for Jeremiah, the son I do not know.

People who have stayed overnight at my house have wondered aloud why I check on my children every night before I go to bed, even though I put them there, and I have been within 20 linear feet of that same door that I shut since I put them there. My only answer is a question: "Ever lose one?"

This time of year is a torment of emotions for me. I have a birthday of my oldest son to celebrate. I have a feast of Thanksgiving to celebrate. I have the anniversary of our marriage to celebrate. And I have the anniversary of my son Jeremiah's death to mourn. Sometimes one outweighs the rest of these.

Can I be honest? This is the only thing in my life that will bring me close to tears. In the midst of reminiscing about the last 12 years on our anniversary, Wifey brought it up and it almost ruined my otherwise incredibly good day.

If you don't already know, it was about 6 years ago that we lost a baby well into the pregnancy. I am not good at remembering the details, and frankly, I don't have the guts to ask my wife. All I know is that he was a boy, his name was Jeremiah, and I got a call from my wife in tears after a pre-natal check-up to tell me that he no longer had a heartbeat; and we were scheduled to go to the hospital and deliver our dead baby. After having 3 relatively easy births, I remember thinking that this whole thing was impossible; I didn't understand how someone could be expected to have to deal with this. To deliver a dead baby... the horror of it. It was just so overwhelming. Also, we were desperately trying to finish our new house to get moved into, as we had already sold our other, so we had plenty of stress to deal with besides.

When I got the phone call, I had two friends there working with me, Jeremy and Paul, helping build the stairs down to the basement.

After I hung up with my tearful wife, and I don't know why I remember this so clearly, but I remember turning away from my friends, staring at the grey concrete wall; embarrassed to show such emotion as I explained the details of the phone call with my back to them. I don't remember anything else after that.

It seems strange even to me, even through my own perspective, that it should still matter so much to me, that I don't know this son that I lost; this son I do not know. Maybe because I see it as a failure of the most basic of Fatherly duties; to shield, defend, and protect from physical harm. I will have a few things to say to this son when he and I meet:

"You are loved." I miss you; you, whom I do not know. You would fit in here. You would like us. You would belong. You would be "us."

"Who are you?" As I watch my other sons morph from babies to toddlers, to little kids, to bigger kids, and then hopefully into the young men that they will be, it makes me wonder who you would be. I have a peacemaker, and I have a fighter; how would you fit into this? Even as I write this, I realize that simple math dictates that if we hadn't lost Jeremiah, we wouldn't have our youngest.

"why me?" Not "why me" as in: why did this happen to me; but why me, as in why does this affect me so much? I am the very model of that callous, unfeeling alpha male that can blow off anything once I just decide to. I don't have any hang-ups. I almost don't have any feelings at all; just impulses. Why not my wife, who is the very model of that loving tender caring mother figure, especially of tiny infants and small children?

"Thank you." I cannot possibly imagine a worse way of learning it, but through this I have learned things about myself and about God that I wouldn't otherwise know. I could explain this, but it would take days and days and pages and pages. I am, and will be forever, a different person because of you.

"I'm Sorry" I know that I get a "pass" on some of this stuff, but I am truly sorry that I couldn't protect you. I am your Daddy, that's what Daddies do. I am also sorry for actually saying out loud in front of people after discovering that we were expecting, that I didn't want a fourth child. What a truly horrible thing to say about a person, much more about your own son; even if I didn't truly mean it. How many times have I regretted saying that? If I could only take that back... I am so ashamed, and justly so.

And lastly:

"You're my favorite; don't tell the others." (Reference to another post.)

I have a favorite cast iron skillet in our kitchen, it is a #8 Griswald, which, inexplicably, is a 9" skillet. I've done a little research and I've learned that it is anywhere from 85 to 100+ years old. It isn't much to look at, but the cooking surface is worn smooth as glass by many years of steel flippers turning pancakes, eggs, frying chicken, stirring sausage gravy, browning ham steaks, and more recently, stir-fry. Scraping, scraping, until the surface is worn perfectly smooth, much smoother than anything you could buy new. I liken my life to that skillet; the older I get, the rougher I look because the use of the skillet is abrasive, but I hope that the constant scraping will smooth out the inside until polished enough that the Chief Cook can see His reflection in me. It is no easy thing to have your heart shaped, bent, or scraped by God.

I am somewhat horrified that I have written this deeply personal stuff to share, especially as a blog; it seems even to me a horrible place to vent. I don't even have a good reason for doing it, except maybe for something of a tribute to Jeremiah. I am a private person; I don't tell just anyone how I am doing, even when asked. I don't go on to people how busy I am, or how overwhelmed I am, or sad, or whatever, etc. I really don't know why I wrote this, I just started writing, and know don't know what else to do with it, so I guess I will post it.

Two things I wanna make especially clear about this post. Firstly, this is not a cry for help. Secondly, no, I do not want to talk about it. Wanna say something? Leave a comment...

Its just taken me about six years to turn back around from staring at the grey concrete wall.