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Copyright 2023

Richard Radstone / Sidewalk Ghosts

No images, videos, audio recordings, writings, or any other content may not be copied, downloaded, or transferred without written permission from Richard Radstone, Sidewalk Ghosts, and contributor.

“What would be comforting to one person, or what would be comforting to another. I think it depends on your approach and the way you say things.”

They warmly invited me into their home. Offered me a home-cooked meal. That’s just the kind of people they are. Gracious, as through the laughter and endless activity of their infant daughter, they dropped their walls. A story that, at first glance of the family bond they project, is one that never in a million years would you guess. An experience that has destroyed many a marriage, and one that is an expecting parents’ worst nightmare: The premature birth and death of a child.

So in today’s tribute to the resiliency, love, and wisdom of two good people, Father Skyler and Mother Amanda, I’ll hold my words to a minimum. 

I ask… why?

Amanda jumps right in. “There’s so many layers to why. But I guess the most likely why he was born early is something we found out after he was born: A condition called cervical incompetence. It basically means that, for whatever reason, my cervix is not strong enough to hold a full-term pregnancy. And because of that, I went into labor prematurely…super early.

Skyler addresses his entry point why.

“Yeah, there are a lot of layers. It’s hard to say from a religious perspective, why did it happen? That’s something we’ve wrestled with a lot because it doesn’t help to hear, or to pontificate on why it happened. It’s almost like it doesn’t really fix anything. It just creates more questions than answers. But I do know that because of what happened we have learned to look at the good and the bad. And there is some good that has come out of it. We don’t know why it happened, but at least there has been some positive that has come out of it.

One of the things I would say is I now have a more tangible comparison to understand who our Savior is. Because in losing our son, there were a lot of parallels to the sacrifice that Christ made for us. The fact that he was a son to a dad, and the fact that in his death, he is showing us what we need to do to get his siblings here.

So in kind of a symbolic way, our son died and sacrificed himself for his siblings, which is a very poignant parallel to our savior, who willingly and innocently was sacrificed for the benefit of others. So there are all these positive things we can draw from that are helping us heal the wounds we have. Or at least provide us with perspective and context. But obviously, it doesn’t make the pain go away.

We’ll always miss him, and we’ll always feel the hole that he left. We’ll always wonder what it would have been like to raise him. And we’ll always miss him. Because he would have been with us right now.”

“you really just have two options. You either let it fester and eventually destroy you, or you let it strengthen you. For us, it brought us closer.”

—Amanda

“He’d be three and a half today,” Amanda shares, then swallows, and then goes momentarily silent.

Skyler scoots his chair closer to her, and leaning into her shoulder offers her a moment of rest. “With our daughter, we get to see her grow and mature, but we also can’t help but miss the fact we won’t get that with our son.” 

Amanda kicks back in, “And wonder?

Wonder what he would have been like at this age.

I think I’ve wrestled a lot with this why as well. I know Skye does not want to minimize what he went through, but I think it was more confusing for me. It took me a lot longer to make sense of it, and I feel I still don’t completely understand it. I don’t get why. 

I’m sorry,” she says as her eyes well up a little. “Why some people’s babies live and ours. I mean, our daughter did, but our son didn’t get to survive. I had a friend who had a premature baby. He was further on in his gestation when he was born. He was 27 weeks and our son was 24 weeks. But that’s not a big difference. He has a lot of issues and struggles to go through, but he did survive.

I remember I struggled for a long time because he was born right around the time that our son was born. He lived, and our son died, and I didn’t understand why.

I felt like I couldn’t make sense of it because I was like, well, did I do something wrong? Like, Am I wrong? Why did this happen? I still don’t understand it completely. But I think, well, why not? You know, we live in an imperfect world. And I can’t say it wasn’t part of God’s plan, because I do believe that.

But I also believe that sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw. In a way that’s because we live in a fallen world, God says you’re going to have this, you’re going to lose a child, you’re the person who’s going to experience this really hard thing because we live in an imperfect world. And in it, there’s sickness and death.”

Skyler: “And not that he necessarily orchestrated these things, but sometimes he allows it to happen.”

“What made me feel most comforted and loved was when my pain was seen as valid. I think the further away from my son’s death I get, the more I’m able to see the different things that comforted me.”

— Amanda

Amanda: “Yeah. Moreso, like he allows it to happen. It’s hard to explain because I don’t have a good answer for it. Of how it all makes sense in my head. Like I know this was orchestrated, It’s hard to explain, hard to make sense of it.”

I share a thought: Amanda, you’re explaining it pretty well. Maybe you are talking about how the pains we go through teach us perspectives we can assimilate into our own lives. And maybe, the pains facilitate the coming of gifts and blessings. The hardships and sorrows are things that lots of people go through. And in knowing that, maybe it helps us to not feel alone, even have a higher power by our side.

“Yeah,” Amanda responds. “I think I’ve just kind of come to terms with the I don’t entirely know why it happened, and I don’t know if I ever will in this life. But sometimes I see glimpses of it.

Like, all I can do now is to just make the best of it and choose to see the ways in which it’s blessed our lives. Though I don’t like saying that particularly because I don’t feel like losing him was a blessing. But I feel like he has blessed our lives and will continue to, even though he’s not physically here on the earth. But I know he’s there, and his effect is felt in my life often. So I think maybe that’s where I am.”

I share with them my hidden pain. The fact that my wife and I lost a child in a midterm miscarriage. I know, not the same as going full term. But after seeing a live scan of the breathing body and beating heart of your baby girl, to have your unborn and deceased child scraped away, well, that leaves a hole in your heart and life.

Grief is a powerful motivator. One that I’m sure we have all experienced in one form or another. So to that point, and feeling Skyler and Amanda have the chops to answer, I ask them a two-part question: First, how would you describe grief, and second, how would you describe comfort, or even resolve? 

Amanda begins, “I think the best way to describe grief, or what I was feeling was just like a longing for him. And this still makes me emotional because he was my baby. I want him.”

She turns to Skyler, “For me,” he says, “it was three things: Feelings of helplessness, guilt, and denial. Helpless because I’m a fixer, and this was something out of my control. I felt completely helpless. Denial because I have this sometimes naive sort of optimism where I can’t accept things that are right in front of me. So even in that really hard moment when they were trying to save him and they were doing CPR, and it was a really dramatic moment, they asked us if they could stop interventions. Even at that moment, I was in denial, still waiting for something to happen or for someone to come and fix it. And then guilt, just because I go back in my mind and think, what could I have done differently?

“I’d say it kind of depends on what stage of grief,” Amanda elaborates. “Like how far out someone is from their grief or their loss. Because different things were poignant for me at different times since losing him. I remember immediately after people would try to say something profound and try to soothe. But there was nothing anyone could say or do that could make it better. The one thing I wanted that no one could give me. To have him back. What was most meaningful was when someone would not say much at all, except I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for what you are going through.” She again tears up as she shifts to talking of comfort.

“What made me feel most comforted and loved was when my pain was seen as valid. I think the further away from my son’s death I get, the more I’m able to see the different things that comforted me.

It’s still always going to hurt. If I had to comfort people going through similar things, I would just acknowledge them. Tell them it’s going to hurt really bad for a while. And honestly, each person is so different that some things are painful for people to hear. What would be comforting to one person, or what would be comforting to another. I think it depends on your approach and the way you say things. I loved hearing from people who had experienced child loss because I felt like, okay, they get it. It takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of tears. 

For me, I had to be willing to lean into painful feelings to find healing. For Skye, it was keeping busy, and that’s a valid way too. He was processing it, but he had to be busy to process it, whereas I had to slow down to process it.”

“you really just have two options. You either let it fester and eventually destroy you, or you let it strengthen you. For us, it brought us closer.”

—Skyler

“For me” Skyler adds, it was just the old adage of time heals. The best analogy that I’ve seen is a recent Instagram video Amanda and I saw.”

“This is something we will carry for the rest of our lives,” Amanda concludes. Just missing our son and wishing so many things for him. But something that does make it better is there are so many other sources of happiness and beauty that are added to your life.

The size of the actual grief never changes, but you’re perspective changes, and your proximity to it changes. You’re able to find other beautiful things in addition, I guess.”

“My perspective,” Skyler shares, “you really just have two options. You either let it fester and eventually destroy you, or you let it strengthen you. For us, it brought us closer. We were faced with the choice of drawing apart and facing it alone or facing it together in wrestling with some bitterness and some hard things. Doing it together helped us grow as a family. I see my son now as kind of our conduit to God or the Savior. He helps me see God or Jesus Christ as a bit less abstract.

Skyler and Amanda, because of you our hearts are full today. To the four of you, and on behalf of all of us following the RadstoneBLOG, we thank you for opening your doors and are sending you our tears and love.

Talk tomorrow my good friends,

Richard

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Help Grow Sidewalk Ghosts Podcast at Patreon

Copyright 2023

Richard Radstone / Sidewalk Ghosts

No images, videos, audio recordings, writings, or any other content may not be copied, downloaded, or transferred without written permission from Richard Radstone, Sidewalk Ghosts, and contributor.

“What would be comforting to one person, or what would be comforting to another. I think it depends on your approach and the way you say things.”

They warmly invited me into their home. Offered me a home-cooked meal. That’s just the kind of people they are. Gracious, as through the laughter and endless activity of their infant daughter, they dropped their walls. A story that, at first glance of the family bond they project, is one that never in a million years would you guess. An experience that has destroyed many a marriage, and one that is an expecting parents’ worst nightmare: The premature birth and death of a child.

So in today’s tribute to the resiliency, love, and wisdom of two good people, Father Skyler and Mother Amanda, I’ll hold my words to a minimum. 

I ask… why?

Amanda jumps right in. “There’s so many layers to why. But I guess the most likely why he was born early is something we found out after he was born: A condition called cervical incompetence. It basically means that, for whatever reason, my cervix is not strong enough to hold a full-term pregnancy. And because of that, I went into labor prematurely…super early.

Skyler addresses his entry point why.

“Yeah, there are a lot of layers. It’s hard to say from a religious perspective, why did it happen? That’s something we’ve wrestled with a lot because it doesn’t help to hear, or to pontificate on why it happened. It’s almost like it doesn’t really fix anything. It just creates more questions than answers. But I do know that because of what happened we have learned to look at the good and the bad. And there is some good that has come out of it. We don’t know why it happened, but at least there has been some positive that has come out of it.

One of the things I would say is I now have a more tangible comparison to understand who our Savior is. Because in losing our son, there were a lot of parallels to the sacrifice that Christ made for us. The fact that he was a son to a dad, and the fact that in his death, he is showing us what we need to do to get his siblings here.

So in kind of a symbolic way, our son died and sacrificed himself for his siblings, which is a very poignant parallel to our savior, who willingly and innocently was sacrificed for the benefit of others. So there are all these positive things we can draw from that are helping us heal the wounds we have. Or at least provide us with perspective and context. But obviously, it doesn’t make the pain go away.

We’ll always miss him, and we’ll always feel the hole that he left. We’ll always wonder what it would have been like to raise him. And we’ll always miss him. Because he would have been with us right now.”

“you really just have two options. You either let it fester and eventually destroy you, or you let it strengthen you. For us, it brought us closer.”

—Amanda

“He’d be three and a half today,” Amanda shares, then swallows, and then goes momentarily silent.

Skyler scoots his chair closer to her, and leaning into her shoulder offers her a moment of rest. “With our daughter, we get to see her grow and mature, but we also can’t help but miss the fact we won’t get that with our son.” 

Amanda kicks back in, “And wonder?

Wonder what he would have been like at this age.

I think I’ve wrestled a lot with this why as well. I know Skye does not want to minimize what he went through, but I think it was more confusing for me. It took me a lot longer to make sense of it, and I feel I still don’t completely understand it. I don’t get why. 

I’m sorry,” she says as her eyes well up a little. “Why some people’s babies live and ours. I mean, our daughter did, but our son didn’t get to survive. I had a friend who had a premature baby. He was further on in his gestation when he was born. He was 27 weeks and our son was 24 weeks. But that’s not a big difference. He has a lot of issues and struggles to go through, but he did survive.

I remember I struggled for a long time because he was born right around the time that our son was born. He lived, and our son died, and I didn’t understand why.

I felt like I couldn’t make sense of it because I was like, well, did I do something wrong? Like, Am I wrong? Why did this happen? I still don’t understand it completely. But I think, well, why not? You know, we live in an imperfect world. And I can’t say it wasn’t part of God’s plan, because I do believe that.

But I also believe that sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw. In a way that’s because we live in a fallen world, God says you’re going to have this, you’re going to lose a child, you’re the person who’s going to experience this really hard thing because we live in an imperfect world. And in it, there’s sickness and death.”

Skyler: “And not that he necessarily orchestrated these things, but sometimes he allows it to happen.”

“What made me feel most comforted and loved was when my pain was seen as valid. I think the further away from my son’s death I get, the more I’m able to see the different things that comforted me.”

— Amanda

Amanda: “Yeah. Moreso, like he allows it to happen. It’s hard to explain because I don’t have a good answer for it. Of how it all makes sense in my head. Like I know this was orchestrated, It’s hard to explain, hard to make sense of it.”

I share a thought: Amanda, you’re explaining it pretty well. Maybe you are talking about how the pains we go through teach us perspectives we can assimilate into our own lives. And maybe, the pains facilitate the coming of gifts and blessings. The hardships and sorrows are things that lots of people go through. And in knowing that, maybe it helps us to not feel alone, even have a higher power by our side.

“Yeah,” Amanda responds. “I think I’ve just kind of come to terms with the I don’t entirely know why it happened, and I don’t know if I ever will in this life. But sometimes I see glimpses of it.

Like, all I can do now is to just make the best of it and choose to see the ways in which it’s blessed our lives. Though I don’t like saying that particularly because I don’t feel like losing him was a blessing. But I feel like he has blessed our lives and will continue to, even though he’s not physically here on the earth. But I know he’s there, and his effect is felt in my life often. So I think maybe that’s where I am.”

I share with them my hidden pain. The fact that my wife and I lost a child in a midterm miscarriage. I know, not the same as going full term. But after seeing a live scan of the breathing body and beating heart of your baby girl, to have your unborn and deceased child scraped away, well, that leaves a hole in your heart and life.

Grief is a powerful motivator. One that I’m sure we have all experienced in one form or another. So to that point, and feeling Skyler and Amanda have the chops to answer, I ask them a two-part question: First, how would you describe grief, and second, how would you describe comfort, or even resolve? 

Amanda begins, “I think the best way to describe grief, or what I was feeling was just like a longing for him. And this still makes me emotional because he was my baby. I want him.”

She turns to Skyler, “For me,” he says, “it was three things: Feelings of helplessness, guilt, and denial. Helpless because I’m a fixer, and this was something out of my control. I felt completely helpless. Denial because I have this sometimes naive sort of optimism where I can’t accept things that are right in front of me. So even in that really hard moment when they were trying to save him and they were doing CPR, and it was a really dramatic moment, they asked us if they could stop interventions. Even at that moment, I was in denial, still waiting for something to happen or for someone to come and fix it. And then guilt, just because I go back in my mind and think, what could I have done differently?

“I’d say it kind of depends on what stage of grief,” Amanda elaborates. “Like how far out someone is from their grief or their loss. Because different things were poignant for me at different times since losing him. I remember immediately after people would try to say something profound and try to soothe. But there was nothing anyone could say or do that could make it better. The one thing I wanted that no one could give me. To have him back. What was most meaningful was when someone would not say much at all, except I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for what you are going through.” She again tears up as she shifts to talking of comfort.

“What made me feel most comforted and loved was when my pain was seen as valid. I think the further away from my son’s death I get, the more I’m able to see the different things that comforted me.

It’s still always going to hurt. If I had to comfort people going through similar things, I would just acknowledge them. Tell them it’s going to hurt really bad for a while. And honestly, each person is so different that some things are painful for people to hear. What would be comforting to one person, or what would be comforting to another. I think it depends on your approach and the way you say things. I loved hearing from people who had experienced child loss because I felt like, okay, they get it. It takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of tears. 

For me, I had to be willing to lean into painful feelings to find healing. For Skye, it was keeping busy, and that’s a valid way too. He was processing it, but he had to be busy to process it, whereas I had to slow down to process it.”

“you really just have two options. You either let it fester and eventually destroy you, or you let it strengthen you. For us, it brought us closer.”

—Skyler

“For me” Skyler adds, it was just the old adage of time heals. The best analogy that I’ve seen is a recent Instagram video Amanda and I saw.”

“This is something we will carry for the rest of our lives,” Amanda concludes. Just missing our son and wishing so many things for him. But something that does make it better is there are so many other sources of happiness and beauty that are added to your life.

The size of the actual grief never changes, but you’re perspective changes, and your proximity to it changes. You’re able to find other beautiful things in addition, I guess.”

“My perspective,” Skyler shares, “you really just have two options. You either let it fester and eventually destroy you, or you let it strengthen you. For us, it brought us closer. We were faced with the choice of drawing apart and facing it alone or facing it together in wrestling with some bitterness and some hard things. Doing it together helped us grow as a family. I see my son now as kind of our conduit to God or the Savior. He helps me see God or Jesus Christ as a bit less abstract.

Skyler and Amanda, because of you our hearts are full today. To the four of you, and on behalf of all of us following the RadstoneBLOG, we thank you for opening your doors and are sending you our tears and love.

Talk tomorrow my good friends,

Richard

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“What would be comforting to one person, or what would be comforting to another. I think it depends on your approach and the way you say things.”

They warmly invited me into their home. Offered me a home-cooked meal. That’s just the kind of people they are. Gracious, as through the laughter and endless activity of their infant daughter, they dropped their walls. A story that, at first glance of the family bond they project, is one that never in a million years would you guess. An experience that has destroyed many a marriage, and one that is an expecting parents’ worst nightmare: The premature birth and death of a child.

So in today’s tribute to the resiliency, love, and wisdom of two good people, Father Skyler and Mother Amanda, I’ll hold my words to a minimum. 

I ask… why?

Amanda jumps right in. “There’s so many layers to why. But I guess the most likely why he was born early is something we found out after he was born: A condition called cervical incompetence. It basically means that, for whatever reason, my cervix is not strong enough to hold a full-term pregnancy. And because of that, I went into labor prematurely…super early.

Skyler addresses his entry point why.

“Yeah, there are a lot of layers. It’s hard to say from a religious perspective, why did it happen? That’s something we’ve wrestled with a lot because it doesn’t help to hear, or to pontificate on why it happened. It’s almost like it doesn’t really fix anything. It just creates more questions than answers. But I do know that because of what happened we have learned to look at the good and the bad. And there is some good that has come out of it. We don’t know why it happened, but at least there has been some positive that has come out of it.

One of the things I would say is I now have a more tangible comparison to understand who our Savior is. Because in losing our son, there were a lot of parallels to the sacrifice that Christ made for us. The fact that he was a son to a dad, and the fact that in his death, he is showing us what we need to do to get his siblings here.

So in kind of a symbolic way, our son died and sacrificed himself for his siblings, which is a very poignant parallel to our savior, who willingly and innocently was sacrificed for the benefit of others. So there are all these positive things we can draw from that are helping us heal the wounds we have. Or at least provide us with perspective and context. But obviously, it doesn’t make the pain go away.

We’ll always miss him, and we’ll always feel the hole that he left. We’ll always wonder what it would have been like to raise him. And we’ll always miss him. Because he would have been with us right now.”

“you really just have two options. You either let it fester and eventually destroy you, or you let it strengthen you. For us, it brought us closer.”

—Amanda

“He’d be three and a half today,” Amanda shares, then swallows, and then goes momentarily silent.

Skyler scoots his chair closer to her, and leaning into her shoulder offers her a moment of rest. “With our daughter, we get to see her grow and mature, but we also can’t help but miss the fact we won’t get that with our son.” 

Amanda kicks back in, “And wonder?

Wonder what he would have been like at this age.

I think I’ve wrestled a lot with this why as well. I know Skye does not want to minimize what he went through, but I think it was more confusing for me. It took me a lot longer to make sense of it, and I feel I still don’t completely understand it. I don’t get why. 

I’m sorry,” she says as her eyes well up a little. “Why some people’s babies live and ours. I mean, our daughter did, but our son didn’t get to survive. I had a friend who had a premature baby. He was further on in his gestation when he was born. He was 27 weeks and our son was 24 weeks. But that’s not a big difference. He has a lot of issues and struggles to go through, but he did survive.

I remember I struggled for a long time because he was born right around the time that our son was born. He lived, and our son died, and I didn’t understand why.

I felt like I couldn’t make sense of it because I was like, well, did I do something wrong? Like, Am I wrong? Why did this happen? I still don’t understand it completely. But I think, well, why not? You know, we live in an imperfect world. And I can’t say it wasn’t part of God’s plan, because I do believe that.

But I also believe that sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw. In a way that’s because we live in a fallen world, God says you’re going to have this, you’re going to lose a child, you’re the person who’s going to experience this really hard thing because we live in an imperfect world. And in it, there’s sickness and death.”

Skyler: “And not that he necessarily orchestrated these things, but sometimes he allows it to happen.”

“What made me feel most comforted and loved was when my pain was seen as valid. I think the further away from my son’s death I get, the more I’m able to see the different things that comforted me.”

— Amanda

Amanda: “Yeah. Moreso, like he allows it to happen. It’s hard to explain because I don’t have a good answer for it. Of how it all makes sense in my head. Like I know this was orchestrated, It’s hard to explain, hard to make sense of it.”

I share a thought: Amanda, you’re explaining it pretty well. Maybe you are talking about how the pains we go through teach us perspectives we can assimilate into our own lives. And maybe, the pains facilitate the coming of gifts and blessings. The hardships and sorrows are things that lots of people go through. And in knowing that, maybe it helps us to not feel alone, even have a higher power by our side.

“Yeah,” Amanda responds. “I think I’ve just kind of come to terms with the I don’t entirely know why it happened, and I don’t know if I ever will in this life. But sometimes I see glimpses of it.

Like, all I can do now is to just make the best of it and choose to see the ways in which it’s blessed our lives. Though I don’t like saying that particularly because I don’t feel like losing him was a blessing. But I feel like he has blessed our lives and will continue to, even though he’s not physically here on the earth. But I know he’s there, and his effect is felt in my life often. So I think maybe that’s where I am.”

I share with them my hidden pain. The fact that my wife and I lost a child in a midterm miscarriage. I know, not the same as going full term. But after seeing a live scan of the breathing body and beating heart of your baby girl, to have your unborn and deceased child scraped away, well, that leaves a hole in your heart and life.

Grief is a powerful motivator. One that I’m sure we have all experienced in one form or another. So to that point, and feeling Skyler and Amanda have the chops to answer, I ask them a two-part question: First, how would you describe grief, and second, how would you describe comfort, or even resolve? 

Amanda begins, “I think the best way to describe grief, or what I was feeling was just like a longing for him. And this still makes me emotional because he was my baby. I want him.”

She turns to Skyler, “For me,” he says, “it was three things: Feelings of helplessness, guilt, and denial. Helpless because I’m a fixer, and this was something out of my control. I felt completely helpless. Denial because I have this sometimes naive sort of optimism where I can’t accept things that are right in front of me. So even in that really hard moment when they were trying to save him and they were doing CPR, and it was a really dramatic moment, they asked us if they could stop interventions. Even at that moment, I was in denial, still waiting for something to happen or for someone to come and fix it. And then guilt, just because I go back in my mind and think, what could I have done differently?

“I’d say it kind of depends on what stage of grief,” Amanda elaborates. “Like how far out someone is from their grief or their loss. Because different things were poignant for me at different times since losing him. I remember immediately after people would try to say something profound and try to soothe. But there was nothing anyone could say or do that could make it better. The one thing I wanted that no one could give me. To have him back. What was most meaningful was when someone would not say much at all, except I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for what you are going through.” She again tears up as she shifts to talking of comfort.

“What made me feel most comforted and loved was when my pain was seen as valid. I think the further away from my son’s death I get, the more I’m able to see the different things that comforted me.

It’s still always going to hurt. If I had to comfort people going through similar things, I would just acknowledge them. Tell them it’s going to hurt really bad for a while. And honestly, each person is so different that some things are painful for people to hear. What would be comforting to one person, or what would be comforting to another. I think it depends on your approach and the way you say things. I loved hearing from people who had experienced child loss because I felt like, okay, they get it. It takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of tears. 

For me, I had to be willing to lean into painful feelings to find healing. For Skye, it was keeping busy, and that’s a valid way too. He was processing it, but he had to be busy to process it, whereas I had to slow down to process it.”

“you really just have two options. You either let it fester and eventually destroy you, or you let it strengthen you. For us, it brought us closer.”

—Skyler

“For me” Skyler adds, it was just the old adage of time heals. The best analogy that I’ve seen is a recent Instagram video Amanda and I saw.”

“This is something we will carry for the rest of our lives,” Amanda concludes. Just missing our son and wishing so many things for him. But something that does make it better is there are so many other sources of happiness and beauty that are added to your life.

The size of the actual grief never changes, but you’re perspective changes, and your proximity to it changes. You’re able to find other beautiful things in addition, I guess.”

“My perspective,” Skyler shares, “you really just have two options. You either let it fester and eventually destroy you, or you let it strengthen you. For us, it brought us closer. We were faced with the choice of drawing apart and facing it alone or facing it together in wrestling with some bitterness and some hard things. Doing it together helped us grow as a family. I see my son now as kind of our conduit to God or the Savior. He helps me see God or Jesus Christ as a bit less abstract.

Skyler and Amanda, because of you our hearts are full today. To the four of you, and on behalf of all of us following the RadstoneBLOG, we thank you for opening your doors and are sending you our tears and love.

Talk tomorrow my good friends,

Richard

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©2023 Richard Radstone / Sidewalk Ghosts

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“Every moment of every day… your individual impact truly does matter to someone else in the world.”

“Every moment of every day… your individual impact truly does matter to someone else in the world.”

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