I Choose To Feel

Today is my brother’s 20th birthday.

I spent the first waking moments of the day reading by my friend Chase Reeves.

This. Post.

This. Fucking. Post.

Chase makes beautiful things online more beautiful.

Ice To The  Brim and Fizzle are just two of his many projects.

But in this post he opens up his soul on what will easily be the most difficult experience of his life for some time to come.

Holding his newborn son in his arms. His dead newborn son.

I laid in bed and cried this morning. Cried for Chase, his beautiful wife Mellisa, his son Aiden, and his son Rowan, who didn’t get to take his first breath.

I just had drinks with Chase two weekends ago on the rooftop of the creativeLIVE studio in San Francisco. He was so full of life and excitement, the way a man looks when his wife is nine months pregnant.

A piece of me was hoping I’d get to watch him take that call and bolt out to his car. I would say something like “Go get em brother!” or “Serve her well” and be grateful to have been a small piece of the experience.

But it didn’t happen. I was mildly disappointed.

Imagine how Chase and Mellisa feel.

Going from a +10 to a -10 on the joy scale in one sentence from the doctor’s lips.

Does a broken heart hurt more when that heart was just seconds before full of love, excitement, joy, and anticipation? Only a small handful of us will ever know.

So what do we do now?

What do we do when we’re crippled with sadness?

There’s no right or wrong answer here. I cried in the fetal position in my bed this morning for several minutes. Then I decided to write, because that’s what I do in times like this.

Sometimes I share my writing. Sometimes it goes in my journal. I wavered on whether or not to share this one, but here goes nothing.

In three hours I’ll be grilling, drinking, and entertaining college kids in my board shorts for David’s Birthday BBQ Pool Party Jamboree.

But this morning, I gave myself permission to feel.

There’s no prescription for dealing with loss. Especially when that loss is the loss of a life of someone you love very much.

But for me, I choose to feel.

Because even though it hurts sometimes, at least I know I’m alive.

And instead of carrying around unfelt emotion for weeks, months, or years, I feel fully into it and let it take its course.

Then I make steaks for 20 year olds while hip hop music blares in the background.

Yes, I choose to feel.

How about you?

###

PS – Chase, Mellisa, and Aiden, all of my love goes out to you today.

[Photo Credit]