Don’t Be Sad Anymore

Stan with his Christmas and birthday presents.

Stan is my older brother. He died in a farm accident forty-seven years ago, when he was fifteen. I was a month shy of my twelfth birthday. We were inseparably mischievous.

Stan came to me recently. I was wide awake. When he touched my hand, he took me to a glorious place many might call heaven. He showed me a life review, including key moments when he’d intervened on my behalf. He showed me the day he died, not as I’d previously experienced it, but from the perspective of my parents. I experienced their indescribable joy when Stan arrived and their incomprehensible agony when he left. Don’t ask me to explain it; I can’t. I just know what I experienced.

Before that experience, I’d thought my biggest wound was being separated from him. With his help, I realized my deeper wound was witnessing our parents’ suffering without being able to help. Then he said, “Go tell our parents not to be sad anymore. Tell them I’m fine and I want them to be happy when they talk about me.”

I struggled for weeks to muster the courage. When I delivered the message, I witnessed healing. Tears welled up in my father’s eyes as he told me for the first time about the undeserved guilt he’d carried for half a century. My brother had been working on a ranch at the other end of the county to buy a pair of cowboy boots my father couldn’t afford to buy for him. When the local ecclesiastical leader drove to my father’s workplace and informed him of Stan’s death, my father said, “My son’s dead because of a pair of boots?” My father had carried that burden for decades and I never knew. I was so grateful for the perfect message and for the privilege of being the messenger.

Stan is the tall one. I’m in the middle. My brother Dean is on the left.

Irony of ironies, my parents bought those boots. My brother was buried in them. I know Stan is alive and happy in another realm, that he cares about me and my parents and that he wants us to be happy. It’s hard to be happy when we miss someone deeply, particularly in the initial months, years, or even decades. But, as much as I miss Stan, I try not to let my sorrow rob me of the immeasurable joy of our time together.