Because He Was My Son

I have learned so many things from the life and death of my oldest child, Justin. He was funny, bright, frighteningly mischievous and naïve in ways that are difficult to describe. His life riddled with broken promises, broken hearts and broken dreams. He was born my son, mine alone. His father abandoned us months before his birth and so with the help of his grandparents I welcomed my firstborn child into this world a squawking mess of pink warm flesh, a heart full of love and a head that dreamed he would grow up to love the earth, the cowboy culture of my youth and the rodeo.

.My nearly 6 ft, beautiful son loved skateboards, everything in music from Reliant K to fifty cent… and he did not know the first thing about being a cowboy. He did love the earth and hunting and fishing. He lived every moment to its absolute fullest. He wrung it out and shook it before squeezing it one last time to make sure he had enjoyed every last drop of whatever experience he had landed in for the moment.

Most people found him difficult to understand and harder to love.  Still, he somehow found his way into the hearts of everyone he met. He was bigger than life: a literal bull in the china closet. He would be generous to a fault, and merciless when angry. His bi-polar disorder kept us on a pendulum swing that often found us shell-shocked or laughing silly, but there was very little in between. He spent his last few weeks working off his probation fees with his grandfather, discovering that he was ready to live the life he had chosen and accept the consequences for his angry actions. He chose to move forward in spite of his heart being a wadded up mess with mixed up feelings, needing his father’s love, but hating him just the same.

One of his few journal entries shows the great battle for his testimony, “I know I need to be a better man.” The words “Jesus is Lord” written in a cross. He was a walking oxymoron – a lover of Christ, dragging his friends to church each week, and walking with them in the world the other days in between.

He claimed Proverbs 3:5-6 from the cell of the Wise County Jail during the seven days he spent there after damaging our car in a fit of rage. I thought then that putting him in jail would be the most difficult decision I ever made, but I would later learned that I would have to face tougher realities in the last months of his life. His life verse speaking to me in so many ways. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding. Acknowledge him in all your ways and he will make your paths straight.” I tell his story because he was my son.