Tag Archives: tragedy

He’d like to be a Pepper too!

Every week, I call my college aged son. I think it goes without saying, but I will say it anyways. I miss him. To play down how much I miss him, I always end the phone call with some snarky bit of wisdom akin to “Sawyer, just in case you didn’t know I have not changed my number.” Otherwise, I might end the call in tears begging him to come home. This of course, would be purely for my own benefit and definitely not his, because he is making a life for himself and establishing how he wants to be a powerful force for change in the world. And while he is much like his paternal grandmother who isn’t much of telephone conversationalist, our chats are brief. Outside of that, when talking with him, I would say he errs on the side of understatement of how much good he has brought to the world so far.

Well, not his momma! I will gladly wear the hyperbole banner . . . because I can. I’m the mom!

There are things on social media that blow me away – like the Olympic moms’ commercials and other inspirational videos, but then there are the ones that make me shake my head. Usually they are in the “Are you sure you realized that you hit post?” category because I wonder what their mothers are thinking when and if they see it.

I know I was in that category last week, when I saw my sister-in-law liked a post on said college boy’s page. What I read simply took my breath away.

In a really GOOD way.

My son, my version of the Boy Wonder, is vying for a full tuition prize through a contest with the Dr. Pepper/Seven Up Corporation. In the competition, he has to describe how he would change the world.

FIND A CURE TO AD USING PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS

First and foremost I don’t know what kind of future I can have other than one devoted to helping others. When I was a young kid I was severely injured and spent many months in the hospital. This experience has given me the drive to devote my life to using medicine to help improve the lives of others. Specifically by researching ways to combat AD. ~Sawyer S

MELT. MY. MOMMA. HEART.

I am sure my son was limited on space, but one can never discount his proclivity to understating the story. So let me fill in the details.

In 2008, three of our four children were riding home on the school bus when the bus was hit. In the aftermath of the crash, four children died (including our oldest son) and fourteen others were injured. One of the seriously wounded was our Sawyer. The crash left him with a head injury, bruised lungs, a lacerated spleen, a shattered left femur, a broken and dislocated right hip, and severe nerve damage. That year alone he spent twelve weeks in and out of the hospital before he was well enough to attend the last five days of the school year . . . using a wheelchair because he was unable to walk for several years afterwards. He never complained and when they wouldn’t let him play football for the next 3 years, he took up guitar to keep himself busy. He has endured more than most adults and is still a beacon of positivity.

Prior to the bus crash, we had been adopted, so to speak, by a sweet gentleman and grandpa in our church. This gentleman designed and made elaborate woodworking creations. When the Boy Scout Pinewood Derby rolled around, Sawyer asked Grandpa if he would help him and his dad with his car. Let’s just say, I am not sure who was more proud of that winning car, Sawyer or Grandpa! When the bus crash happened, Grandpa was distraught over how he could help our family and asked his son and daughter-in-law to arrange to pay for the hotel room that we stayed in for the nine days we were there. In the next year, Grandpa started to slowly fade away from us as Alzheimer’s disease – that cruel and wretched disease stole most, but definitely not all, of the amazingness of the man who loved us as his own. And in the final days, Sawyer never missed a chance to visit him.

So there is the AD piece, but let me tell you about my son.

When he says that he cannot imagine a life not devoted to serving others. This isn’t just lip service. He means every word. He hasn’t forgotten a single kindness extended to us or to him specifically since that awful day 8 years ago. He has used every opportunity to give back and to serve as much as possible (even after having had over 30 surgical procedures since that awful day). I know I’m his mom, but I would be following in his footsteps, if I didn’t use the word inspirational in the same breath as I use to speak his name. Some of my favorites of his kindnesses are inviting a special needs student to attend the prom with him and his date, writing letters and personally inviting every single responding unit to the bus crash (there were over 30) to attend his graduation, and taking time in the hall ways at school to high-five, hug, or “wrestle” around with elementary students. Once he enamored a whole passel of children at the community gardens so the parents could finish up harvesting. There sat a big group of children mesmerized by the wonders of my Boy Wonder.

I’m his mom. I can boast. But remember I started with he’s not perfect, he doesn’t always call his mother, and I am not sure that elementary teachers enjoyed seeing him in the halls due to the melee that often ensued.

But now you see a piece of his heart and his love for serving others.

Then there is the aptness of the corporation sponsoring this contest. About a week after the funeral services for our other son, we were trapped in a fog of grief, medical treatments, and generally being overwhelmed. Add to this the nerve damage that Sawyer endured, we had a young man who writhed in excruciating pain 24 hours a day. Exhausted was the understatement of the century. Thankfully, we live among amazing friends and neighbors who kept a vigilant watch over how to best help us. One such evening, a neighbor popped over to check in on us. She asked numerous times if there was anything she could do – right then – to help us. What I lack in the trivialization department, I more than make up for in “I can do it myself” pride. Several times, I assured her that we were fine. As she got to the door, stepping into her winter boots and parka, she implored one last time, and just as I was about to stop her, my – at the time – little guy spoke up.

I could sure use a Dr. Pepper.

As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story.

And Dr. Pepper he had! I should probably apologize to the truck driver because I think she perhaps hijacked a delivery truck. It was a moment that I have never forgotten. Of all the things, he could have asked for to bring comfort, it was a Dr. Pepper.

I am including this picture – just in case he has forgotten what I look like. I am the one in sunglasses.

But in all seriousness, even on his moving back to college day, he proudly wore the shirt from the night he danced all night to support two little boys who require extensive medical care and he hates dancing.

This sweet boy of mine needs your help. Please go to the link below and vote for him and ask your friends and neighbors and Boy Wonders to vote too. Help him to shine his light and use his potential to truly find a cure for the disease that took away one adopted grandpa so that no one else has to endure that pain. And like the commercial from my youth used to say, I am pretty sure my son would love to “be a Pepper too!”

http://www.drpeppertuition.com/profile/Sawyer-S-8

Just don’t.

6 Replies

Like millions of other Minnesotans and Midwesterners, I spent much of my weekend in tears and when I wasn’t crying, I spent the rest of my time on my knees praying for the family of Jacob Wetterling. Much like other moments in history, I remember exactly where I was when I learned of his disappearance. I was a college junior in North Dakota, eating supper with my family. We prayed then and we pray now for his family. At the time, my sister was just a month shy of her seventh birthday. Around that time a little girl went missing from our neighborhood. Unlike Jacob’s story, hers had a happy ending. She, at three years old, decided to ride her tricycle to the Dairy Queen about 8 blocks away. I stayed behind with the neighborhood kids while the adults formed a search party. Long before the advent of the cellular era, word finally came back that she was found. After all the kids had gone to their respective homes, I held my baby sister really tight and made her promise she would never, never, NOT EVER, do something like that. In her naivete, she responded with I don’t even know how to get to the Dairy Queen. Through my tears, I laughed, but the reality was the carefree days of letting your children play and run about the neighborhood were gone.

Because of the actions of one, the innocence of a child, a family, and an entire region were stolen. We sang along to the Jacob’s Hope song, we looked at every child’s face hoping he would be Jacob, but mostly we cried and we prayed. Jacob’s story and his beautiful full-of-life face were burned into our collective psyche.

It would be many years before I would be married and have a son of my own, and through all this time, I have admired the quiet, displayed strength of Jacob’s mom, Patty. I would shake my head and wonder how she goes on each and every day with such a gigantic hole in her heart. To me, and I am certain to countless other moms she was the pillar of strength, of which I am equally certain she never wanted to have that label.

Every time a new “break in the case” would occur, I would pray for peace and for answers, knowing both had to be in short supply for the Wetterling family. At some point in time, Patty’s face to me became as personally iconic as Jacob’s. She was the face of every mom’s worst nightmare and selfishly, I thanked God that I wasn’t her because I never wanted to walk in her shoes.

This isn’t a message about being careful what you wish for, but I now know what that prayer of thanks looks like on the countenances of other people. While my story and Patty’s are not at all similar, I know the deep grief of losing a son in tragic circumstances, and I know grief is never comparable. I know what it is like to be today’s news story, and I know what it is like to have news media camped out on my lawn and at the hospital where my other son was fighting to live. I know what it is like to lose friends because they just can’t stand to think that their children might die too and I know the pain of someone asking “Aren’t you over that yet?”. And I know all the wrong things people say when they are trying to comfort grieving people.

I know the days where if someone told me I was so strong one more time, I was going to punch them because what they don’t see (and probably what we don’t see of Patty’s life) are the days where tears are all I have to offer the world. There are plenty of days where getting out of bed seems like an insurmountable task. But like what I hope for Patty, there are the days I can physically feel the prayers and well wishes sent our way, and I go on.

With a huge hole in my heart and with scars of pain that sear deeply, I go on. We go on.

I am sure Patty saw our news story of four children dying in a school bus crash and thought about us too. She just strikes me as that kind of mom and dynamo in this world. And even though, she and I have never met and quite possibly never will, when I was crying or praying this weekend, I had a burning desire to want to protect her from all the things I know are coming her way. While I cannot do that, nor would I want to disrupt their private grieving, I can do one thing.

That one thing is to be the antithesis to Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign. My message today is all about don’t. As the news broke about the possible discovery of sweet Jacob, social media and news media went bonkers. And with each posting and reposting, my heart broke for Jacob, for Patty, for his brother and his friend, for his dad Jerry, for his sisters, and for all the rest of his family. In my own quiet momma corner of the world, I wanted everyone to just stop saying one word. Closure. Don’t. Just don’t.

The word was used often after the trial and the conviction of the woman in our story, but let me tell you there was absolutely not one ounce, not even a scintilla of closure. My son has been gone for 8 ½ years now and I am NEVER going to have closure. Neither are my husband or our kids or families. Patty and Jerry won’t either.

We will all go on, but this side of heaven, we won’t find this elusive closure.

Just don’t say it. Don’t post it. Just don’t. The Wetterlings have endured more than what most people could and they have done so with grace, going on to fight to save and protect all of our children. Let’s not diminish their courage and fortitude with the word closure.

We can close on a house. We can close the door, literally and figuratively. We close on business deals. But we don’t ever CLOSE on our children. The love a mother has for children is a love so deep that it doesn’t have an ending. Ever. Period. Amen.

Closure – Stop saying it. Refrain from posting it. Don’t think it. Don’t utter it. Do not even breathe it around grieving people. Remove it from the vernacular. Don’t. Just don’t.

I know I am not the only one who has cried and prayed for the Wetterlings this weekend. I also know I am not the only one who has bristled at the flagrant use of that awful word. I believe a small educational lesson can go a long way to help all grieving people, and I am simply sorry it has to be for Jacob.

Yet, his mother has taught us so much about grace and dignity and hope. So, even though I will most likely never meet her, I had to smile when I saw her message for us all as her words echoed the message I gave shortly after the bus crash. I shared a statement that was read on my behalf about the amazingness known as my son, Reed, and asked everyone to go home and hug their children.

As much as I desire for people to “don’t say the word closure”, we can all DO something. Patty’s message to all of us is something we can and should do for the Wetterlings, but mostly to honor the boy we have all grown to love.

Photo from KSMSP Fox 9 News

And as for me and my house, we are going to hug the mess out of our kids and believe in the good in the world.

Love goes on

Revolutionary love

2 Replies

A few weeks ago, I was invited to be the speaker at a neighboring school for their Pay It Forward day. The students completed acts of service throughout the day, and I spoke twice in the afternoon, once to senior high and later to junior high students. Many hours of preparation went into the big day, because the message would be life-changing – not because I spoke it, but because kindness is transformational. Intertwining stories of my family and our darkest hour with humor and heartfelt truths of compassion, not only from friends and family but also from complete strangers, was a beautiful tale to tell.

The oldest students would have been nine or ten years old when our tragedy occurred; so other than the few in the audience who know us personally the story would be new. Delicately balancing the human side of a major news story is hard work, exhausting at best and gut-wrenchingly aching at worst as my mind, body, and soul are transported back, reliving each moment. ALL. THE. MOMENTS. The beautiful ones AND the ones so painful that some days I look in the mirror and want to high five the girl on the other side because I don’t know if she truly knows how awesome and amazing it is she survived.

In the end, I wanted my young friends to leave not feeling sorry for us, but rather to be inspired by the acts of kindnesses lavished upon our family.

Early in my presentation, I wanted a gauge of how honest and sincere my audience would be. The measure of sincerity was simple. Raise your hand if someone somewhere at some time in the world has been kind to you. Every hand in the room was raised.

Then, I upped the ante. Raise your hand if you have ever felt lonely, isolated, different, afraid, left out, unsure or insignificant. Only one brave hand was raised. The rest were liars.

Little did they know, I completely expected those results, because I wanted them to squirm a little bit before I shared my mission – creating revolutionaries. Genuine change requires some struggle, including confronting your own battles.

Sharing some basic facts about my family, I eventually expounded on our loss and pain but mostly explained why I could be considered an expert in receiving kindnesses. I wanted the precious scholars to know no matter how limited they or their budgets may appear to be, there is no kindness too small which does not leave a person transformed. If something appears to be an obstacle, plan big and DREAM BIGGER to reach out to those who are hurting.

What I didn’t share was the firestorm known as the political hot button issue at the center of our sadness. Truth be told, I lied (in omission) to them all. I never spared the truth about the hardships we have had (and still endure) as a part of that day. I openly told how the girl, who went from doing everything, relied on everyone else to do most anything. My heart was bare when sharing how much these acts of compassion truly taught me about community and love – transforming, selfless revolutionary love. What I didn’t share was the black part of my heart early on in our story.

Very few know this story, but given the news of recent days and weeks, it is time to finally come clean.

I hold many different titles, but even fewer know that for a brief period in my life I was our town’s chief crane inspector. Okay, not really. My then three year old was. I was just the chauffeur. The rebuilding of our lives came agonizingly slow, while our little town’s infrastructure was booming. The baby of our family has been and most likely always will be infatuated with construction cranes. After dropping off the big kids at school, we would drive from construction site to construction site “inspecting” the crane’s work. The final one in our tour was completing a new expansion at our county jail which at the time housed the woman who killed my son and ripped our lives apart.

Every day, while sipping on sweet tea, I wished for the crane operator to be unsuccessful in his endeavor to securely place the large preformed concrete walls. Just drop the wall and she will hurt as much as I do. Dark was that corner of my heart. The news of the amazingness known as my son and the other three children who were gone tapered off and all that was left were court cases, commentaries on illegal immigration, and sound bites from her attorneys, who in an attempt to humanize their client crossed the line when suggesting a conviction would mean her elderly parents might not ever get to see her again. Really? I am fairly certain I am not ever going to see my child again on this earth. EVER. It was all too much for me and my brokenness.

But it was through that brokenness, God showed me how much my darkness was only hurting me and how it was not now or ever going to be a part of the solution. I wanted to be better. Different. Transformed by my heart and through my darkness. Realizing my son would never want hate and bitterness to be a part of his legacy, I chose forgiveness and began carefully and tenderly (with God’s divine grace) choosing love over everything else.

With every tragedy (and by every – I mean EVERY SINGLE ACT – especially the ones on the news, where someone is left hurting), I am reminded that choosing love is a revolutionary act of defiance. The world perpetuates evil. Choosing to love in the face of darkness is an uncommon act. Everything about my sweet boy was not common, and in honoring him, choosing love was the granddaddy of all antidotes to hurt and a slap in the face of darkness.

Hate mongering, fear inducing rhetoric, social media memes shared virally, and us vs. them mentalities will never solve any problem. Evil will never go away, but none of these go-to platforms offer any sincere opportunities for hope. So here’s a thought: STOP doing them. STOP saying hurtful things. STOP posting divisive things. Stop teaching this rhetoric to your children.

And while we are at it STOP focusing on our differences. STOP pointing them out.

STOP taking tragedies like mine, Sandy Hook, Ferguson, or San Bernardino and reducing it a sound bite, a meme, a rally cry, an ideological platform, a banner flag because behind all of that chaos are real people who are truly hurting and who never asked to be a poster child.

The real issue is HURT. Even if my young friends lied it about it, pain is real and isolating. At the root of every hurt is a genuine, amazing and awesome person – who deserves better in this world and of this world.

While real conversations can and SHOULD take place, the issues have never been illegal immigration, gun control, skin color, terrorism, or mental health issues.

The real issues are the lack of understanding, the lack of respect, and the LACK of love.

How do we uplift and honor instead of tear down and divide?

After we stop doing all those other things, let’s lead with kindness. Let’s call it our gift to the world. They will never see that one coming. Look for ways to help others. Make that our new habit. Have real conversations with eyes and ears that can see the hurt others bring to the table. Be the voice of change for those who have no voice. Stand up, beside, and behind those who are hurting, especially those different from ourselves. Give generously with your time, your resources, your mind and your soul, and not to mention your heart. Smile at everyone. Read to your children about all kinds of people and whisper in their ears they are what make the world a better place. Buy a stranger a meal or a cup of coffee. Celebrate you and celebrate others! Hold hands and pray, and when it doesn’t look like that is working, hold on a little longer. Envelop those you love (and those who are hurting) in hugs that leave everyone better.

Be genuine.

Be sincere.

Choose hope.

Be hope.

Be brave and inspirational and kind.

Never forget kind.

The world is watching.

High five that guy or girl in the mirror, for at least trying to change the world.

And, be revolutionary in your love!

christmas angel

To laugh or to cry

Psalm 30:5 Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. (AMP)

One of my favorite things about Erin is her ability to laugh with her whole spirit. Captured at our family photo shoot, this picture explains what I mean perfectly. Portrait by Inspired Portrait Photography.

The thing about grief . . . Part 3

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