An Exhausting Day

I am sitting in the airport at LAX. It is 2 a.m. in the morning. I arrived here a couple of hours ago because I simply couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for three hours in bed. Then I got up and drove here in my rental car. Better, I thought, to go to the airport and try and get an earlier flight. No luck. So here I am, waiting for my 5:45 a.m. flight to Detroit -- and then to Madison and our farm in Blue Mounds.

I arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday. It has been an emotional rollercoaster since I first learned of Matthew’s death on Wednesday afternoon. I was able to sleep that night – but not much. And here it is already Wednesday morning! How many hours of sleep these past six days? Too few.

I have been staying in Michael’s home with him, my daughter, Jennifer, my former wife, Julie, her husband, Don, and son, Charley. Some of us strangers with only one thing in common – Matthew.

Any death is tragic, but a suicide seems to be even more tragic. It affects more lives, more intensely, and requires so much more from everyone. There is getting the body released from the coroner’s office, making final decisions and arrangements with a funeral home, handling the property and personal effects of the deceased, contacting his family -- especially his children.

Yesterday, we were finally able to view Matt’s body. It was a time of saying goodbye and a time for Jenny and I to anoint him before cremation. That afternoon there was a “wake” at Michael’s home. A time where his friends came, ate, and visited. It was a nice afternoon but I could feel the emotional weariness begin to deeply set in.

How many phone calls, emails, and text messages had I made and sent during these six days? At least a hundred. How many times had I wept? More than fifty. I had never felt such rolling, cyclic grief before and I had never wept so much before so many people.

And now I sit here in LAX – dazed, drained, yet with anticipation of my flight home – perhaps a time to sleep? To see, and hold and kiss Sabine again and to prepare for the weekend memorial service that will, for the first time ever, bring all nine of my children together – from California, Minnesota, Florida, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Afghanistan, on top of that hill in our woods. It has been Sabine’s dream (and my dream as well) to see this family restored and finally acknowledging her three children as full members of the Couper clan.

The last six days have been an opportunity for me to begin the restoration process – to repair the personal damage the divorce did to me, Julie and the children. To visit Matt’s former wife and daughter in San Diego. To finally get to know Julie’s husband, Don, and their son, Charley (Jenny and Michael were there with me to help bridge that thirty-year relational chasm). To both forgive and move forward as a family that could enfold all these people. The once-thought impossible now can be possible.

Throughout this phase of the restoration, the power of prayer has been both felt and experienced. This could not have been possible; I could not have negotiated this week, without it. It has been the prayers of my children, the prayers of our friends, the prayers of numerous church congregations that have made this possible and to this I am eternally thankful. My dear, dear children and friends – thank you! And God, you are present, you hold me up, you have strengthened me through this ordeal – this tragic event – and I know you hold my son in your arms. I know you keep your promises. I know you remember the day he was born and the day I stood and held you in your church and heard those blessed words after his baptism, “Matthew, you are marked and sealed as Christ’s own, forever.” God never forgot that declaration. And when Matt, from time to time, turned his back on God, God never, ever, turned his back on Matthew. And that’s the gospel truth!

O Lord, protect us as we journey to Blue Mounds. Keep us safe. We miss Matthew. Help us remember who you are and why knowing you is important to each one of us for our healing and restoration. Amen.