I know there is a God. Human
compassion and the capacity to love
are not the result of mere chance.”
—Charles W. Gerdts, III
In the initial weeks following Willie’s death, there were other gestures of love and gentleness that my family and I found comforting. One day, a notebook appeared on the bookshelf. In it were several letters that Willie had written on the eve of his nineteenth birthday, which was several months before his death.
He had written letters to some of his coaches and close friends, thanking them for the memories, their long-standing friendship and support, and for the impact they had on his life. His letters were from the heart and almost seemed like a “good-bye” letter; unusual for an eighteen year old. He also wrote letters, one to Presidentelect Obama and to Will-I-Am, a musician he admired; and one to President Lincoln in which he noted the sense of calm and deep inspiration that he felt when sitting in Lincoln’s monument in Washington, D.C. Willie wrote that he felt like he could make a difference and that he could become the next Abraham Lincoln. He wanted to make “the whole world a better place.”
Willie also wrote a letter to himself. In it, he talked about the great adventure his life had been. He observed that his life lacked simplicity, but guessed that was, “because there is so much to see and do in such a short time.” He also wrote about how grateful he was for his family, his friends, his God, and for his faith. This letter was such a gift to me. It reassured me that Willie had a relationship with God, understood its importance, and was “right” with God before his death.
Willie had a way of making everyone feel special and feel that they each had a special relationship with him. After Willie’s death, many people came forward to express their sadness and to express their gratitude for the life Willie led. They all mentioned ways he changed their lives for the better. Senator John Kerry called to express his condolences. He noted Willie’s influence in his office, the changes that Willie inspired, and the impact he had on the Senator’s staff. Senator Kerry also taped a video tribute for Willie’s memorial service.
Singer-songwriter Carole King, who was also inspired by Willie’s passion, sent us the following lyrics and music, which we played at his memorial service. Her song has given us a great deal of comfort, as the music is beautiful and the lyrics apt.
In the Name of Love
Do the things you believe in
In the name of love
And know that you aren’t alone
We all have doubts and fears
Know throughout every season
You are the name of love
And you’ll keep on feeling at home
Throughout the coming years
Change is for certain
This we all know
Each day opening the curtain
On a brand new show
Through your sorrow and grieving
Don’t forget the name of love
It goes on without any end
Forever
Birth and life and death make a circle
We are all part of
To see the light everlasting
Live in the name of love
Forever
Community members wept and grieved with us. The skiing world was shocked and heartbroken. Hundreds of people from across the country came to Willie’s memorial service, prayed with us and for us, and did what they could to lessen the pain. We met with our minister daily and were surrounded by close friends. I taped the following daily creed to our refrigerator and grasped onto it for survival.
My Daily Creed
I believe God’s promises are true.
I believe heaven is real.
I believe nothing can separate me from God’s love.
I believe God has work for me to do.
I believe God will see me through and carry me when I cannot walk.
God continued to carry our family month after month, as we struggled to put one foot in front of the other. I do not understand how anyone can make this journey without trusting in God’s plan.
Growing up, I was taught that Psalm 23:4 (“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. For you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me”) referred to one’s own death and the dangerous journey back to God. Now I believe it actually refers to the people who are left behind to grieve. As grieving people walk through the valley of the shadow of a loved one’s death, their sadness, confusion, anger, and despair can inadvertently prop open the door of their hearts, allowing evil to silently enter.
I had experienced death before—of grandparents, of parents, of friends—and I have found that grief is always a lonely, isolated process, as the death of a loved one carries different meaning to each person who is grieving. In those circumstances, however, it is usually possible to look to a spouse or other family member for support. The isolation of grief after the death of a child or a sibling is exponentially magnified by the fact that close family members who might otherwise be able to offer support are equally wrought with grief.
God’s timing is always perfect and I think this may be why I was unmotivated to put my story into words before the spring of 2009. The writing of this manuscript was an emotionally intense experience for me. I had been very rigorous over the years with regard to restricting the amount of time I allowed myself to think about the events surrounding my own death and return to life. I love my life, I love my family dearly, and I know that my work on earth is not done. Despite that, recalling the alluring magnificence of God’s world too vividly would make it easy to be consumed by a deep longing to return. I have always guarded my heart by not thinking about it too vividly or for too long. I imagine that this desire is similar to the deep longing recovering addicts must feel when they fondly recall the best times of their previous substance abuse. Anyway, I always found it emotionally draining and dangerous to spend too much time remembering not just the facts and events, but re-experiencing the actual emotions.
In writing this book, I allowed myself to fully embrace the spiritual experiences I had during my accident and its aftermath: reliving the details and immersing myself in the physical, emotional, and spiritual reality of that time. In doing so, I was freshly filled with the remembrance and acknowledgement of God’s continuing and active presence in my life, His absolute grace, His pure love, and His promises for the future. I was, again, filled with the joy of His spirit and the knowledge that every event is a part of a larger and more beautiful tapestry.
Revisiting and re-experiencing these emotions and memories gave me the ability to be the physical, emotional, and spiritual rock of support that proved to be so essential for my family and my community after Willie’s death. Perhaps if I had written this book several years earlier, I would not have so clearly remembered the words spoken to me by the angels or the many reasons for returning me to earth.
Bill and I were surprised to find that a predominant emotion during the first year was fear. Fear that we would never emerge from the emotional fog. Fear that we would never again be able to experience joy. Fear that we would fail our remaining children. Fear that we would forget. I think much of the fear and anxiety we felt was just fear of an unknown future that would not include the son that we loved so dearly. Someone told me, “When you love with all that you have, you grieve with all that you are,” and I would certainly agree with this observation.
I did believe that God, if asked, would not only carry us, but also would protect our souls during this emotionally vulnerable time. Regardless, it was difficult for my husband to eradicate his feeling not just of sadness and fear, but of despair.
CHAPTER 32
PERFECT TIMING
“There is some good in the worst of us and
some evil in the best of us. When we discover this,
we are less prone to hate our enemies.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am an avid skier and eight months after Willie
’s death, my son Eliot and I were skiing in the back-country. This form of skiing involves placing synthetic animal skins on the bottom of one’s skis, making it possible to climb up snowy mountainous terrain that is otherwise inaccessible. Upon reaching the summit, the skins are removed from the skis and the thrill of then skiing downhill, usually in fresh powdery snow, makes all of the uphill effort worthwhile. I love to amuse my kids, so at the end of the afternoon I was showing-off for Eliot, who was videotaping my skiing. I decided to ski over a gulley and try to “catch air”—not something I do well, but always something that makes Eliot and my other kids laugh. Rather than catching air, however, my skis twisted in different directions and I broke my ankle. At least Eliot was able to memorialize this with his video footage!
At this point my options were quite limited. I couldn’t ski and Eliot couldn’t carry me. We considered using our skis to make a sled but had to climb up a significant hill, so didn’t think that was likely to be effective. I was already cold and I knew it would take at least several more hours for Eliot to ski out, contact the Search & Rescue team, and for them to return. I decided my only reasonable option was to tighten my ski boot (adding some stability to my ankle) and fortify myself for a slow, very painful hike/ski out of the back country. I used my ski poles and my good leg to carry me up and across the slopes, while hopelessly trying to let my injured one gently dangle. This journey back to our car took a couple of hours and was accompanied by a lifetime’s worth of cursing. As an interesting side note, I had recently read a study by Stephens, Atkins, and Kingston in which they evaluated swearing as a response to pain (NeuroReport, August 5, 2009; volume 20, issue 12; 1056–60). In the study, two sets of data were collected based on how long volunteers were able to keep their arm submersed in ice water, a known pain stimulator, while either a commonplace word to describe a table or shouting the profanity of their choice. The authors found that volunteers had a significantly greater pain tolerance when using their profanity of choice. As I hiked the distance to our car, I performed my own personal experiment. I tried yelling words like “snow” and “tree” or yelling different profanities. In the end, I agreed wholeheartedly with the results of Stephens’ study.
I had surgery that evening to repair my ankle and remained in the hospital overnight. A Rwandan priest named Father Ubald “just happened” to be visiting a friend in Jackson Hole at that time, and she brought him to the hospital to pray with me. To understand who Father Ubald is and what he represents, you must understand a little about his history.
The origins of the 1994 Rwandan genocide are complex and the ethnic divisions in Rwanda between the Hutus and Tutsis are longstanding. Tribal polarization exploded after the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana, who was a Hutu, and in a period of one hundred days, more than 800,000 people were systematically and violently murdered.
In the midst of this killing, Father Ubald, a Catholic priest whose Tutsi father had been murdered in the 1962 overthrow of the Rwandan government and who had been himself threatened by fellow seminarians in the 1980s, was forced to flee first to his bishop’s residence and then to the Congo in return for a promise by the Hutus not to harm the people of his parish. As soon as he left, the Hutu members of his large parish betrayed this promise and brutally hacked to death approximately 45,000 Tutsi members of his parish. More than 80 members of his immediate and extended family, including his mother, were exterminated within the first two weeks of the massacre.
Before fleeing, Father Ubald promised his bishop that he would return to bring healing to his people. The massacre finally ended when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) regained power, but grief-stricken survivors were left bewildered by the intensity of the evil that had been unleashed in their country. Survivors of all ethnic groups experienced profound guilt: guilt for killing, guilt for surviving, guilt for not doing enough to prevent or mitigate the conflicts. Many sought revenge, but as has been said, “There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.”
Father Ubald spent many months in prayer and his tears filled a river before he made his way to Lourdes, France. It was there, as he meditated on the Stations of the Cross, that he heard God tell him to release his sorrows and “pick up his cross.” God filled his heart with a forgiveness that can only come from God. Subsequently, he met with and forgave the mayor of his town, who was the man who ordered the murder of Father Ubald’s own mother. Father Ubald took responsibility for that man’s children, treating them as his own and even paying for their schooling.
Father Ubald is a man who radiates the purity of God’s grace and preaches on forgiveness and reconciliation. He also holds healing masses, using his gifts to heal and renew others. He performs healing masses in Rwanda, Europe, and the United States. He is building a center in Rwanda, called The Secret of Peace, which will minister to the people of Rwanda and the surrounding areas of the Congo and Burundi, countries that have seen so much war, poverty, and trauma. He works tirelessly toward the goal of forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace for the people of Rwanda and throughout the world.
It was because of his background and experience in healing, that my friend, Katsey, brought him to my hospital room to pray over my ankle. When they arrived, I was so ill from the anesthetics and the pain medications that they quickly left. The following day, Father Ubald insisted that I visit him at Katsey’s house once I was feeling better. I arranged a visit a few days later, and I brought Bill with me.
We chatted briefly, but then Father Ubald immediately focused on Bill. Together they prayed for more than an hour. I wanted to cry at the beauty of this, as I have never seen Bill be outwardly spiritual and this was an answer to many years of my prayers. The following week, Father Ubald had dinner in our home and the conversation turned to the topic of loss. Knowing his history of loss and grief makes listening to his thoughts quite compelling and powerful, so we were riveted as he described his own and his country’s experiences with loss and the ongoing process of grief and forgiveness. He believes that the complex emotions related to loss almost always include some sort of anger or rage, guilt or shame that requires forgiveness before true healing, acceptance, and reconciliation can occur. Father Ubald also noted that forgiveness does not need to be two-sided. It comes from within a person and does not require the involvement, acknowledgment, or acceptance of the other.
As we discussed the many facets of forgiveness, I began to recognize that although I really did believe Willie’s death was part of God’s larger plan, I felt anger, and perhaps rage, in the core of my sadness. I was angry that Erik had been so careless in his driving that he killed my beautiful son. I was angry that he never contacted us afterwards to express remorse or sorrow, and angry that, according to some reports I’d heard, he was continuing to be what I termed a “dead-ender”; someone without much going on in his life, few goals, and no passion to make a difference in the world or even in himself. I was angry that he stole my son’s life, yet seemed not to be making the most of his own opportunity for a full life. I knew I needed to forgive him and pray for his future.
I was also angry with myself and felt a sense of shame and guilt. The week before Willie’s death, I had been visiting schools in Vermont with my daughter and although I could have made it work, I decided not to spend the extra time and money to combine this trip with a trip to Maine to visit my sons at the ski training facility. This was one of my very few regrets with regard to Willie’s life and death, and it haunted me a little bit. I knew I needed to forgive myself.
I was also haunted by a feeling that I had failed in my responsibility to God. I knew that one of the reasons for my being sent back to earth after my boating accident was to help support my family and, more specifically, help my husband deal with the death of our son. I was also meant to help them discover their relationship with God. I had tried my best, but in February 2010, I didn’t think any of them were closer to God and Bill was still filled with a pervasive sense of despair. I felt empty and defeated. I was incapab
le of helping him, my kids, or myself.
As I listened to Father Ubald speak, I contemplated his loving and joyful manner. It then suddenly occurred to me that my sense of failure was self-inflicted and egocentric. I had stopped looking to God for help, believing that I was expected to do it all on my own. Believing that I could do it all on my own. In the process, I had let doubts, fear, and guilt silently creep in and take over my thoughts. I was still in the valley of the shadow of death and the door of my heart was propped wide open. Right then and there, I asked God for help and immediately felt forgiven and free, knowing that God was in control. I prayed for guidance, requesting that God would help our family move forward in the process of grieving, and prayed that Bill would begin to see a glimmer of hope for the future. Once again, I would say that God answered my prayers, though definitely not in the way I had imagined.
In our conversation on loss and forgiveness, Father Ubald identified Bill’s sense of despair and, I think, my sense of failure. He noted that while sadness reflects love, despair reflects the destruction of the soul that often accompanies grief. He then got up from the table, filled a bowl with water, blessed the water, and proceeded to move throughout our home sprinkling this holy water on everything he saw … actually, pouring handfuls of water would be a more accurate description. He spread holy water in every area of every room, in every closet, and on every object and every surface … on everything everywhere. As he did so, he commanded that the evil of despair leave our home and leave our family.
I have never been a Catholic, so I am not sure what to think about holy water, but I do know one thing: Our lives changed after Father Ubald’s visit. We still felt the sadness of loss, but the sense of fear and despair that had been slowly destroying our lives departed that evening.
To Heaven and Back Page 12
