Forever Changed...

I dated a guy in college named Mike.  We met after I lost the first love of my life at a party.  I was lost by his eyes, smile and kindness.  I was hurting and lost, trying to pick up the pieces of my life and figure out who I was.  Mike admitted that college and life in general was leaving him to wonder he was, too.  We spent hours in coffee shops talking about all that felt wrong, what it would be like to have it together, and the pain life brings.  Then we would spend more time in the formal living room at Phi Mu, he playing piano and I listening.  We talked about God, church, love, friendship, family, and dreams.  For two months we were very close, and I think I shared more time in real close conversation with him than I have with many of the people in my life I call close friends.

In my pain, friends wrapped around me and helped me to realize that dwelling in my pain was not going to solve it.  I had to choose a life of searching for joy or being swallowed by sorrow.  I realized that I was not over the first boyfriend, ended things with Mike, and tried to heal myself without just moving on to the next thing.  Mike was stunned but quietly agreed we both needed to find peace, not fall into a co-dependent relationship.  He backed out quietly, and I just always trusted he would find his own peace in his own process.

A few days ago, I got a text message that Mike was dead.  Little details led me to wonder what had happened.  Over the last six years, Mike had stayed in touch.  It was like a seasonal check up that normally left me worried, sad, and wishing more for him.  I had found my peace, found passion, love and joy again, but he was still lost in his own grief and sadness.  He couldn't find the source of his pain and his anxiety that over took him through panic attacks and then bouts of severe depression.  He started living other lifestyles and constantly told me that he felt lost and unsure.  I kept telling him that he needed a therapist, a medication evaluation, but I never followed through to be more persistent even though I knew he needed one badly.

Last night I had a dream, a nightmare that brought me wide awake today.  Michael was in my dream desperate, panicked, and upset.  In the final moments of the dream, he was curled up on the floor crying that he just felt lost.  Again, I felt hopeless.  See a year ago, Michael reached out to me more desperate than ever before.  He had said his panic attacks were occurring more frequently, and he kept apologizing to me for his lifestyle change.  He asked about how I felt about his lifestyle and if I judged him.   I told him that I didn't judge him.  By the end of our conversation, I remember thinking that he was not in a good place.  While he was on my mind the rest of the day, I never reached out.  I was engaged to be married and I was more worried about what my fiance would think about me talking to him than I was about Mike's safety.  At the time I felt like my hands were tied, but now I just feel like I abandoned him.

I think God places people in your life for a reason.  We have an web of connection with people.  We can be each other's strength, sometimes we have to let others go, and the discernment to know when to do that is so hard but so precious.  As a therapist, I felt a desire to reach out, but ethically bound not to play a role that I shouldn't have.  And honestly, I was so wrapped up in me, my wedding, and my new life, that I selfishly closed Mike out of my mind that July afternoon.  When someone tells you that you're the one person they feel safe talking to, you should never trust their just being nice to you or over exaggeration.  Today, I have a sense of wonderment and regret: along the journey, did I forget to help someone reaching out because it wasn't a pre-planned part of my day?  And if I did this to him, how many other people have I turned a blind eye to so that I could keep serving me?  See I left that last conversation with him because my co-worker wanted to go to lunch when I really had no set lunch break.  We ate Quizno's while Mike pondered everything in his life.  I had left him twice in big ways to say I was too busy or that I cared more about me and my needs than his.  Would he still be here if I had given him more of my time?

I pray that everything that is said about death in the Christian faith is not true some days.  This world is so broken, so painful, and so hard that it feels ironic that the God of love would punish us for getting lost in it.  And maybe God should be more upset with our selfishness when those who are lost ask for our help and we turn a blind eye.  How many times are there people that we know, love, and see crying out for help and we simply roll our eyes and move on?  Facebook posts talking about giving up, people lost in drugs and alcohol abuse, kids with marks and bruises or hungry, clanging cups for change downtown, dirty hands looking for water, for hope and bread... There are so many moments in my day where I just push past all those along the side line reaching out because I'm tired, I'm frustrated or I'm wrapped up in me.  No matter how much love and joy there is in this life, no matter how much you love the Lord and worship, there is still an endless stream of pain and sorrow that keeps moving and rolling through.  We can hide our eyes to it to save ourselves from sorrow, but it is still there.

I am left changed today.  The ending of Mike's life has forever changed mine.  He walked out quietly and this time I can only pray for the mercy of what comes after death.  Whatever that is...  To the God of the universe, the earth, stars, of all of Creation, hear the cries of your people and give them peace....

RIP Michael J. Terlicher.....