I didn’t know what to expect from Sight & Sound Theatres‘ production, “Jesus.” What I got was a refresher on how I should conduct myself in the world.
There was some license taken with the Bible and one confrontation stood out to me as important. Jesus attacks the Pharisees for choosing religion in place of spirituality. My Jesus is the Word and the Word is truthful speech. It’s what creates reality, from Genesis to each time we speak. When I feel the Holy Spirit I feel full of the Word. That’s the root of my spiritual experience and it doesn’t need religion to propagate. Religion fails when people place themselves between you and your spiritual experience. Religion prospers when it facilitates that experience.
Assumptions and expectations took a beating in 2018. When I suddenly lost my wife I had assumptions about how I would rebuild my life. I assumed I would find a new wife and that we would have a slightly inferior life to the idealized marriage I had with Mary.
After a few months, I gained confidence and moved those expectations a few notches toward the goal of having a stronger marriage than I had before. I found independence in my adventures with my sons and enough patience to wait for “the one.”
Ten months a widower, I met someone who asked for “intentions” in place of “expectations.” It seemed easy enough, I’d been intent on treating humans as individuals deserving of love. I’d been gifted boundless love and intended to share it.
In practice, I started to actively take note of my expectations and assumptions and substitute them with clear intentions. This became painful as I felt my future imposing itself on my present; or rather, my expectations were getting in the way of my intentions.
I’m working hard to curb expectation and live an intentional life. It has lead me into new ways of thinking and being. It has disrupted my thought process and made me happier than I would have imagined months ago, regardless of many pitfalls along the way.
Do you still want a new marriage?
I don’t know. I’ve got so much yet to discover about myself. I’ve got impossible things to accomplish. I’ve got a world of possibilities and the curiosity to pour myself into it. I’ve got a house full of boys who thoroughly enjoy being in a house full of boys. I’ve got a lot of love around me.
Macbeth, Pericles, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and various Shakespeare readings: my sons have seen or participated in all of these plays, most of them before losing their mother.
Experiencing Shakespeare in person places a wide range of human emotion on display: joy, passion, betrayal, murder, love, humor, wonder, deception, innocence, ignorance, jealousy, and loss. I am convinced that this controlled introduction to intense emotion provided my children with the tools they needed to navigate the equally broad spectrum of feelings that we have experienced this year.
It could be that easy to define my 2018, but that’s not how it went. Mary started to get sick at the end of January and spent six days in the hospital before passing into the hands of God on February 12th. Miracles began before she left this Earth: from the maturity and bravery of her 6- and 8-year-old boys to say, “I love you” before she passed, to her holding on until friends and family from all over were able to come and do the same, to the peace that God brought me before her final moments, and to the connection with an eternal love that she left me.
That connection is a super power. Paperwork, memorial planning, giving her eulogy in front of hundreds of people, spending that same night alone with my boys…it all just came to me.
That connection remains unbroken, but doesn’t shield me from my own brokenness. In fact, it’s given me the courage to face my broken parts. That is how I might define my 2018: The Year I Faced My Darkest Parts. I’ve found strength by diving into my weaknesses. I’ve found love by embracing my fears and spending real time exploring them. I’ve started to find myself through a lot of muck piled up inside.
I don’t know why God took Mary, but I’m certain both of them would want me to continue to grow, learn, search, lead, and, most importantly, love.
As we wrap up another adventure I’m feeling worn right down, but oh so blessed. We’ve found traveling companions who go as hard as we do and can smile as they roll with the punches. We giggle and play, hike and seek, and somehow survive the new dynamic of six in a vehicle instead of the road-tested Zerbey Three.
We even squeezed in a two-hour ecology tour before an eight-hour excursion today. The learning lifestyle takes us many places and follows us where we least expect.
On July 27th, 2018, I had a few beers with neighbor friends as our children played together. The night went longer than it should have and I had more to drink than I should have. My sons gave me a hard time as I tried to bring them home for the night, only a short walk away. I lost my temper immediately and threw our house keys into the darkness, telling them they’d be sleeping outside if they didn’t find them. Finally, with keys recovered, we got home and continued to bicker, with me becoming more belligerent. Over some perceived slight I went into a complete rage and smashed a chair on the floor repeatedly, screaming for their attention. I succeeded in the clear goal of terrifying them. They were screaming in fear and I shut myself in my room. After a couple weeks of really struggling as a single parent and increasingly losing control of my drinking, I lied in bed and stormed with confusion until I fell asleep.
My boys woke me a short time later, “Dad, the police are here.”
I don’t know why I was calm. I don’t know why I felt sober. I don’t know why I was able to quell their concerns so quickly. Maybe I know exactly why: I could have lost my children that night.
I went on to be angry at the neighbor who called, the police, and finally myself. I was too embarrassed to share the full truth. I slowly started to work on myself, a job I thought could be carried out privately. I was wrong. Not until I started sharing my worst stories and deepest fears was I able to get my hands around them and start to understand. Three months later I stopped drinking completely. A couple weeks after that I publicly dedicated myself to becoming a better parent. I’ve found people who listen to and challenge me. I’ve lost a lot of that anger.
And even with all that I had put this story away. The Orange Rhino Challenge had called me to reveal it weeks ago, but I chickened out. Then my elder son told the story of that night to new friends in front of me. I was immediately defensive and felt the embarrassment again. I was able to look at it more clearly this time and see how many things I had done wrong leading up to that night. Not sharing that story was a lingering mistake in the way of my self betterment.
Musket and cannon firings, a dolphin sighting, free admission to a wildlife preserve, eating on the fly, trail hiking and running with walkie-talkies while only getting half lost, coffee and smoothie power-ups all around, hopping a fence for some open field ball and game playing, hitting the Redbox kiosk, grabbing a couple freezer pizzas to complement the movie, and surviving some children who have been over doing it like real warriors.
Today was one of those days that doesn’t make sense on paper. The kind of day that shouldn’t have been possible. But we did it all and wouldn’t trade in a minute of it.
We’re blessed with a world full of wonders. Get out there and find a few.
“Oh, where oh where can my baby be? The Lord took her away from me She’s gone to heaven, so I got to be good.” -Last Kiss, Wayne Cochran
No, that’s not the way I look at things, but I have found a lot of reasons to be better since I lost my baby. The most effective reason has been for myself. When I increase my effectiveness in the world, I can provide more for those I love most. It’s a driving passion for me to be the most positive force I can be in the world and multiply the love that Mary and I felt for each other. Focusing on positivity in my parenting and all other relationships has gone hand-in-hand with a personal mission of self discovery and self improvement. It’s driven me into great challenges and eye-opening revelations about how I can find and produce more love.
When five-hour road trips turn into ten-hour slogs, a minivan full of six people can get tricky. When those six people have never traveled together, the hazards can be greater. Repeat that pattern two days in a row? Tricky can turn to sticky.
Somehow we managed. Two families with young children on the road for nearly twenty hours in two days. There was screen time, quiet time, reading, singing, games, drawing, fighting, talking, snacking, laughing, eye-spying, lots of stops, and a bit more fighting. No secrets, just constant trying. It’s been my go-to strategy: when nothing works, try something new, or something old again.
I never expected to replace Mary. I never wanted to. I never could. I feared all the parts of my brain that pointed to my life with her. I wanted to turn away from all of it and make a brand new life. For a while I forgot how good it had been, how well we worked together, and how much I enjoyed doing the things a husband should do.
I’m letting go of that fear and welcoming back into my psyche the things I loved about Mary and our relationship. I’m no longer scared of pretty girls with blue eyes or paying attention to how they like their tea. I can care for someone’s needs in a similar manner as I did for Mary. I can carry with me the best of what I learned as a husband to a range of human relationships.
With a little more love and a little less fear, Jason
