A Lesson After Loss

A few weeks ago, over dinner, I listened to a friend share his excitement about moving in with his boyfriend. As we talked about their plans, he also mentioned his partner’s struggles with a father’s persistent lack of acceptance. I was instantly empathetic, unfortunately, it wasn’t my first encounter with this sort of thinking. I’d seen various sorts of conditional acceptance of a child before and always have had the same angry and disappointed reaction. To any parent withholding love or approval from their child—are you missing what truly matters?

You see, I lost my son Eric just before his second birthday—a loss that shattered my world and forever changed the way I see parenting. Through the MISS Foundation, which provides counseling, advocacy, and education to families experiencing the death of a child, I found solace among other bereaved families. And I also witnessed something profound: a gentleness and patience with living children that often only comes from knowing the pain of loss.

I suspect bereaved parents, those who have had children die, view their living children differently. They are now more likely to think, “You don’t need to be on the winning soccer team, get the best grade, score the winning run or get into the best college: you just need to live.”  After Eric died, my perspective as a father shifted completely. I realized it didn’t matter if my daughter, Ginger, got the best grades or won the game. I just wanted her to live, to be herself, and to know she was loved and accepted, no strings attached.

As she entered her pre-teen and teen years, the time when everyone expects girls to become major problems, I was fine with most everything. At 14, she announced she’d become a vegetarian. Her mother appealed to me to talk her out of it. I never made the attempt. “Vegetarian? Hell, I thought, she could be a Presbyterian for all I care.”

In tenth grade, she asked me to construct 11 fish tanks, each one a precise size, built to hold a different and exact amount of water, and a specific number of fish for a Science Fair experiment. Out of scope for my handyperson skills, I elicited help from my cousin Ron Herem to build what she needed. Ron and I both agreed that what we were doing was crazy, but far be it from me to be unsupportive. She’d made up her mind to conduct this experiment, and I’d made up mine: “I’m here for you. How can I help?”

I wish I could talk with the father who’s decided his gay son is not worthy of his support, approval and love. Maybe those of us who have lost a child could explain why loving children with intensity, passion and acceptance is so important.

And it’s not just gay kids subjected to this. I’ve seen parents express visible disappointment when a child’s little league team loses a game. Parents sometimes lead their kids to believe their love and approval is tied to an SAT score or performance in a swim meet. I’ve heard parents berate kids for not getting the best score, the top grade, or winning the highest achievement award.

As a parent who’s lost a child, trust me, I’d take the runner-up, the second best, the ones who are eliminated in the tournament’s first round. Hell, give me my son back and put him in last place; I’ll take that in a heartbeat. I’d hold him and never let him go. Give me my son back, and I promise to not let a day go by without telling him I love him. I’d even build him fish tanks.

There’s a scene in The Princess Bride where Inigo Montoya, approaching his climactic confrontation with the six-fingered villain, Count Rugen and aching from loss, cries out for the impossible: “I want my father back, you son of a bitch.” That longing, that bottomless ache, is familiar to any parent who has lost a child. All I ever wanted was my son back—not his achievements, not perfection. Just him.

After a year in the hospital, a time when Eric had spent 350 days in pediatric intensive care and survived two “do or die” heart surgeries, he was home and on the road to full recovery. Eric’s progress was rapid and remarkable after his incredibly rough start. He was crawling on the living room floor but, according to his mother and her friends, his crawling was “not right.”

Off we went to an orthopedic specialist, who, after a series of tests, called us in for a consultation. “Eric,” he explains somberly, “would need braces.” He explained that while he hoped the braces would cause his bones to grow into the right configuration, he could not promise that, and we needed to understand it was possible, Eric would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. I can imagine the impression on that doctor as we grinned and said, “That’s it? That’s the downside? He might live his life in a chair? NO BIG DEAL! We can deal with that. Hell, we thought you might have had terrible news for us.”

There is no doubt in my mind that such news would devastate most parents. But we weren’t most parents. This doctor did not know he was talking to parents who’d had, over the first year of Eric’s life, repeatedly heard statements such as, “We don’t think he’ll make it through the weekend;” or “this is an exceptionally risky procedure,” or “he’s failing — do you want us to call someone to perform last rites?;” or “We’re worried; you may want to let your daughter say goodbye to her brother.”

They said all this and more. But Eric always came through. His will to live was phenomenal. He repeatedly survived situations where every single one of his caregivers—doctors, nurses, surgeons—had written him off, except his parents. One time, they even accidentally poisoned him with a 10X overdose of his antibiotic, another near-death experience, but he recovered and thrived.

We never gave up hope. Parents don’t. We never stopped believing he’d come home and live a normal life. And Eric came home, and he almost made it. He got so close. Having him home was a relief, even with supplemental nursing care. Eric found security in his braces; he used them to push himself into a genuine crawl. Less than six months into the braces odyssey, he had another series of X-rays. The orthopedist now recommended taking them off. The bones were growing correctly. Eric should be able to run and play as any normal boy—no wheelchair in his future.

Were we thrilled? Of course! What parent wouldn’t be overjoyed at this news? While not having to wear braces made Eric and all of us delightfully happy, don’t forget the real lesson here. We would have been perfectly happy if he’d been in a wheelchair the rest of his life—and still would be—if only we could have him alive.

If your children are alive, be happy. Feel lucky! Don’t worry so much about how they measure up to a mass of artificial standards that mean next to nothing. Do you really need to be the one to push your children farther and faster than they are ready to go? Most likely, they’ll push themselves when the time is right, when they find the thing that ignites the fire deep inside. When they do, they’ll succeed because deep down, they have something to push off from: the unconditional love and support of their parents.

Suicide rates among gay teenagers is 4 times as high as for straight kids, and yet, in households where they have at least one parent who accepts them, this does not occur. If you are lucky enough to have your child, love them fiercely. Don’t let their sexuality, report card, or anything else come between you. In the end, all that matters is that they are here, and they are yours.

P.S. For those of you who’ve read my book (My Heart Has Been In It From The Start), I apologize if you’ve heard me express this sentiment before.