Tyler Jack

For being the short month, this February is the looooooooongest month EVER!  I'd like to give credit to the "mid-winter-grey-day doldrums", but really, if I'm honest, there's more going on in me that I haven't shared yet.


I woke up this morning with Tyler on my mind.  I don't think I dreamed about him, but his little life and the "what if's" are the constant background thoughts these days.   Maybe it's the leap year that makes the grief sharper this year than some of the others...


Tyler is not my son.  His mother was my closest friend through my junior high and high school days.  His father was a good friend and neighbor during those years too.

In 2000 both of us were due with our second child- in March.  We were roughly a week apart in our pregnancies. Every year, at this time, I start remembering the goofy, competitive, trash talking phone calls his dad and I shared back and forth as the final weeks slipped into the final days of pregnancy.  We were in a race to be first.  I'll never forget the night that he called around 10:00 to tell me that if I wanted to beat them, I'd better hurry- they were on the way to the hospital.  I laughed and said "let's race, I'm waiting until midnight so I don't get charged for another day."  He thought I was kidding, I think.  On February 28, 2000 (a leap year) at 4:30ish in the morning- Tyler Jack was born.  Two hours later at 6:34, Isaac James was born.  We were in different towns, but it didn't matter.  My closest friend and I were sharing the coolest day! 


A few weeks later they came to our house for a visit.  These boys needed to meet!  Then a couple of months later- a camping trip to Paradise Valley....


I will not forget that day in July.  The phone call was a blur.  The only words I remember are: "accident... we lost Ty... can you meet me there..." I know she also told me that her sister was clinging to life and had been life-flighted to Billings...  None of these words made sense.

The hours that followed were blurry too- with a few stand-out moments... the shopping trip to Target to get necessities - the clerk way too perky, offering a "it could've been worse" comment...  the family waiting for news on Ty's aunt in emergency surgery... saying goodbye to a tiny boy.  Even as I type the memory is excruciating- the tears hot, my heart sick.


Thank God for tears.  The washing of the soul, the expression of the in-expressible.


The following months were horrible.  I love my friend.  I could do nothing.  I love my children, I could not connect...

I spent months wrestling with whether or not to share pictures and milestones with my friend.  Would it kill her to hear that he got his first tooth?  That he started walking?  That he said his first words?  Did she really want to see what he looks like at 6 months, 9 months a year?  How about the first day of kindergarten?  This survivors guilt that I carry, even this year as I watch my little boy turn into a young man, sometimes I cannot file away.

I called Ty's mom this morning, before I even got out of bed.  I have found over the years that she needs to hear about Isaac.  She desperately needs to hear that her son has not been forgotten.  In some ways, we decided, the Leap Years are the hardest.  This year the boys are 12, the last "child" one.  Next time there will be a driver's license, perhaps a girlfriend... Then adulthood. 


So, this February, I will embrace this grief.  I will not hurry it away.  I will not ignore it.  I will live it naturally as it washes over me.  I will praise God for my friend.  I will praise Him for the experience of Ty.  I will praise Him for the tears.