sit here, 2 years later, I look at that moment the morning after as a time for God to just surround me and get me ready for what was to come. That soul cry was a release that needed to happen, if I was going to be able to keep moving. Each day from here on, was going to be different. Knowing my son was no longer in this world. Knowing there are conversations I would have loved to have with him but no longer can. Knowing that this life keeps moving on and somehow, we must find a way to do so, as well, as difficult as it is and was to do.

I know we all have or will have moments of consequence like this. Those mornings where you wake up following a major heartache and must find a way to keep your life moving through the pain and suffering. These are moments with God. Holy moments, if you will, where it may not look like part of the healing, but it can help that begin. That cry of the soul is, sometimes, exactly what is needed in that moment.

I think this may look differently for everyone. This was mine. If it comes, my encouragement to you, is to let it. Let those tears flow. Augustine wrote, “The tears…streamed down, and I let them flow freely as they would, making them a pillow for my heart. On them it rested.” Allow it to come and invite God to love you in that place.                

Many other emotions can and will come, but when this comes, don’t hold it back, let it ride. I firmly believe that this one moment, for me and my life, through all the pain that I have experienced, helped to set the stage and prepare my heart for what was to come.