A Guiltless Sign

Each day I do what I have to get through the day- and I do...mostly. But there are some days, the bad days, that I become so overwelmed that I cannot function. I understand that my son is dead. I understand that he chose to take his own life. I finally have come to understand that it wasn't my fault. But what I fail to understand is the whys....
Why did Jeff have to die?
Why did he choose to kill himself?
Why did he choose death over life?
Why couldn't he let us help him?
But mostly why did he do this to our family?
It is on these days that I find myself wandering to the cemetary to have a heart to heart with my God and my son. Not long ago, on a day when I was pretty sure I couldn't get through just one more day, that I had had it with God and this whole idea of living with suicide I went to the cemetary.
 The cemetary is quiet. It is lonely. But it is also a place where many come to visit their loved ones. Not that they are really there, but for some reason it makes us feel closer to the person we miss so much.
I told God that day, that I was dying inside, that the guilt was killing me. The awful guilt that many paople have made me feel. That I was somehow responsible for my son's death. People can be so cruel and through the course of Jeff's death- people have said many cruel things which I have been able to ignore except those directed at my parenting skills. Those comments have hurt me so deeply that i believe on some level that I will never recover from them. And it is with this agony that I went to my Lord and Savior and asked Him for a sign that this wasn't my fault. I begged Him really. I was sobbing on my knees on Jeff's grave, pulling weeds, trying to clean up my boy's only home.
Please, Lord, please...this cannot be my fault. It cannot be. I cannot mother anymore...I cannot function anymore...I do not want to eat or sleep....I do not want to laugh...I do not want to go anywhere or get outta bed or get a shower...I cannot even love... this is destroying me...totally destroying me...I am dying Lord, dying...do You care? Is this the life You want for me? I have to have a sign God...a sign from You...if this is not my fault than I want You to send me a person, right here, right now- who knew Jeff, who knew our situation, and I need them to tell me that Jeff didn't kill himself because of me...if You don't give me this sign- then I will dy inside...I already am...
And I wept. I wept so long and so hard that I could barely see. My face was buried in my hands and I was so overcome with guilt and grief that I hadn't even looked up. I hadn't even heard a thing.
And then I looked up. And there, sitting at the end of cemetary drive was one of Jeff's good friends, Dustin. He was on his motorcycle. He was there waiting. Just waiting. I hadn't even heard him. I didn't know how long he'd been there. I only knew he was there, and I knew that God had sent him.- sent him for me.
I wiped my face. I crept into my car. I drove to the end of the drive. Dustin came and met me. And I cried. "Do you know why you are here?," I said to him.
He looked at me with that soft, winning, boyish grin,"Well, it's been about a month and I felt like I just needed to come today..."
"Dustin, I prayed for you to come...you are an answer to prayer. I asked God to send someone to me that knew Jeff well and who could tell me that this wasn't my fault..." and I began to weep.
"This is not your fault...it never was. There was just something that was wrong...I don't know what. But no one blames you ...Jeff didn't do this because of you...he just did it..." and we talked and he shared and I felt the guilt lift and I felt God's peace and presence all around me. And as I spoke to this boy, this young man who was sharing about my son, I became so thankful for these friends of Jeff's who stood by him through thick and thin. I saw them not as children, but as people who may have kept Jeff alive for a couple more years. If it wasn't for these young people, Jeff wouldn't have survived as long as he did.
As I watched Dustin drive to have his time with Jeff, I left my time with him, feeling the first true peace I had felt in months. I asked God for a sign and He gave it to me...He gave me His undivided attention and love...I mattered to him. And it wasn't my fault. I am sure of that now. I made some mistakes and I'd come to grips with those, but the choice Jeff made was his and his alone. God uses many things to show us his love, but his use of Dustin that day was nothing short of miraculous. In fact, it was the miracle that truly saved my life....

I Saw God Today...saving Katie-Grace

By pessimistic nature I do not believe that a young child has the ability nor the comprehension to get saved. I've never agreed with the concept. And so when they have the invitation at the end of VBS each year I want to grab my little Katce and run for our lives. This outlook isn't without merit. Last year when Katce was sitting at the end of VBS listening to the prayer a girl grabbed her arm and said, "Come on Katie-Grace, if you come up and say the prayer...you'll get a Bible!" So Katce grabbed her hand and went on up to get her Bible. But there was a major problem halfway through the prayer when they told Katce she could go to heaven and live with Jesus...,"I DON'T WANT TO GO TO HEAVEN AND SEE JESUS! I'M STAYING RIGHT HERE WITH MOMMIE AND DADDY!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "AND YOU CAN HAVE YOUR DUMB, OLD BIBLE!" and she flung that Bible and ran into my waiting arms out in the vestibule. For weeks, even months after that Katce didn't like God, Jesus, or anything church related. If He was going to take her to heaven without her family then in her young mind...she was done with him. She was staying with us and that was that!
So this year after we sat and the preacher began to get close to making the prayer invitation, I thought, man, we need to be outta here....but something made me stay. Call it intuition. Call it curiosity. Call it what it truly was...GOD. Pastor began to preach and I felt my stomach knot up...if Katce wasn't receptive, Tim and I would spend another whole year trying to get our youngest daughter to love and trust God. I opened my eyes and watched her hold her folded hands tight and pray like she was truly listening. "Momma, you mean if I ask Jesus in my heart, I can go to heaven someday to see my Jeffy and Jesus?' she asked wide eyed in a serious whisper.
"Y-yes Darling, if you ask Jesus in your heart you can someday go to heaven to see your Jeffy and Jesus,' I answered through a choked up sob and nearly dying inside with emotion.
She clutched my hand and said so quiet and serious that I could barely here her small still voice, "Then I guess I better say that prayer. Could you help me?" She looked so innocent so full of anticipation that I started to cry.
Okay, Lord, give me the words and the courage...,"Say, Dear Jesus," and she whisoerd, "Dear Jesus,"...and we prayed the prayer together. "Let's go get my Bible," she yelled and grabbed my hand.
We waited in line, Katce smiling, me sobbing. Lord I cannot believe how you have used Jeff's death and now this. Thanks to Jeffy's death, my Babiest Girl is saved. She's saved. Jeff, she will indeed see you in heaven someday....

I Saw God Today

Just walked down the street to the coffee shop
Had to take a break
I'd been by her side for 18 hours straight
Saw a flower growin' in the middle of the sidewalk
Pushin' up through the concrete
Like it was planted right there for me to see
The flashin' lights
The honkin' horns
All seemed to fade away
In the shadow of that hospital at 5:08
I saw God today

I've been to church
I've read the book
I know he's here
But I don't look
Near as often as I should
Yeah, I know I should
His fingerprints are everywhere
I just slowed down to stop and stare
Opened my eyes and man I swear
I saw God today

Saw a couple walkin' by they were holdin' hands
Man she had that glow
Yeah I couldn't help but notice she was startin' to show it
Stood there for a minute takin' the sky
Lost in that sunset
Splash of amber melted in the shades of red

I've been to church
I've read the book
I know he's here
But I don't look
Near as often as I should
Yeah, I know I should
His fingerprints are everywhere
I just slowed down to stop and stare
Opened my eyes and man I swear
I saw God today

Got my face pressed up against the nursery glass
She's sleepin' like a rock
My name on her wrist
Wearin' tiny pink socks
She's got my nose, she's got her mama's eyes
My brand new baby girl
She's a miracle
I saw God today

I Saw God Today

I have, up to this point, written about Jeff's death and the tremendously painful grief that we as a family and I as a mother encountered. But out of Jeff's death has also come numerous blessings. The first being the many lives that Jeff's death saved; six people decided to come forward and ask for help and didn't committ suicide as they were contemplating. Secondly, the  two people who can now see because of Jeff's eyes being harvested. There were also many people whose lives were also saved due to all of the tissue that they were able to get from his body, his veins, etc. Thirdly, the awareness in the community about suicide, attachment disorder syndrome, as well as the healing and open communication that Jeff's death has ultimately brought not only to our family, but to his friends as well. I have to say I am very, very thankful to everyone who continues to step up for the people who are continuing to grieve for our son. God is working every single day to use this huge tradgedy by turning it into blessings. And so, as I continue this journey and I begin to actually heal and function, I would like to share my sightings of God as well as the sightings others have had. God has used many, many situations and people to change the course of Jeffy's suicide form horrific, to happiness. He has used two small children certain to die; to cardinal birds placed at the right place and the right times; to even a man on a motorcycle; and He has even used Jeff himself. And while many people will not believe these truths that I will write about, it doesn't matter...God is in control...He can do anything...He always has and He always will.......to God be all of the glory....

Out of Control

We were ushered out of the church so fast that it made my head spin. There was absolutely no time to even realize what had just happened. The vans pulled up and we got in. I don't know where all of my children were- but they were not all with me. That continued to bother me horrendously throughout the next minutes, days, and months. The knowledge of knowing exactly where they were at every moment was an and is an absolute- a protection mechonism that somehow if I knew where they were- I could protect them from this death. The ride was horrible. How does one ride to the buriel plot of their son? How does one even wrao their mind around that. I didn't know. I felt like a caged animal. My children were so into their grief that I couldn't reach them. The isolation from them so complete that I felt incomplete. This was all happenening too fast. How would I ever overcome this? What if I couldn't?
The cemetary was packed and it was cold. Pastor Matt began to speak. His mouth was moving, but what was he saying. I wanted these people gone. I only wanted it to be our family. How had this gotten so far out of control? Where did all these people come from? Where were they this past week? Why didn't they help me help my son? They said we have to leave...oh no...I cannot leave him...I cannot put him in the ground. I could feel myself coiling up into the fetal position inside. I will die from this. I know I will. They will not let me hug the casket. They will not let me comfort my children. My life from here on in is over. I am dead. I have nothing. I have failed Jeff and now I have failed them. Why God? Why? Why make all of my dreams come true just to crush them.
My children were quietly making their way back to the vans and I was stuck watching them suffer....watching from what felt like so far away.They got into the vans and the silence was so deafening. What had I done to ever deserve this from them. Why won't they let me mother them? I didn't understand. So as we left Jeffy in that cold, dark unmarked grave, we left everything I thought I was and evrything I believed that I would ever be and my life was never the same again...not even today... 

The Daughter of my Heart; Sarah Raterink-Lovell

How does a person even begin to write about watching a child in pain? How does a mother sit and suffer as her child faces the biggest challenge of her life? I do not know these answers. I didn't know them then, and I certainly do not know them today. But what I do know is that on the day of Jeff's funeral when Sarah took the stage to sing Jeff's favorite Christian song, she was dying inside. She knew it. Her family knew it. Tim and I knew it. And God knew it. I watched this beautiful, young woman, who could never intentionally hurt another human being, suffer beyond what any child should have to suffer as she took the microphone to honor one of her very best friends. She was there to honor a young man whom she had watched go from "happy go lucky" to spiraling out of emotional control. Sarah had done everything humanly possible to get Jeff to get some help, but like us, Sarah couldn't get through to him, she could only love him, pray for him, and try to be his friend. Her friendship had put her "on call" with Jeff 24 hours a day and she, and her fiance Chris, had spent many a long night talking and trying to minister to Jeff. So to watch my lil Sweetie take the stage was a horrendous hurt for me and I began to pray as never before that God would fill her full of his Holy Spirit and use her to minister to these people, to give her strength beyond measure, and to  hold her safely in His wings.Her job on that day was far more important than any job she would ever face....she had to testify through song, that even though Jeff  had committed suicide, he was a saved man and he believed with all his heart that Jesus Christ was his Saviour.....
We first met Sarah singing at church. She took the stage one Sunday evening, somehow standing next to her brother John, scared to death to sing in front of the church. I remember thinking what a gorgeous, vivacious, young woman. I literally was blown away by the sunshine she radiated each and every time she walked on a stage or entered a room  (and I still am). Sarah's faith is so strong and grounded, that when she hurts, you can feel her Saviour ache for her just by her gentle, sweet presence. The voice that came out of her body that day was angelic, and as the song went on I was excited to see how God would use this beauty to light up His world. I didn't know it then, but Sarah was to become such an inaugeral part of our family that her joys would become my joys and her hurts would become my hurts. She would become so many things. First, she would become Katce's lil caregiver in her early baby years, coming to give us a break whenever she could, and just take Katce out to play. Next, she was to become one of the few women that my daughter Lacey would come to love and trust with her whole being and call her best friend, and in that process, I too (as well as Tim) would grow to love her like a daughter. Lastly she would become a mentor for Jeff the last four years of his life culminating in being one of the last people to see and talk to him alive. The latter would leave a mark and eventually a scar on Sarah's heart that she will never get over, but she will get through.
The last week of Jeff's life, he chose to make many wrongs in his life right, and I unknowingly encouraged him to do this thinking that I was helping him get rid of his guilty"demons". But I believe now, that I was in fact, helping him set the stage to "right his wrongs" and "go in peace".
Sarah, too, played a part in Jeff's last days. She filled his nights with hope and his days with a sense of reality of who he was to her and to God. In essence, she literally loved my son to death. She taught him and made him feel worthy and for that I am eternally grateful. I cannot speak of the things that happened between my son and Sarah on the day Jeff killed himself. I cannot speak for Sarah, and I would never ever presume to know her pain; the pain of betrayal, the pain of utter loss, and the feeling of genuine guilt. But I can say, that for Sarah, Jeff's suicide has brought to this Sweetness, a test of faith and a testimony of love. For my sweet lil Sarah had to come to a very humbling place, a place I had to come to, a place we will all have to come to: We are not God and loving someone, sometimes just isn't enough. Jeff made a choice and he knowingly not only involved this sweet girl, he also underestimated her faith in her God, herself, and her love for my son. Because for Sarah, Jeff still lives. She remebers not the final hours, but the days, the months, the years that she was allowed to be a prat of his life. She is still his friend.  She is still committed to him, to us and to God.
So as this beauty took the stage and mustered up the courage to sing for her Brother, I thanked God that he chose her to be there all along; on the good days, the bad days, that awful day, and now in our everyday. For without Sarah, my son wouldn't have known the unconditional love of a girl whom he could always call "Friend" even in death, she was true to him. And she is even today...
Love you Sweetness,
always and forever.

Jeff's Dad

They began to play the photos of Jeff's life and everytime a new phot came across the screen, memories flooded my very soul. And with those memories came great joy. JOY. Joy- a novel concept, something that had been missing since all of this happened. Tim was sobbing now and so I held him close. I could feel the bruising as he clutched my arm during his sobs. So hard for him to let go of Jeff..always was. Tim could never ever give up on one of his kids, but especially Jeff. Tim had wanted Jeff to be his son long before I had any clue what life had in store for me as a mother...I guess when you pray for an addition to your family, that you should really be quite specific.
I remembered the internet photo caption read, "This boy needs a Dad!" and Tim was sold. He was ready to adopt Jeff then and there, but not me. I was frightened to the core. "Are you kidding me...adopt five kids?" I truly believed Tim to be insane. How could a white family from Michigan even begin to parent a bunch of black kids from New York. But after several attempts to sway me and me acting like a scared brat for a week- that's exactly what we did. We met, fell in love with, and adopt those kids. They were great kids and so easy to love and Tim was an awesome dad. Even to Jeff, but especially to Jeff. Jeff was so hard to parent. Hot one minute and cold the next. But Tim had a way with him and he never gave up on Jeffrey. No matter what Jeff did...Tim couldn't walk away and he always gave him the benefit of the doubt. Even when Jeff committed three misdemeanrs in his sophmore year...even when he smacked around his siblings...even when he ran away...even when he said he hated us...even when he said he wished we'd go to hell...Tim never gave up. He just couldn't - it's not in his character.
But the pain I felt in this man today was that of a broken man who could never ever forgive what Jeff had done this time. Tim had tried so hard with this son. He'd drove him to games, changed schools, went to practices, worked overtime to provide the best of everything, studied with him, reasoned with him, begged and pleaded with him, and even moved our entire family back to MI when Jeff was getting into trouble in NM. But taking his life, his own life  was something that Tim couldn't or wouldn't forgive. Jeff's life was a gift from God, and Jeffrey's walking away meant that his life had meant nothing. If anyone knows anything about my husband, it's that he is a terrific father and he truly feels it is his mission to be a father to the fatherless. And now Jeff had taken that "life" and snuffed it out and in the process, snuffed the life out of Tim as well. I didn't know what to do except hold him and love him. I tried to be aware of the children. But all I managed to do was be aware of Tim and his profound soorrow- an angry sorrow that still exists to this very day.
Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a Dad and that someone special is my husband, Tim Burd.
How would he deal with this profound hurt in the months to come...I could only wonder. But as the funeral moved on and I still felt a steady peace and joy...I began to truly understand the pain of others as Sarah stood to sing....