Heroism and Denial

On the death of my boy.

We know that harm happens. Almost daily we see the meaningless destruction of living beings. The bird lands on the busy road.

I don’t know about you, but I have felt the need for protection from that reality. Since Jack’s death, I have been watching the news less often. To see cruelty of people toward people is almost too much to bear.

Other times my defense is one of optimism: where there is a problem there is a solution. The cancer can be removed, as was my GI cancer.

Wishing to teach the boys to live well and autonomously, I [still] try to convince myself I can find logical steps to mitigate the risks they will be harmed on their path toward adulthood.

When they were toddlers, for example, I would steer their wobbly steps toward the carpeted floor. As they have grown, I have cajoled, praised, punished and hoped beyond hope they will make sound decisions. Through it all, ups and downs, I have loved giving them bearhugs before sending them on their way.

My most personal brand of denial, before Jack’s death, was to tell the boys there was something protective in the fact that they came from exceptionally strong family stock. All those immigrants, fathers and mothers, physicians and bricklayers, soldiers and protesters… all that familial ingenuity and strength, how could those people be anything other than a protective wellspring for my boys? I would read them passages, such as this description from the Hampshire Gazette about their then-famous relative, Benjamin Waite, who heroically rescued his family and 14 other captives in 1677:

“For in the next eight months Waite, at first alone and later accompanied by Stephen Jennings, would travel more than 1,500 miles through a wilderness still largely pathless, much of that on foot… the longest and hardest part of their journey to find and rescue the captives was made during the winter. He and Jennings would take a canoe up the length of Lake George, portage to Lake Champlain, then fight fierce winter weather for several more weeks before finally arriving in Canada. There they would find the surviving captives and bring them all, as well as two newborns, back to Hatfield.”

No part of me wished that my boys would need to overcome horrific circumstances such as

these, but I have imagined them doing great things. To paraphrase Gibran’s poem, Jack’s kinfolk were the stable bow from which he would take flight and achieve wonders himself. Our hard working, smart, and compassionate Jack seemed to be on that kind of trajectory.

What am I to do now? I have spent a good part of my life wishing up ways to protect the people I love from forces I can’t always control. Now past, present and future have fallen into irreconcilable pieces. I tied a big part of my notion of eternity to a child I love, and he is gone. My defenses are in tatters.

There is no solution to losing Jack, but I am gradually starting to understand his death differently. Watching the Joseph Campbell interviews on the universality of heroic myths—which I would heartily recommend on Netflix—I was struck that Jack died in the midst of a kind of coming-of-age quest.

He was striking out on his own, searching and finding his own answers. Despite seeing the problems of the world, he was not cynical. He was thinking about solutions. Campbell also speaks of the dangers of coming of age, of looking into the void. Jack didn’t know he was in danger. Only one other person is known to have died as he did. Native American youth, like children of all cultures, do not always survive their vision quest.

This brings me to something central to the story of Jack’s life. Anyone who knew him knows Jack’s existence is best described in terms of where he was climbing—how far he had come in 20 short years—not that he fell. I am trying to refocus myself in this way now, to think a little less about what the world has lost in losing him and a little more on what he did in his 20 years. I could give a great many examples, but let me keep it to three.

After Jack’s death, we received a heartfelt call from one of his classmates. He said he needed us to know that he regarded Jack as his hero. He explained that he has autism and was teased in middle school. Jack was the person who stood up to the bullies on his behalf and would eat lunch with him.

Another peer of Jack’s was harassed for being gay after wearing a pink shirt to school. The next day, Jack took a pink sweatshirt from Michelle and insisted on wearing it to school in solidarity with the boy who was teased.

Lastly, a mother wrote us a letter about a day when she came upon Jack as he was assisting a man facing a medical emergency. Jack had been walking to his lifeguard job, saw the man was in distress, called EMS and supported him until help arrived.

She wrote: “I saw Jack as he helped the man who had fallen in the street. It was a time when I was in darkness in my own life. I called my best friend the next day and told her that in spite of the darkness I was in, I had hope because I had seen the face of G-d in Jack’s actions with the man. I’ve told the story many times and others have shared it after hearing it from me. My best friend and I refer to it as the ‘face of G-d story.’”

I am sad Jack is gone, but I am also proud of my broad-shouldered boy. He is my hero.

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Dan Gustafson