My Story, Part 1: My Son - Episode 20

Can I tell you a secret – I didn’t used to like podcasts. I never listened to one until 2018 when I got into a podcast called Up and Vanished with Payne Lindsey. It was so good, and I got pulled in. Soon I was listening to so many more. Now, just because I listen to them does not mean I ever had any intention of starting a podcast. I mentioned it in one of my first episodes, my friend, Zach over at Transformational Leadership, said I should do a vlog. Absolutely not! It is one thing to speak into a mic, and another thing entirely to be on camera. That was a hard no. However, the more he encouraged, and the more I talked to others, the more I thought maybe I could do this thing. Never mind it took almost 2 years from starting to talk about it to pushing record…and that wasn’t because I didn’t have everything I needed – it was simply fear.

Now I not only listen to podcasts on a wide variety of subjects, but I also listen to podcasts about podcasting, and I listen to audio books about podcasting. I am also in several writing groups for book writing and the common theme over the past few months has been being known in order to be relatable. Ok, that is a peek behind the curtain. Several of you who listen actually know me in person. You know my history; you know my story. Yet many of you do not. My hope is that when I say we are all made to be creative, I want that to be something that you believe, if not right away, at least as a process when you listen to the different creative people soon to be on the mic at the table. For that to happen, I have to trust you with my story.

If you have listened/read to several episodes, you know bits and pieces of my story. Today I want to share about my son. I want you to hear/read a little of that part of my story. I will tell you right now – this has been a part that God has been pushing me to speak on for a while, but I simply haven’t known how to put it all down. How much to share, what to share? And so on. However, today I am going to share whatever comes out. There are plenty more episodes to share other parts of my story. But today, for now, this is the part about my son.

PJ (short for Patrick Joseph) was born on May 16, 1986. Lots of things were happening on that day. Top Gun premiered in theaters. Bobby Ewing came back from the dead on the television show, Dallas. It was a Friday, and on that day, my most favorite Millennial was born. I would graduate high school just 3 short weeks later. There is definitely more about how it came to be that I had a child shortly before I turned 18 – but that is for another episode. I had PJ at home, and it wasn’t a surprise, it was a choice. I am so glad I did. It isn’t for everyone, but for me, with all that was going on in my world at that time, it was the best option, and it kept my anxiety level lower than it could have been (but really, anxiety is always going to be high with a first baby).

Obviously having a baby before you are 18 means that you are not grown up. So, PJ and I sort of got to grow up together. I was an early GenX kid, and he was an early Millennial kid – and together we figured life out. I was blessed to live with my parents until PJ was 2 years old. Then it was time to let my mom and dad be empty nesters, so we moved into our first apartment together. Those next 4 years were hard. I worked a job that was brutal (remember a few episodes back when I talked about making a commission of one half of one percent? This was that time period). PJ went to a private preschool and then a private school. We made our way and, for better or worse, we were buddies. Not the most optimal parent/child situation…but until the Rocket Scientist came along, it was just PJ and me.

In 1992 the Rocket Scientist and I got married and the 3 of us became a family. It wasn’t easy, and I had to give up a lot of control and we somehow had to figure out this new rhythm of family. We would soon learn that, due to a significant hearing loss in kindergarten, PJ would navigate the world of dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia. It was a lot. There were a lot of tears cried – both kid and adult. There was a lot of testing and a lot of tutoring. We had an amazing tutor for him, and she taught him all of the tricks to work with these challenges. Ultimately, we chose to homeschool him starting in 4th grade. It was a good choice even if he didn’t always think so. He was active in church, music, and golf and that was his social outlet.

Fast forward to his college years and PJ chose to take 2 gap years attending a Christian Leadership Bible School in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Ravencrest in Estes Park was a pivotal time for him. There were some rough relational moments for us as a family, and for PJ with friends. Yet, God was already in those mountains before we ever left him there that first year (also, if you are a momma who is getting ready to take your baby to college, please know that copious tears are just fine. I bawled my eyes out from Estes Park until almost the New Mexico border. They only slowed down when I could no longer see the mountains in the passenger side mirror). It was in his second year at Ravencrest that PJ met his wife. And what a blessed gift she has been. She is the daughter of our hearts – and we couldn’t love her more if she were our very own.

Ruth moved down here to Tucson after that school year and that was another sweet kiss from God because she is from Wisconsin and just in case you didn’t know it, Arizona and Wisconsin are not close in proximity. That would be in God’s plan much later as well. In November of 2006 PJ asked Ruth to marry him and in July of 2007 (yes, July in the desert!) they said, ‘I do.’ Then came a house, dogs (and 2 rats and a snake), completion of college degrees, and soon they would share big news of the addition to their family of our amazing grandson in 2014.

And then the Fall of 2015 came. PJ had just been hired on at a big company here in town but had not yet started working. He had put his notice in at the global mining company he was at and was looking forward to this next step, a big step, in his career.

One day, after Ruth had picked the baby up and headed home (I should have known something was up because she left quickly and didn’t say much), PJ came to the house and told me he had cancer. They had just been at the doctor and a biopsy was scheduled. I wish I knew how to put into words the speed at which my mind and heart were racing after that. How do you process your only child telling you he has cancer? I couldn’t fix this – as badly as I wanted to. I couldn’t pray it away, wish it way, hug it away, cuss it away, it was out of my hands and that is not a place any mom wants to be when their child is sick. I remember trying so hard not to cry. I remember PJ saying, there is no need for tears, I’m still here and we are going to fight this.

I wondered what he was truly thinking. I wondered if he would ever tell us. But for that moment on that day, I simply moved over to the couch next to him and hugged him. I prayed over him and hugged him. I whispered by begging cries to God and rubbed my child’s head. When PJ left to go home, and while I waited for the Rocket Scientist to get home from work, I threw up what felt like everything I had consumed for the week. It wouldn’t be the last time that would happen. God created the body in a magnificent way – and fight or flight is no joke. There was no where to flee, but my body was preparing to do so anyway.

And so, as a family we rallied. That’s what we have always done, it is what we will always do. We gathered our inner circles around each of us individually and as a family unit. We started prayer updates on a Facebook page. And we watch God move I ways that we are still learning about. In the midst of this job change and no insurance, we watched Him pull together and amazing insurance plan for their whole little family that covered so much of the expense. We watch fundraisers come together from across the country. And we watched our family become even tighter than we were before.

This cancer was awful. And I try not to think about the things I would have done differently (which, let me tell you, I think those things often – as a parent, it is what you do), but the one thing I’m 100% glad I didn’t do was look up the odds, or the details on this type of cancer. He had squamous cell carcinoma with the main tumor on his tongue. We were told that they would do surgery to remove the tumor and maybe reconstruct the tongue, depending on how much they had to take. They would also remove many lymph nodes from that side of the neck. Then he would heal and go through radiation. The surgeon said that should take care of it. And foolishly we believed.

And we watched God move more. The 3 days following the surgery were horrid as far as pain. And while we watched him struggle with physical pain, we also watched him struggle with the pain of not know if the new employer would want him after this. So much so that he was avoiding phone calls from his new boss (a man who he only met a few times). At one point his boss called, and PJ’s wife answered and was simply stuck at that point. She shared the basic information of what was happening, and this man was Jesus with skin on in those days. He told PJ that he was part of the family, that he needed to heal, that they would make accommodations for him, and so much more. He made sure there was pay coming, made sure PJ knew that he was a believer and was praying for him. Again, it was like God was preparing and tending the soil of hope and joy.

Obviously, if you have read the blog or listened to the podcast, you know that surgery and radiation were not the simple remedies. We would watch PJ battle for 19 months. We would be in the hospital for a total of 4 weeks the following May/June while we fought to get PJ out of a malnourished state with a feeding tube and new pain management (he would turn 30 in the hospital). We would sit for hours with a nutritionist as she walked us through the calories he needed and how to provide those through homecooked, organic tube food (and thank goodness, she too was a believer and prayed with us and checked in on how it was going). I learned that I really did need math after high school as each week I would steam, baked, blend, freeze and seal all of the nutrition he needed to put through that damn tube each week. We would watch the tumors in his neck show up, grow and then shrink and then grow. It was a maddening nightmare that none of us could escape. We became friends with oncology nurses and doctors. We learned about so many medications. We learned about wound care and manuka honey and seaweed, all for healing. Ruth and I became nurses without a nursing school education – but we did it.

And God showed up in all of it. In the panic of laying down at night to try to sleep and not be able to because we were so worried something would happen. In the dozing in and out with the phone by my ear in case he sent a text so I could run down the hall and help. God was there even when it felt like He was a million miles away.

On Mother’s Day of 2017 – May 14th – we had to make the hard call to place him in hospice. We initially thought we would go to the in-patient facility for a day, simply to get the pain under control and then he would come back to our house (where their little family had been staying). That was not to be as his pain was not going to be managed in a way that we could do so from home. And yet, God was there. If you want to see angels on earth, go meet a hospice nurse. They truly are the breath of God when all of the air is pulled from your lungs. PJ turned 31 two days after entering hospice. We celebrated with flowers and balloons. His best friends came in at night at played video games with him, played guitar, and sang worship songs with him. His best friend stayed overnight with him so that Ruth and I could sleep. These were sweet moments surrounded by pain.

I wrote these words the day before he died:

“May 24, Morning:

Another peaceful night is behind us and again, we keep laying PJ and the number of his days at the feet of Christ.

Last night things were a bit loud until about 1am, as a large family gathered in the building. PJ slept through and I was reminded of his teenage years when he slept through any noise!

I'm watching him sleep this morning and picturing that the Father is holding him on his lap, with the Son & Spirit holding his hands and caressing his head. This is the only right thing about the circumstances, that he is held by The One who knows what this feels like and can comfort PJ, and us, better than anyone knows how.

One of PJ's favorite Christian authors is G.K. Chesterton (two peas in the pod, he and his dad!). If you haven't ever read anything of his, these are a few quotes. He is worth the effort (at least it is an effort to me) to read...I find I see our son in many of his writings.”

The next day he was gone, and these were the word I wrote:

May 25, 2017 at 6:17pm, Patrick Joseph Donald Allen left the presence of his earthly father and immediately was present with his Heavenly Father.

We now walk with a strange joy for him (and a bit of envy), as well as an unwelcome understanding of agony.

“And regarding the question, friends, that has come up about what happens to those already dead and buried, we don’t want you in the dark any longer. First off, you must not carry on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to, as if the grave were the last word. Since Jesus died and broke loose from the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who died in Jesus….We can tell you with complete confidence—we have the Master’s word on it—that when the Master comes again to get us, those of us who are still alive will not get a jump on the dead and leave them behind. In actual fact, they’ll be ahead of us. The Master himself will give the command. Archangel thunder! God’s trumpet blast! He’ll come down from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise—they’ll go first. Then the rest of us who are still alive at the time will be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Master. Oh, we’ll be walking on air! And then there will be one huge family reunion with the Master. So, reassure one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 MSG

I wish I could tell you that I handled the days, months and years that have followed with grace and dignity. I did not. I can tell you that I have used the f-bomb far more in the past 4 years than I ever did before. I have so many ‘bleep-worthy’ moments, and I don’t feel any shame over them either. I know it can make people uncomfortable, and quite frankly, I don’t care. If you are in a situation where someone is in deep grief from a loss, and that grief makes you uncomfortable, please just sit in that. Our being uncomfortable is a cake walk compared to what they are walking through. God is in the grief. He is in the pain. He is in the dirt and the yuck of the swearing and the screaming and the fact that life, who we are, will never be the same. I will never be the same person I was before he died.

And that’s ok because God is still God even though I am not the same Stacy as I was in 2014.

Remember how I said that God was in Estes Park and Ruth moving here to Tucson even though her family, and a twin sister, are in Wisconsin? Well, God knew all of this would happen. He even knew the timing. He is not a far-off God, he is a right next to us, carrying us when we can’t walk, God.  In His perfect timing, even though I was not ready at all, God brought the man who would be her husband into her life within that year. In 2020 they were married, and we have come to love him and see him as a bonus son. He doesn’t replace PJ – no one ever could – and yet, there is a sweetness to having a “boy” around again. God was there in the midst of that…way back in 2006 when she moved to the desert.

This part of the story is hard to write, it is hard to talk about, it is simply hard. I will probably always cry. And I will always ache. A part of me is gone. Things have changed. I have changed. I stick to the saying that the pain will always be there, but life gets bigger around it. That doesn’t diminish it – the light simply shines brighter especially when it seems darkest around you. This afternoon I was thinking about hope and joy and the things that cause those to grow. Its not the easy times. The flat ground, so to speak. It is the hard times. The times you can’t even think about taking a breath much less putting one foot in front of the other. The thing about deep grief is that somehow, some way you have to find hope and when you find it you hold on to it. You see, hope is stubborn, like a deep-rooted tree. And once it takes hold, it grows stronger. And most of the time it grows deep & strong because those around us are feeding the soil and deeply watering the ground. It is through & by the hope of those supporting us that our hope grows. And then, later when the flood waters of grief arrive, unannounced, we hold on, with all the strength we can muster, to the deeply rooted, stubborn hope. All is not lost after all. For we realize that the fertile, unseen soil that hope is rooted in is actually joy.

So, there is part of my story. I am determined to share more of the good, the bad and the ugly. It is how you will know me. It is how you know that when I say I hurt with you or I rejoice with you, you know I mean it. God walks us through storms so we can walk with others. So that we can show others, you might be bruised and battered, but you will make it because God is in it with you.

I know this may have been a hard listen/read. It was a hard recording. Nevertheless, I am still going to end this with what I always say…until next time, go out and find a creative way to make someone smile.