What I have learned about grief.

“I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual. Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, action after action, had H. for their object. Now their target is gone…So many roads once, now so many culs de sac”. This quote is from the book A Grief Observed, written by C.S. Lewis, where he reflects on his life after the untimely death of his wife to cancer. This book has helped me better understand and navigate my grief. I recommend it to anyone who has lost somebody they love.

It's been four months now since my wife and I lost our infant son, Bennett Elijah. I’ve gone back and forth several times as to whether or not I should even bother writing about our loss on this platform. I’ve asked myself “what good can come of it? People might think you’re just seeking attention. Being vulnerable will only open yourself up to new pain”. I know this now to be a lie–there are things to be learned from this experience that I’d like to share. Everybody will encounter grief at some point in their lives, and only by sharing our griefs with each other can we grow in compassion. As I share my story, I’m going to include lessons I’ve learned that we can all use to better support those who are grieving.

Don’t be afraid to acknowledge the reality of their loss.

Bennett was here, he was real.

Bennett Elijah Craker was born on October 1st, 2023 at 8-months gestation. He weighed 6lbs and measured 19.25 inches tall. He was a beautiful and perfectly healthy baby, but unfortunately we never got to hear him cry. The doctors don’t know for certain what happened, but they suspect oxygen was somehow cut off overnight long enough to cause irreversible brain damage but was then restored so that he wasn’t stillborn. Bennett lived for 5 days on a ventilator and died on October 6th as we held him in our loving arms.

Understand that loss is personal, because love is relational.

This experience was severely traumatic for me. We had no reason to expect our baby to die, and I could barely function for several weeks after we left the hospital. While going home without our baby (in the car I had installed a car-seat in just two weeks prior) my brain began to process what all this meant: I’d never see him play with his cousins, I’d never teach him to fish, I’d never watch him grow up and find someone he loves as much as I love his mother. It was then that the numbness set in and my body turned off. I had a father’s heart’s worth of love, but without a son to give it to. To repeat C.S. Lewis, all the roads for my love had been replaced by cul-de-sacs.

Be patient with those who grieve, sometimes they literally have to learn how to be a human again.

After a month I needed to return to work, but I was still broken. I found that any amount of attention I put towards working instead of towards missing my baby felt horribly wrong and made me physically nauseous. C.S. Lewis shared similar feelings in A Grief Observed. He writes, ”the times when I’m not [thinking of H.] are perhaps my worst…there is spread over everything a vague sense of wrongness, of something amiss”. I’ve since gotten better at focusing on work, but I’ve found that the smallest and most random things can still trigger the wrongness that reminds me of Bennett’s absence.

Every now and then, instead of just saying “How’s it going?”, be intentional when you check in on them and be open to however they may respond.

In my grieving I’ve experienced every emotion on the human spectrum: anger and joy; fear and love; hope and hopelessness. Grief also has a way of turning emotions into a melting pot where I sometimes feel them all at the same time, making it difficult to process. Yet I also have this strange ability to know whether or not I’m going to have a good day or a bad day pretty much as soon as I wake up. In the beginning I’d have maybe one good day every two weeks. I still have bouts of sadness on good days, but it isn't a crippling sadness like it can be on the bad days. As time has gone on, the number of good days have become more frequent to the point where it's the really bad days that only come around every now and then. I try my best to acknowledge and accept the good and bad days for what they are, and not push against them too hard.

Never say “it looks like you’re moving on”... because moving on is impossible.

I’m beginning to recognize that life is slowly getting easier, but I still can’t remember the last day that I didn’t cry. Even on the good days I get teary-eyed. I loved my son with all my heart from the moment my wife told me she was pregnant. It is this love which makes moving on impossible, because even though Bennett died, my love for him remains. To move on would be, in a way, to revert to a state before that love ever existed–that’s a scary thought to be thinking. C.S. Lewis puts it this way, “it frightens me to think that a mere ‘going back’ should even be possible. For this fate would seem to me the worst of all, to reach a state in which my years of love and marriage should appear in retrospect a charming episode–like a holiday–that had briefly interrupted my life and returned me to normal, unchanged…Thus H. would die to me a second time; a worse bereavement than the first. Anything but that.”

Grief will change people permanently, bringing a new perspective to life.

I’m different now. I will never be the same man that I was before losing Bennett. Losing a child is an affront to the laws of nature, a perverse inversion of the natural order. Children are supposed to bury their parents, not the other way around. This experience has caused me to have to confront my own mortality. I am only 27 years old, but I already have my grave plot reserved. I was forced to bury my first-born son, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to be buried next to him. As it goes, things that once seemed so important are so trivial now. Worldly possessions mean less than nothing–unless they belonged to my son. Hobbies that I once enjoyed I now find boring (though thankfully I’ve gradually been able to go running again). The only thing that I care about now is finding ways to love others. The love I have for Bennett is showing up in my relationship with my wife, in my relationships with my relatives and friends, and in my relationship with God. In some miraculous way, God has been able to use this experience to increase my capacity for compassion and empathy.

Grief knocks a person to their knees, and it's gonna take strength and courage to get back up.

As I continue learning to live without my beautiful baby boy, I must keep choosing the hard things that I’d rather not do. Oh, how I wish I could simply resign myself to lay in bed all day and reject the world around me that keeps on spinning. But that wouldn’t bring any honor to the memory of my son. Bennett has gone before me, so it is now my job to be worthy of one day joining him. A glorious reunion where I hope to finally hear his voice saying “Daddy, it's me!”. As hard as it may be, I have no other choice but to keep on living one step at a time. Again, I’ve found that C.S. Lewis agrees with me on this point. He writes, “Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. Sometimes you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago…I do all the walking I can, for I’d be a fool to go to bed not tired.”

Thus, I too will do all the walking I can. As hard as it is, it’s the choice that is best for my son, and those are the choices that all good dads make.