The Blog of Missing
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Kitaro therapy
When the boys were little, I’d put them down for their naps in their cribs and play this album. Being Mom was simpler.
What is this sadness I feel?
Jake has not been found; I can’t be mourning his loss. Yet.
So is this fear masquerading as grief?
No. Fear travels on the skin like cold water.
Grief squeezes from within.
It’s a clenched fist wrapped tight around your stomach, whereas fear is a hard cold finger right between your shoulder blades.
And anyway, this is an ache, so it’s neither.
Recently someone said, “No news is good news!”
I’ve been trying to deconstruct that phrase for a week, now.
1. No news is…no news. It is neither good nor bad.
2. No news is terrifying. Given our recent reconciliation, I can’t grasp why my son would still be silent, other than that his body has simply not yet been found.
3. No news is better than confirmation that he’s dead.
4. No news is worse than knowing he is safe.
5. No news sucks.
I deconstruct nearly everything in my head now.
I think I’ve always done this, but I have misplaced my ability to multi-task, along with the desire to do so.
So: some silences.
Not right now.
Right now I’m residing here, in a tiny space of almost not-ness, but enveloped by the warm memory of toddler boys napping to Kitaro while I cross-stitched medieval letters and delicate leaves.
Blog of Missing: Day 39
3/1/2016 1:41 PM to CMTN GRDN/CA (310) 345-#### 1 min.
This line of text kept me up last night. That, and the fact that I didn’t know my son needed to hear his friend’s voice.
Of course he did.
And I didn’t know how to create a space that encouraged him to grieve.
I’m bugging my own self here, now, because his grief is private, is supposed to be private, and I’m putting him on blast while I deal with my own grief, and how fair is that?
I’m opting to do it anyway because the subject is typically verboten in our fussy society. Grief is messy, and no one wants to see your splotchy face and raw emotions. Keep it under wraps, please. I myself am not dealing with anyone putting the stomp on me, but I wonder if Jake did. Or if he dealt with some invisible pressure to keep a strong face…. Or maybe that was his interpretation. Did he feel like he wasn’t allowed to show sadness?
If so, why?
I want to hurry through sadness, or to avoid it entirely.
Sadness, and fear, and unknowing. I’m in the space of all three at once.
Is my suffering caused by my expectation that I should not have to deal with these things? (Seriously, though. I have had enough, I think. There should be a cut-off point, at which time anything that goes over that line should be diverted like run-off to the sea. –> Nope, no room in this drain, off you go.)
Last night I got up after flopping and tossing, and if I could have tucked my ache under my husband like a blanket, I would have, but instead I Linus’d it to Facebook, where I came across a post in my feed that led me to this quote:
If I’m feeling a very difficult emotion, maybe anger, or deep sadness, and I try to focus on my breath, isn’t that a way of avoiding my emotions?
Usually people lose themselves in a strong emotion and become overwhelmed. That is not the way to handle emotion, because when that happens you are a victim of emotion. In order not to become a victim, breathe and retain your calm, and you will experience the insight that an emotion is only an emotion, nothing more. This insight is very important, because then you are no longer afraid. You are calm, you are not trying to run away, and you can deal better with emotion. Your breath is you, and you need alliance with your breath to be more of yourself, to be stronger. Then you can handle your emotion better. You do not try to forget your emotion; instead you try to be more of yourself, so that you are solid enough to deal with it.
- Breathe.
- Retain your calm.
- Emotion is only an emotion. Nothing more.
- Be solid enough to deal with your emotion.
This reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, wherein travelers discover that the grass of heaven slices into their feet because they’re insubstantial and heaven is real. The longer they stay there, the more substantive they become, and eventually their feet are no longer pierced. I will stay present.
I get it. I learned young that emotions were unwieldy and threatening, and I can’t think of anyone in my family who learned how to navigate these waters with grace, so I have to learn to *sail this train on my own.
Still.
Nothing’s wrong with me.
Something’s got to give.
You know the rest.
*One of Jake’s favorite sayings: Dude. That train sailed. [In other words, Let it go.]
And my song today: Dear Younger Me
Surface narrative
No news.
38 days now.
I’ve gleaned a surface narrative from Jake’s phone records over the past year.
From May 2015, when he apparently purchased his phone, till mid-September 2015, many of Jake’s voice calls and texts were to the number of his friend who died in September.
There are four one-minute conversations to that number on October 1. If Dave had already passed, those calls must have been to his friend’s voice mail. Or perhaps to his friend’s wife.
I’m sorry, Jake. So sorry for your loss.
I don’t have the records yet for December 13-Jan 12.
On Jan 14 he called my old number, then he called and talked to his brother. Then to his best friend.
This was after he’d driven to Texas in December and then come back.
He did not call me on my current number till Feb 4.
His calls and texts to me grow in duration and frequency, till the last few days before he disappeared, when I’m the last person he texted and called, with the exception of a brief call to T-Mobile.
And just now I see, on March 1 at 1:41 pm, a call to his friend’s voice mail. 1 minute.
I can’t remember Jake ever saying he was grieving. He acknowledged sadness when I pressed, but he never went further than that. I wish I’d known how to navigate that terrain. But I can barely navigate the terrain of my own grief, and it’s not the same, anyway. I just wish I could have somehow comforted him.
I saw a little boy today who reminded me of Jake.
Jake’s not a little boy any more.
I know this. I do.
I really do.
I’m just–Mom of it all.
And little boys remind me of how much I love him and his brother.
Timeline tiptoe
I’m constructing a timeline of what I know about Jake’s life from the past year, ostensibly to gain a better understanding of his mindset leading up to his disappearance, but honestly in order to be doing something.
It’s been hard to just get started; I’m afraid of the grief simmering under my skin, and I’m afraid everything will point to my worst fears. Plus, doing this timeline means making phone calls and connecting with people in Jake’s life; it feels so invasive that I have the urge to tiptoe. Does it do me any good to understand his grieving over the loss of his friend? Does it do him any good for me to understand it? Whatever the case, I’ve found a site that helps me: http://www.whatsyourgrief.com.
This page has given me plenty to noodle on.
Photo Grief might be something I want to explore later, but for now, I’m taking this route: the 30×30 nature challenge.
(We’ll see how that goes, eh.)
A friend delivered flyers to the SD police department today, and she was so touched by the response she received that she called to tell me about it. “I gotta be honest with you, Stacy,” she said. “I fully expected to be brushed aside and have the flyers forgotten on someone’s desk, and frankly, I wondered if this was just a waste of our time. But not only did they not brush me off, they pointed me to the precise person to handle this, and that person was kind and worried for Jake, too!”
I’m thankful for those who have helped, and for those who are praying.
It’s because of these people that I am not this:
No 30-day guarantee here
A lot can happen in thirty days.
We have 30-day guarantees, 30-day cleanses, 30-day health challenges.
One month. The sun has risen, and set, thirty times since I last knew Jake was safe.
Tom and I went to the Rock church in San Diego yesterday. When I realized a football player was going to give his testimony I wanted to be elsewhere. The beach.
I was surprised by how his story resonated in me.
He was interviewed by Miles McPherson, the senior pastor of the church, who also opened it up by talking about 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul states that God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and the weak to shame the strong. (I am particularly intrigued by this: God has chosen the things that are not, that he might nullify the things that are.) What things are not? 
Thinky things are distracting and welcome.
So. The interviewee was Danny Woodhead, and his journey of ups and downs reminded me that God is always working behind the scenes. No one has the big picture. This comforts me (sorry, Danny) because I’m flying in the dark lately.
Later in the bookstore at the Rock, I saw an art print about faith:
Faith is the bird that sings in the dark knowing that dawn will come.
…which reminds me of a song by Bryan Duncan:
Lyrics found here.
The sun rises, all right. Tomorrow will be 31. It rises, and yet it’s dark.
I just want him to be safe, you know.
But I couldn’t ensure that in the days before he disappeared, either. What is it exactly that I think that knowing will accomplish?
28 days into a dark summer
I’m tired. So very.
Jake must be tired–where’s he sleeping?
Did he eat today?
Now, every time I see a homeless person, I think, That’s some mother’s child.
I had compassion before; this is different. Before, I speculated and sympathized. Now I know.
How can I build something good from this?
I’ve started something rough–if you’re interested, you can check out the resource page I’ve started. Just hover your mouse over ‘a little about me‘ in the menu bar near the top of this page. A drop-down menu will show the page I’m working on. (When someone you love goes missing.)
What brings the light
Thank you, Candace Payne, for reminding me that joy in simple things brings the light.
My husband insisted I watch this. I’d ignored it on Facebook because it looked dorky, and actually, it kinda is, but therein lies the charm.
It made me remember to be myself, to pay attention to small things, like talking to a 5-year-old sharing her Disneyland trip for her birthday. She told me about a naked human climbing up into the air, right after she explained about a donkey doing something, and I got confused, and asked, “A naked donkey climbed into the air?”
And she did this:
And all I wanted to do was say other silly things just so I could see that face. Makes me laugh now, just thinking about it. I probably didn’t hear right, but who cares. Listening to her code-switch between Spanish and English made my day. She and her mother were a spot of grace-filled sunshine today.
I can’t cry. It’s like the sorrow is hiding, and now panic hovers on the edges, like not feeling constant sorrow means I’m giving up, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, or what I’m supposed to do because my adult son has vanished and people keep saying the fact that his body hasn’t been found is a good thing.
I get it. But I also wonder if he just did a good job of hiding himself.
I suppose this is where I should tie things up neatly with something light, but
The blog of missing: Day 25
Yesterday started out a little cloudy, but manageable, and then I had an encounter with someone who made me cry. It was nothing monumental; he was just not as kind as he could have been, and since I’m raw these days, it doesn’t take much to undo me. It was the culmination of several unmindful things this person has said to me that was my undoing.
My friend witnessed my distress, and told me, “Just because someone hands you a bag of crap it doesn’t mean you have to keep holding it.” The word picture was perfect; I let it go. Because, y’know, gross.
One day later, we talked about the situation, and when she saw I’d taken her advice, she asked me how I was able to let things go because she was still mad at this guy, and then asked if I could just explain the process I go through.
My reaction:
I always think I should say, The Holy Spirit enables me, or it’s all Jesus.
But I believe it all comes down to conscious choice. I choose what I focus on.
I have the Holy Spirit, which gives me peace and guidance, but I have the choice to shut all that out.
I want to be careful here because I am not a mindless automaton, but the Holy Spirit’s power is a real thing in my life.
I guess it’s a matter of surrender and trust. When I choose the higher path, I’m trusting that I don’t need to retaliate or be bitter.
I can’t figure out how exactly God works in us so that forgiveness and grace becomes part of our regular menu, because frankly, I have forgiven some very hard things that I couldn’t have done without the Holy Spirit. But walking gracefully is a choice. (And if you’ve seen me walk, you know this is a figurative statement!)
I promised her I would blog about it, and I half-suspect she’s asked this as a means of getting my mind off my worries about my son. She wants something practical to try for herself; I don’t know if I can do that yet. This will be a process, I think.
First a disclaimer: I have not let everything go.
And my way of doing it is just that: my way of doing it.
Letting go of something is like getting undressed, only your clothes are disposable.
Off comes the shirt(s) over your head, mussing your hair. Hair shirt! Of course. Because you’re the only one suffering when you hold onto a hurt, right? Into the wastebasket.
The shoes and socks and pants–everything, into the bin.
Just like the process of getting undressed is done one thing at a time, so it goes with letting go of what hurts.
You don’t just jump out of your clothes, and it’s rare that you can just shrug a hurt off.
Not only must you take them off, you must choose where to put them. If you put the clothes into the laundry basket, then you obviously expect to put them back on. So: trash.
My steps:
- Shirt: I take off the first layer by thinking: my stuff or his/hers?
If it’s mine, I own it. (To the best of my ability. Sometimes I get this wrong.)
If it’s the other person’s, I toss it, and move to step 2. - Pants: I seriously consider the other person. What path is this person walking? What’s going on in his/her life that would prompt what s/he did or said?
- Shoes & socks: I put myself in that person’s shoes. How would I feel in similar circumstances?
- How would I want to be treated? Do I want to be forgiven when I’m a jerk? (yes, please. lol)
Dear beloved friend: if you were trying to get my mind off things, you done good. It worked. Thank you.
And I’m going to take time every day to focus on something I have control over. Thank you for that, too.
The blog of missing: Day 24
Today has been difficult.
More than three weeks since I last positively knew Jake was safe.
When I eat, I think, “Is Jake hungry?”
When I go to bed, I think, “Where is Jake sleeping?”
When it’s hot outside, I think, “Does Jake have water?”
He can’t borrow a phone. Is he disoriented?
Is he all right?
Is he all right?
I can’t turn it off.
If this had happened during the time he’d kept me at arm’s length, I wouldn’t even know he was missing.
But he texted, called, or visited nearly every day from late February onward.
I am bereft of the son I just got back.
I wonder if this is the beginning of a long, dark summer.
D5 Creation