Cruel Dreams

Dreams can be a cruel and uncontrollable bully that sneak up on you when you are getting control and tear it from your hands. Last night, he was alive. Revived a month after death. I embraced him like I have never embraced a person before. My friend was back. He was acting erratically, but he was back. I told him, he had no idea what he put me through, but I was so glad to see him again. Later in the dream, he then told me he was going to go back on Vicodin in a couple of days as if he was going to do it all again. A guy in the back of the room of the bizarre party we were at screamed, "I can help you get those." I said profane things and chased him down. The weird thing is, I have never once been able to run or fight in a dream. I am either running through pudding, or I am punching in slow motion. This time I caught him and beat him to death. I stood up and turned and Will was gone. I opened my eyes to the real world and the sun beaming through the curtains and I sunk. I had him back and it was so real, then he was gone again.

Just trying to make it through today. Erik and I went through old videos last night to put together for Will's family to watch tonight. I was looking for this series of videos he did for my youth group of Will playing this hysterical character. Could not find even one of them. This crushes me, because if they were ever aired on TV, they would be an instant and raging success because Will was so funny. So mad at myself for not taking better care of them. Hindsight right?

On an unrelated note: What does an atheist funeral look like? What semblance of comfort can a speaker there give? "Your father or grandmother or son, is now in the ground, will smell really bad, and rot away into dust, never to think another thought again." "Thank you all for coming, good talk folks."










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Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

The Door

Last Sunday, my pastor was teaching on how deeply our God loves us and how we are worth many sparrows. While teaching he transitioned into a Gospel presentation in which he made it clear that you can knock on God's door, but you have to trust Him to open it. We can't earn salvation and try to open that door ourselves, we need Christ.

Occurred to me that sitting here in this hell I have been in for the last month isn't helping. Obviously. But I am trying so hard to solve what happened. I spent the first couple of weeks needing to know every detail and investigate the whole situation. Then spent the rest of the time trying to grieve in the way that is most acceptable for everyone else. I am angry. I am sad. I miss my friend so much. I am guilty. I am punishing myself.

I think the door analogy applies in everything you should be allowing Jesus to do. Not one thing I have done to try to heal has worked, not one. But every time God intervenes and has shown me He was there and loves me has spoken volumes into my heart.

Let it just be what it is. Trust Christ to open the door. No matter the situation or the severity. Do what you can do, and let Christ open that door. I have been fumbling with this broken door knob for too long.

God has spoken to me through so many people, lately Will's mother, who is shining as Christ works in and through her. I am proud of her. And I know her mother would be too.

So now....what do I do.
Knowing is only half the battle.












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™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Angels

Angels glorify God and are helpers to us. They may not appear the way they use to in the old times, with huge lights and terror. But they appear still, in the corners of our eyes,. We see their wake as they pass through. We feel their work in our lives, because God has empowered them to help. "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it"-Heb. 13:2. What a beautiful thought that we could be speaking to a messenger of God in disguise as a normal man, that we could be speaking to something divine.

It is important to examine everything people say to us and test it. If it is of God, apply it any way you know how. It brings me comfort to know that God cares that much to send us ministering spirits.

Angels are spirits,but it is not because they are spirits that they are angels. They become angels when they are sent. ~Augustine

I think God has been sending me a lot of angels lately and it gives me peace and hope. The days are long and seem to be passing by without me really noticing. The nights are cold and lonely. The morning is a battle to get out of bed. But here is God still at work. Still chipping at me, even when I resist the truth. Even when I refuse to let go.

It is true that God may not always do these huge signs and send these glorious Herald Angels, but His work is just as powerful as it always has been. God is infinite in His power and strong enough to save us.








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™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Cars Pass By

I can still here that train in the background. I have never been dragged so close to the horror of that day until now. I hate it to it's very core. It's guts may rot in hell. The brutality and helplessness is sick enough to drive a person mad. I am so thankful that God has saved me from death and have come to the point where I have even forgotten how a person can close their eyes and willingly fade away.

Here are the things I left behind on those tracks. I left behind hopelessness, because God showed me another day and the sun did shine again. And again. I left my pride and desire to hold on to my anger at God and everyone else. I left those behind and realize that death is a permanent solution to a temporary problem as my psych. professors always say.

But lately, I feel as though I have died as well. My wife has panic attacks because she doesn't know when I will be the same and neither do I. I just know that God is in control and I will recover. This is still only a month old. It isn't fair. For everyone who knew him, you know how unfair it really is.

All of these cars pass by and none of them will ever be carrying Will. He may not have meant much to some people, but he meant the world to me, but some people may look at me as if I should just snap out of it and be strong. I can't snap out of it, but I am being strong. In Christ, I am strong. God has subdued my rage and will continue to, He will light up my face again and walk with me through this darkness. Someday soon, I will drive by a place where our ghosts reside and not lose my breath.

I beg you, as another human being, to be very careful and sensitive with other's feelings. Do not live life only for yourself. Do not project what you want a person to be, when they cannot be that person. Do not crush another under foot to get what you want. Do not say things you do not mean in an effort to hurt another person. Respect all human life. Treat everyone as Christ would treat you. Forgive. Hope. Create. Have grace. Love. Admire. Notice the little things. And please, please do not take them for granted.










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™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Creation

When do sea gulls fly south for the winter? Also does it make southerners mad that they have to house the birds of the north? As I write, there are gulls swirling around my head like I am some sort of mark that is too dumb to know he is about to 1. Be killed by swirling gulls or 2. Be mercilessly pooped on.

The water is beautiful today. Small pieces of ice float by with the current smashing against the rest as they hit the boardwalk, making piles that resemble Superman's crystal home.

People handle their grief in different ways. Some hold it in and pretend, grieving alone. Some turn it to anger and sit there for the rest of their lives. Some let it happen naturally and walk away from it when it is dull. Some share it. I share it. Have no idea if that is good in the long run. But I have decided that I will give people everything, that's why I started this blog in the first place. I kept a journal, but after a while it occurred to me that maybe my secret thoughts shouldn't be secret anymore and that maybe God's shines through honesty. Right now I am just trying to see God in any way I can. God said "Blessed are those that mourn, for they will be comforted." That's what I am looking for. I pray, but somehow I have always been lead out here where God's creation is wild and untouched. It is places like these that give me comfort because of their divine beauty.

I think it may be a little different if the method and circumstances of Will's death were different, more natural than they were. I have disturbing dreams and images keep me up all night. The thought that he hurt that bad, tears me from my peace. I think tranquility is the key for me right now; To focus on God and search for Him in His beauty.

We will not be defeated. The enemy tried to kill us and he took my brother, but we will not be defeated, because greater is He who is in us than in this world. God will prevail and already has.











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™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Art

Some days everything is art.

The way the sun bounces off of the hood of a car and reflects it's light to a small piece of metal making it impossible to look at. The way a helicopter seed falls from a tree. The snow falling in both large and crystal flakes. The way the water smashes gently against the rocks in the middle of the night. The way the street lights look as they cast their shadows in the back seat, only really visible to a small child who has nothing else to look at.

I used to lay on my bed at night as a child and trace my fingers around the outlines of the sponge paint on my walls, making pictures only visible to me. I would lay there all night and worry. Mostly about nuclear war and Freddy Krueger, but sometimes I would worry about being OK. I have always felt different inside. It's funny because I sit down in front of the therapist as he tells me everything I figured out about myself in third grade and now realize this is normal. It may not be to everyone else, but to me this is normal. How I feel is normal. I am made to be the person I am. Not the sin, but even that teaches me something about myself, God, and grace. I think God is art and expects us to notice the way he has designed everything to point to Him. I find beauty in the way I was knit together, torn, and mended. I find beauty in brokenness and God finds it in contrition from broken people.

For some it is really difficult to revisit the things in their lives that have been hard for them. Abuses, abandonment, apathy, addiction, and anything else that sits silently with such a weight in the cellar. These things shape us into who we can be. They give us character, like a really cool looking facial scar from battle. The scars they leave remind us that we have been in the fight and have emerged alive. We have been cut and trampled, but stand with our heads to God, holding up the head of Goliath.

This Bible verse keeps bugging me.
1Th. 4:13   Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.

It is easy when you are so distraught to lose sight of the point of grace. We do not grieve like those who have no hope. We have hope. We have Christ. We know that the Maker who made everything art is still making art in us. Death is defeated. Lost it's sting.

John 16:20 I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.

I believe it. Without seeing it, I believe it.










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Toilet Paper Rockets

We used to sit and build these rockets at night time. All we needed were empty toilet papers rolls and some Kleenex and rocket engines and tape and we could fly you to the moon. We used to always talk about getting in those rockets and flying back through time to our youth and just sitting quietly watching us do it all over again for a while. Then we would come home and enjoy the present as we made a new past with every passing moment.

We sat in my garage one night and wrote a song about it. It was the only song I ever wrote with Will. Took us all night to agree on the wording with the melody. The song is below.


Toilet Paper Rockets
Verse 1
I took a trip down to my stomping grounds
Where we used to sit and say we were happy
I want to be happy again

Everybody's gone and the feeling in the car
We're never going back there
I want to go bak my friend

Chorus:
I (Lost you)let you go, I left you far away
I'm (Caught you)falling high and I'm flying low and I'm
never coming back

Verse 2:
Lying on the grass by the cellar door
Gazing out from toilet paper rockets
I'm sorry your trees are gone

The lights are growing dim on this rocket ship
Take a ride, jump into oblivion
I want to go back my friend

Chorus repeat:

Verse 3
Step into a world of forgotten ghosts
Haunted by all the stories we have made here
The candles have all burned out

Breathing in the rain
And the taste is not the same
We never should have come here
I want to go home my friend

Chorus repeat:


I can't help but to think that we will never watch another movie together or write another song. We will never load into another hole in the wall bar and plug in and fire our hearts through strings again. The names we wrote on the walls of the backrooms in marker are fading and we will never be back to give them their color again.

You got in your rocket when you got on that rope and none of us will ever be the same again. You will always be missing and we will feel it. You are in our memories and those I will lock tighter to my heart than anything else, but we will never sit in a car together again and drive around aimlessly looking at all of the places we have been. Still can't believe your actually gone.











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™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Play. Stop. Rewind.

Play. Stop. Rewind. Play. Stop. Rewind. Play. Stop. Rewind.

I can do this to infinity and I won't be satisfied, and it won't change a single solitary second of the past. Laura said something in passing as she left for work the other day that sat heavy in me. She asked me not to punish myself all night alone. I denied it and she left saying only, "Yes you are." I am. Joe is. Proof was tonight when Joe came to my curb in heaps. Wishing he had done everything differently. Ashamed that he didn't do all the right things. And willing to spend the rest of his life in misery to make up for it somehow. I think we make up for what we missed by living our lives the best and happiest we know how. Right now I have no idea what that looks like, but I do know I will figure it out. God will move me as He always does and I will emerge from these ashes beaten up, bloody, and crushed, but alive and so happy to be. I am beating myself up. I feel ashamed to laugh. Ashamed to forget for one minute of the day what Will is to me and how much I lost.

But then I picture him in Heaven with all of that laughing, and his huge smile that made everyone else smile. He is watching the tapes of all the fun we had, all of the golden moments we shared. Play. Stop. Rewind. Play. Stop. Rewind. Play. Stop. Rewind. He is laughing and clapping his hands like a poor fool who just won the lottery everyday for eternity. These thoughts make me feel better. I hate that he hurt so bad and I hate that he didn't share it with me. But he isn't hurting now and although we will never get over our the loss of our brother, we will be happy.

If I were Christ, I would never give him back to us anyway.












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™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

A Box

Tears today. Inside of a box is another box that keeps the remains of my brother together. We said some words that meant everything to us and walked away to our cars and drove away. I tried not to focus on the weeping coming from behind my seat as my son sat destroyed. I watched every tree limb as we passed through the winding maze and out through the gates that closed behind us shortly after.

Absolutely no stars out tonight. Nothing. The night is empty and quiet. People are in their beds sleeping, getting energized for another work week. Kids are excited because tomorrow there is no school. TV's flicker unnoticed and lamp bulbs dim, flare, and dim again. All the while, the guy I slept next to throughout high school is inside of a box. Just like on Christmas Eve. I know he isn't in there. He just isn't here fully either. And all remains silent.

I want to hire mourners like they commonly did in Biblical times. I want to get real wailers too, ones with strong pipes. I want to march them all out with me into the streets and scream together. I want the entire city to know what we lost. I want them all to weep with me. I want to end all silence in these streets. I want to wake up the neighbors kids. I don't want them to hurt, I just want them to understand what it means to care so much about another person. If everyone cared like that, most of the horror of this world wouldn't happen. But mostly I just want to shout so that he can here it. I am sick of wining about it here, but it is all I got.








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The Fire

1:20 Am. Day wasn't quite as bad as I feared it would be. Will's mom stopped by and gave me a necklace and cross she bought me with a little of Will's ashes inside. That was really kind of her. Got to speak to an old friend for a while, which was also nice except for the circumstances in which we spoke...obviously. Caeden was watching TV and I was having a conversation with Aevry about Jesus being inside of us when he started to cry really differently than I usually see him cry. Took him a minute to get out the words, "I miss Will." But when he did, I held him. He didn't react at all when Will died, even after witnessing the phone call on Christmas morning. It worried me a bit that he acted as if it didn't phase him. It did phase him. Took him a minute to realize uncle Will wasn't coming back, ever, but it affected him. He cried like a baby for a while and I tried to joke and be an idiot to cheer him up, and it didn't work, so I got him M&M's. I thought the night was going to be a miserable one, but Laura stayed up late with me and we watched TV together which took my mind away for a while. Now I sit here alone and the house is sleeping.

It is weird to go on with the day and be distracted until you realize your brother has just killed himself. I go ahead and do the dumb thing by picturing his face and draw pictures of him in my head as he struggled to keep himself from that rope, but I can't help it. But I think I am going to be OK. I am still alive, and I still have this wife of mine and these kids and a family like no other. Most of my family has no blood relation, but are as close as any other family. God has blessed me and given me so much. It is hard to not have regrets, but regrets do not bring back anyone, just make you miserable. It is my family and friends that are God's instruments to bring me back home into the warmth. I said in a Facebook status before Will's funeral that these next few days were going to change me. I think they did, but I think through all of this fire, I just may come out better. I may end up a better person and husband and father and friend. I may think about everything differently. The only problem is the fire that is yet to come.












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Flashing White Lights

3:21 AM. This road in front of me is long with so many cracks and canyons, I can't make out if there is an end at all. Everywhere I look are blinking lights. Outside my door are old Christmas lights a neighbor has yet to take down, the alarm clocks, the quiet flicker of electric pictures across my screen. Everything is alive, but seem so empty and sterile. I wish I could breathe something real into them to remind me that nothing lives forever, we are programmed and wired with everything we need to lead us to happiness and to God. Just right now it all looks empty to me, because I lost something that matters so much to me. I would search endlessly if I already didn't know where it went, but I do.

Heaven. So why do I weep?

Even Jesus wept. Lazarus, His friend, was dead and He knew He was about to heal him. Some say, He was weeping for the sin of the world or the ignorance of mankind. I say He wept because He shared in the pain of being human. His name is Emmanuel, meaning God with us. I think when He called Himself that, He meant that He was really with us in everything, including the times when you would do anything to crawl right out of your own skin. The times when the sorrow is so great you can't see anything or breathe right air, or function as a husband, father, or friend. He is with us. He has been with me. Despite this misery I feel. I still feel Christ more. I have to remind myself that when the dark is too thick and the storm is raging, look for Christ inside of it with me, not look for the end of it. That is where faith is cultivated.










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The Heart Of Fortune Cookies

Having a pretty good day today. Avoiding all things that might mess me up, so I will not write anything about Will right now. Just wanted to let you all know how much I appreciate your kind and encouraging words. Your prayers to God are being honored and we are feeling the peace that only God gives. Yesterday while eating at my favorite restaurant, it came time to open and read the fortune cookies. Inside of Aevry's, my daughter who gave me the plastic heart and told me I could have hers because mine was broken, it read, "God can heal a broken heart, but He has to have all the pieces." This might be sheer coincidence, but I choose to believe it was yet another love letter from my God and King. So praise to him through all heartache and joy and let God reign in our lives.







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™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Transit

Prior to my own attempt at suicide, Will used to tell me my eyes freaked him out. Will thought I might be the anti-Christ because they were always so empty. I never understood what he was talking about, I never saw it before. Until right now as I look at him. Last time I saw him, he was so empty, I took him from the CMB party just to get him into a new atmosphere, because his eyes freaked me out.


Going to see a guy today. Gonna sit behind his desk and tell him everything wrong with me. He will write some stuff down and put it in a folder for his cabinet full of trophies and sorrow. He will then tell me the answer I have been looking for my whole life and I will be solved. Or maybe he will help just a little. Either way, I have hopes. The mornings are the most difficult to deal with lately. It is a battle to get out of bed, a real battle. To get up, eat breakfast and venture down into the crypt I keep my desk in. This place has become synonymous for tears since Will died, it was the only place I could escape so I don't ruin the holidays for my kids seeing me fall into piles. It isn't getting any better, it just has changed. While before it was an outward sadness that was expressed through the inability to breathe at certain moments and weeping at others. Now it is underlying and crippling. There is weight in Laura and I. We carry it as gracefully as we know how, but weight is weight. My movements are slow, and my reflexes delayed. I guess this is what it feels like to lose a vital organ.

Things have quieted down around us, but we still sit silently in the valley of the shadow of death wishing we could take it all back and change everything. Instead we are trying to finally put his body to rest on Sunday. Finally. It bothers me so much that his remains are still in transit, but we found a beautiful place to lay him down. A place surrounded by water, a lighthouse, and a bridge. It will make an excellent place for me to hide. I miss my friend so much.








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Willy One Thumb

We did a lot of stupid things out of boredom. There is nothing to do down that river but get in trouble. It had nothing to do with the ways we were raised, and nothing to do with deep seeded issues we had. We got bored and when people get bored, bad things are likely to happen. Look at King David. One bored night, we went to Meijer and scowled around for something destructive and came upon a beautiful BB gun. I had to have it. Will and Joe both had one at home that their mother would keep throwing in the trash, but they would keep sneaking them out. She hated guns.

We bought this little black beauty with a scope and a case of clay targets to go with it and went back to their house. I tore into that gun like Raulphi and loaded it. We decided that the best thing to do was to have a person hold the clay targets as the other would shoot them out of his hand. I didn't account for an uncalibrated sight on my gun and I shot Will's thumb clean off. Maybe not severed, but the BB made a hole in his thumb nail and he writhed in pain. Months later, the BB came to the surface and he dug it out with tweezers. His thumb was never the same. I called him Willy One Thumb.

We ran out of targets, so we decided that we would use the difficult to hit car windows as targets. We hopped into my truck and we would creep up on parked cars and spider out their windows. I used to stall the car out on accident trying to get away fast enough. After a long hard night of doing this, we were on our way back home and I saw the swirling lights. I was pulled over. As we were getting pulled over, I told Joe to hide the gun. Luckily we were using the handgun at the time. He assured me it was well hidden. The cops said nothing of the shootings, but noticed I had a car plate on my truck, making me illegal and the truck needing to be towed. I mouthed off for a while as was my normal routine with the cops and demanded to be cuffed. He would not. He was actually not too bad of a guy. He put us in the back of the squad car and Joe tried to grab his shotgun above his head and got his hand smacked down by a police officer. I then proceeded to wipe boogers on the bullet proof glass. We waited as the cops searched the vehicle and found nothing. I thought for sure we were dead, they were going under the seats and everything. I asked Joe later where he hid the gun. He took the hide it in plain sight route and hid it directly in the middle of the floor under my work apron. I was so pissed, yet relived at the same time. Anywhere else and they would have found it.

Had his youngest boy with us over night the other night. Laura took all the kids to a birthday party that I couldn't go to due to cats. Joe came over and we watched movies that reminded us of Will all night. As Laura pulled up, she called us to help her get all the sleeping kids out of the car. Joe went out there with me and grabbed Connor, Will's boy. As he lifted him, Connor looked at him and said "Daddy?" Joe had to explain to him he was Uncle Joe, not dad. Connor pulled his head back and stared at Joe for an eternity and Joe put him in the bed. Connor began crying. Such a horrible feeling. For that poor kid to have even an instance hope that his dad was back, then have it dashed. Like waking from a dream when all of your hopes and desires came true to find out it was a dream. Pray for these kids.

Still got that BB gun I shot his thumb off with.









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SnorkleCorking

We invented the game above all games.

Supplies:
A $.50 sticky hand
Index cards each with a numerical value written on them
Adult Diapers

How to play:
There are 10 rounds
Each player gets three shots per round to pick up the most points by flinging the sticky hand at the cards flipped face down.
At the end of each round the points are tallied and the high score of that round shoots first in the next
After 10 rounds, the person with the most total points is the winner

What do you win:
Everyone who doesn't win has to pee their pants

I told you it was the game above all games. There were photographs at Will's funeral. I will post them if I ever get my hands on them. This is how we spent our time. Inventing ways to disturb other people. SnorkleCorking was just one of the hundreds of ways we invented to do this. For the outside looking in, it would seem very off-putting to see such pictures and to here of such a game. But for us, this was the only way to live.

Yesterday in Michigan and most of the east coast and midwest, it dumped gallons of snow on us. Driving around last night, I was reminded of so many times we used this weather to our advantage. We created the street snowboarding league, where we would tie a tow rope to the back of the van and hop in a snowboard and be dragged through the snow covered streets. We even modified the game one time. Our whole construction crew (our jobs at the time) were lazy. We would look for any excuse to not work, so when the snow came, we proceeded to take some of the clothes that had been donated to the homeless we stored in the back of the van and tie them into two ropes. We would then have the van drag us through the streets on our backs battling the other person hanging on to see who was king of the road. If he let go, you win.

You could call us a lot of things and people did call us a lot of things, but you could not argue that we were not creative. We would go from one phase and fad to another, spending all kinds of money on it and then walk away from it, never to do it again. This was our function.

Horse Island was the place we would go to get away and fish. We would always go at night and just sit there. We were terrible fisherman, but those nights we would talk about the things in life that really mattered to us. We would sit on that ledge all night long, sometimes until the sun came up and cast it's light over the water. It was quiet and true. No one could get us there, nothing in life could get to us. This was our spot. I have gone now three times since Will has passed away. Every time, it just feels like we are missing someone. It just doesn't seem right in the world for us. However, I was there alone last week and walked up to the place we used to hide and looked up and snow began to fall like crystal over the earth. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It wasn't flakes or anything, just a snow mist that caught the light a certain way and sparkled. It reminded me that God is right here with me. He has been doing so much around me to assure me He is more sad than I am, but is here to give me peace and comfort.

It has been 2 weeks today since he was found in that garage, his sanctuary. It has gotten no easier.







Sing.
Migrate.


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Boosting

We were seniors in high school which was an astounding 14 years ago. We had cut school as usual and were trying to decide what to do with the day we had before us. We decided we would steal stuff. Will used to call it boosting. We had money, we had all that we wanted, and we were not poor. We liked to steal for the joy of taking something that didn't belong to us from people who had all they ever needed. We would take the huge menu mats on the counter at McDonald's, the place settings of everywhere we ate. The coffee cups, and sometimes even the plates. This day we chose Neosporin and cds from Meijer.

Will had boosted these really cool pocket knives from his work and formulated a plan too put all the items under our coats in a cart and cut off the magnetic strips and put them in the coat pockets. We were in the store filling the pockets when one of the workers caught Will. He told him he had better run because he had called security. Will ran out of the store as I moseyed around putting my stolen goods on the shelves, trying not to let him know I was with Will. I walked past him and out the door, tipping my hat to him as I left. I reached Will's huge van and sat in the passenger seat and he wasn't there. I waited for a minute wondering where he could have gone. On the floor to my left he came sliding up between the seats all 11 feet of him. Scared me to death. He hopped up in the seat, started the van and we split. As we were driving he asked me what I wanted to do, I said I didn't care. He then said, "There are more Meijers." I said, let's go.

Several hours later we sat in jail. I was terrified. It was the first, but not last time I was in the clink. I paced around the cell and spoke a thousand words a minute as I began to hear him snoring. I freak out when I am nervous, he falls asleep. So I sat alone in that cell playing out the scenarios and just as I had freaked myself out to a boiling point, I see a roll of toilet paper roll by unraveling across the entrance of my cell. I had to laugh. He wanted me to. He was bailed out an hour later and I got to stay for dinner. We got back to the house and my mother took me over there for some reason, maybe because our school teacher was there, our parents, and some randoms. We were in for a beat down. I walked through the door with my mom more dissapponted than I have ever seen her, glanced at Will who was at the table with all of them waiting for the punishment. He looked at me in the eyes in such a way that I knew we were going to spin this around on our parents. So we got started with the, "You don't pay enough attention to me, "It was a cry for help," "You're never home," bit. In the end, no punishment outside of the fines and community service and class we had to take. The school also banned us from the basketball tourney which we were the captains of and barred me from my senior trip, citing that Will and I could not go anywhere with them together.

Our senior year was legendary. We never went to school, barely graduated together, went pantsless under our gowns at the walking, peed on the school sign, mooned a teacher, streaked the school. Some of those were just me though, Will and Joe had more sense than I did I think. We were inseparable. You would not see one of us without the other two. We remained inseparable until now. For now we have lost one of our own, a huge part of us. Joe and I share all of these memories and these ghosts haunt us both. Part of us will never be the same again, but we will recover and move forward. Either one of them would step in front of a bus for me if need be and vice versa, heck Joe ran in front of a speeding train to pull me off the tracks.

Truth is I don't know what is going to happen to us. I know we will be ok, but everytime we look at each other, we see Will and we see sadness.











Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Poured Out

You cannot glorify God without being poured out. Jesus exposed himself time and time again to us through His life, in the Garden, in tragedy, in loss, and in death. I do not believe we can live lives that are closed and guarded and be at peace with ourselves. Will was a hider and a runner. Instead of meeting the problem and fighting, he would generally hide the problem inward and run from it until it was far enough away for it to never catch him. Only when we run, our problems run faster, they catch up. I try to spill myself on here because I need to, not because I want to. It is hard to write down what is going on in me for perfect strangers to see and possibly judge me for. I do it because I believe that Christ's work shows itself when we are laid barren and have put aside all that we hold on to. I want nothing holding me back and nothing keeping my from shining. I don't feel shiny and I right about now I don't feel real joy, but I know that God shines and reigns through me.

I hate this world most days and can't understand why all of the heartache exists. I can't answer why a guy like Will would choose to leave us, I have no clue why we can walk through the halls of a cancer ward and find innocent little children bald and scared. The weight feels so heavy sometimes. The Bible says that the whole Creation is groaning as in the pain of childbirth right up to this present time for our adoption as sons. The groaning is sometimes so hard to bare. But I believe that when we let out our hurt and show a dying world that Christ reigns through our sorrows and weeps when we weep, brushes His own tears back with ours...Then people see and know that something great and beautiful loves them deeply. For that very reason I will give you my soul here. Every filthy part of me belongs to the world to help tell the story of God and His work in me.

I am devastated and broken more than I ever have been and day by day, more keeps coming, but God is good. I look at my wife and my children and know that the fear and hopelessness Will felt in that garage is missing here. I have to be everything God wants me to be.

Will was a good man. He loved God and he loved all of the people in his life. He just wasn't willing to share his pain with us, he was too scared and too embarrassed. Over the next few days I will be sharing some stories of the great times we had together because you need to see who he really was, not where he ended up.

Whatever the thing that keeps you back and in chains, share it with someone you love and trust, or absolutely everyone. Let your fear go and your anonymity and just let it out. Pour yourself out and watch God reign in your life.

Regardless of my pain I will still:

Sing.
Migrate.








™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

The Journey

We float in space, without concept of reality and time, without limits or borders, and without human contact. We float alone in a vast array of colors beaming from the stars and lights God has spilled into the sky. We squint and beams of light fire from all angles and directions. We know no one, we care for ourselves and the existence of our minds, our only asset. We are lost. We are empty as we have left those who love us.

Until we reach the orbit of paradise. The pull drags us into it and we are powerless to stop it. We cannot resist this light of blue, white, and brown. Inside love still reigns even when all seems lost. Inside there is warmth and beauty. Inside holds God's most beloved Creation. Mankind. A strong and resilient child whose innocence was lost, but found again through a peasant King.

We are drawn to it's splendor and move into it's atmosphere. We enter into the light whose heat burns brighter than the morning sun, ripping apart our clothes, our eyes, our hair, everything. We enter into it naked and again unashamed and unblemished. We cringe as the heat pulls back our outer layers, the pain is devastating, but we can see the ocean on the other side. We enter in and experience perfection and real joy and for the first time, we live in peace. We smile a lot. We clap our hands because we cannot keep from doing so. We were so tired from the trip, but are revived in spirit. We are free.





May Heaven be more than anything you ever imagined it could be.










Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Goodbye

And the whole world celebrates and goes on as normal, leaving 2009 behind and marching toward a better 2010. Except for those who have been permanently scarred by the events of 2009. At midnight the ball dropped and sirens went off as people embraced and kissed and laughed. But me and Joe (Will's brother) (Gumby on this blog) glanced at each other as we drank Will's favorite drink, one which tasted so much like cough medicine. I wonder if we will ever be the same?

A couple days after Will passed away, I had this dream that has haunted me and brought me comfort all the same. Will was driving his old Oldsmobile, I was in the passenger seat, and Caeden was in the backseat. We were approaching my house and slowing down when Will slammed his foot against the pedal and sped up to a ridiculous speed heading straight for a parked car. I could not move, I yelled for him to stop, but he didn't respond. I watched as the car came closer and closer and before impact, Caeden said, I love you dad." "I said I loved him back and looked forward but could do nothing to stop Will from slamming us into this car and killing us all. Just before we were to hit, a ramp came up from the ground and we jumped the car and landed into a much busier road. Every time we were about to crash a ramp came up and we jumped the obstacle. I then woke.

In that car I was just as helpless as I was when Will killed himself, however God saved us. I have to believe God saved Will too. I have to. I believe that Will is sitting in Heaven right now happy. I was always raised in churches that taught that suicide was a punched ticket to hell. Yet the Bible says nothing of the sort. Suicide is sick and wrong, but it is not more powerful than the cross. God used me in Will's life to show him to Christ. I believe that now. I didn't at the time because there seemed to never be anything I could do to help him. However, I watched him pray. I saw him read his Bible when no one was watching. I saw how he loved to serve and help other people. He was just deceived by our known enemy into believing a lie that would take him from his family and friends and those like me who were a hybrid version of both.

I am not angry anymore, I just want my friend back, my brother back. I am not alone in that sentiment as there were not enough seats for all of the people who came to say goodbye to his body one more time. They all have the same story about Will. He was a rockstar with the heart of glass, who was broken too much.

I just want to tell you Will, if God will let you know this: I am sorry for missing it. I am sorry I did not kick in your door when you called me. I am sorry if I left you alone when you needed me. I love you as I love myself. I miss you. I will never forget you. I will help take care of your family. Goodbye.








Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.