I’ve talked about my struggles over the past couple weeks of how it’s all of the little things that hit me the hardest, of struggling with letting go, and with feeling like I’d lost my will. And I know none of these things are unusual to the grief process. This isn’t something new I’m discovering that no one has ever dealt with before. Nothing about this is special or unique to the human experience. It’s just all completely new to me. Basically, for as long as I can remember, I have been a sheer force of will. Little things don’t bother me (my wife will say that’s a lie, that little things cause me to fly off the handle all the time…and she’s not wrong, but that’s very different from what this has been). That whole letting go thing has never been a problem. Quarterback throwing an interception mentality; move on from it and be ready for the next play. I ran hurdles in high school… if you clip a hurdle you push through and keep going because there’s another hurdle coming that you have to clear. Can’t slow down. Can’t lose pace. Keep going!

Papaw (my dad’s dad) died 4 days before my 15th birthday. That hurt. I’ve talked previously about my relationship with my grandparents back home on the farm. Papaw loved to watch me play basketball. Even on the rare occasion when my parents might have to miss a game, he would be there. The morning of his passing, we were supposed to have a game. It was a Saturday, and we were playing midday (which we didn’t do very often). It was an especially special occasion because there was a freshman team game first, followed by JV, then Varsity. I started for the freshman team and played a little JV. I woke up that morning to find out Papaw had passed, then I ate breakfast and I went and played. Push through and keep going. Plus, he would still be watching me, and he wouldn’t have wanted me to miss the game. He surely wasn’t going to miss this one. I went to school that week, even though the semester was winding down and there wasn’t a lot going on and my teachers didn’t ask much of me, I still went. And at his funeral I served as a pallbearer and carried his casket with the men of the church and stood there in the rain and quietly cried just a little. Glenn Nolan reached a big arm around my shoulder and gave me a little hug, and that’s all I needed. And I kept going.

PawPaw (my mom’s dad) passed the week of Valentine’s Day in 2005. He was a big man (almost my height and over 300 lbs, at his heaviest he probably would have made Sean look kind of average), and an even bigger personality. His passing hit a bit different. See, I had known for a couple of months that he was going to pass. I had gotten to Louisville early the week of Thanksgiving 2004 and stopped by his house first when I got to town…which is what I usually did when I went to visit. When I walked in the door he said, “oh good, you can take me to my doctor’s appointment.” I didn’t think anything of it, until the doctor walked in the room and asked if he wanted me to step out. “Whatever you’ve got to say to me, you can say to him.” The doctor then proceeded to tell him that the spot they had found on his shoulder was a melanoma, and that it had already spread to his vital organs. The doctor said, “we can do chemo, and you’ll be in and out of the hospital every week, and you might live another 6 months… or you can go home and make yourself comfortable and you might live another 6 months.” PawPaw looked at me and said, “let’s go home.” I had time to prepare myself. I had taken a year off school, and in January of 2005 I went back to college. Knowing he was going to pass sometime in the next few months. Push through and keep going. I was a pallbearer for his funeral too, and even though I knew it was coming, it still hurt. But he was proud of the young man I was growing in to and I needed to do what was necessary to keep growing and continue to be a man he would be proud of. And I kept going.

Early in March of 2016 Granny (my mom’s mom) passed away. She had been fighting a losing battle with Parkinson’s for several years and her mental state had deteriorated. The last time we saw her a month or so before she passed, I knew she probably wasn’t going to last a whole long longer, and I had made the decision that I wasn’t going to take the kids back to see her again. She had done really well with both kids, but especially with Kaydee, while we were there; but otherwise, you could tell the Parkinson’s was affecting her mentally and I didn’t want their last memories of her to be progressing into that deterioration. It was a sad occasion, but it was also a blessing. She wasn’t suffering anymore and her body and mind were healed. The kids had happy memories of Granny, as did I. I had also just changed jobs and took a position that paid significantly less than I had been making before in an effort to be more present in the kids’ lives. It was hard, and I was struggling financially. Unbeknownst to me (and I think to my mom and aunts), Granny had taken out a life insurance policy that paid out to the grandkids when she passed. It was a gift and a blessing that threw me the life preserver I needed right at the time when I was starting to drown. And so, I wasn’t going to waste that gift that she gave me. I had to take care of myself and my kids, because I knew how much she loved all of us. And that gave me the strength to push through and keep going.

And I’ve already talked about Mamaw’s passing in the post Shed a Tear.1

But the one I haven’t talked about… The week of Valentine’s Day 2008 my cousin Joe was killed in a car wreck. Life had not been going great… my first big job out of college hadn’t really delivered what I was hoping it would be. And at that time my first marriage hadn’t gotten off to a particularly strong start either. Joe hit extra hard. He was right between my brother and I in age and in school. We played football, basketball, and baseball together. We hung out and partied together. We did everything together. And he was big too! Not as big as Sean, but all of our family is big…and his personality and love of life were just as big! And that hurt in a whole new way. And I started drinking… a lot… and I couldn’t just push through that. It was hard to keep going. I was spiraling and really didn’t care. Then a couple months later we found out we were pregnant with Sean. And then I found my will again, found my purpose. I had someone who I had to be strong for; someone who I had to push through and get it together for. And now I had to keep going!

And here I sit, 18 years later, as that purpose has been ripped away from me. And it hurts in a way I never could have imagined anything could hurt. I still have a strong will and purpose in life. I have an incredible wife and daughters. My parents and aunts and uncles and my brother and his wife and kids. I have all of the reasons to push through and keep going. But the hole that’s been torn in me makes it hard to breathe, much less to push through. And instead of waking up every day telling myself to keep going, I find myself saying “just be alright.” I don’t need to be good, I don’t need to push, I just need to be alright. Because I know my will and my purpose are still strong…so if I can just be alright for a little bit longer… for just one more day, I’ll be able to keep going.