My son, David Glasser, was a Phoenix Police Officer who was killed in the line of duty on May 18, 2016.

And he’s more alive now than he ever was on earth.

Because he put his faith in Jesus as his Savior, Davey is in heaven right now with his Father God.  No more evil, no more pain, no more worries.

Davey is with God so he is whole and more happy than we can possibly be.  Here on earth, we have times of joy and fulfillment, but they are fleeting.  The next moment or next hour brings concerns or trials.  We get tired or sick.  We become sore, bruised or broken.  Something that we thought was going to make us happy doesn’t happen and disappointment comes flooding in.

Davey doesn’t have any of that.  There is no evil in heaven, only good.  Only great!

God doesn’t talk about a lot of details concerning heaven in his Word and I think that’s because we just cannot understand how awesome it is.  Our words can’t describe it.  God uses words like ‘mansions’ and ‘streets of gold’ trying to give us an idea of a place like we’ve never seen before.  I think heaven is better than that.  I don’t want a mansion, I just want to hang with God.  I don’t need a street of gold to know that I’m in the exactly right place.

Davey is already in that exactly right place.  He got his reward – that’s how God sees it.  Davey no longer has to deal with the pain and confusion of this world.  He has everything he ever wanted in heaven.  Here’s a picture of one of Davey’s famous smiles – he wears this smile all day every day now.

I believe that people in heaven have very little if any interaction on earth.  People tell me about signs they get from their loved ones that have passed away and I believe that is God.  God is trying to talk to us and guide us and love us every day so he sometimes comforts us with things that remind us of the people we loved and lost.  I’ve had some dreams and signs that I believe are from God on Davey’s behalf.  God knew that they would give me hope and a smile.

When my father passed away suddenly over 40 years ago, three significant things he would have wanted for our family happened right away.  I believe God was rewarding my father’s faithfulness by tying up some loose ends and blessing my family.  I believe there are unusual circumstances where people from heaven come back to visit earth – a couple of those are documented in the Bible.  But usually, our loved ones move on….and I will understand that more when I get there.

The subtitle of this blog is ‘When the Worst Happens’.  Those of us who have put our trust in Jesus know that Davey being killed is not the worst that can happen.  The worst that could happen is Davey – or anyone- dying without accepting salvation through Jesus.

That is the ultimate worst that can happen.

Please don’t let that happen to you.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.

If you have had a child die, you know that it is one of the worst things that can happen to you.   For some of us it is definitely THE worst thing that could ever happen to us.

As a young adult, I worked hard at facing my fears and I realized many years ago that the only fear I had left was that something bad would happen to one of my children.  A couple of years after that realization, my daughter was diagnosed with cancer.  It changed her life but it was caught early and there have been no more signs of cancer.

I thought that was enough.  That was my fear coming true and it was a tough, scary time.

I didn’t know a tsunami that far exceeded anything I was afraid of was building up steam and heading my way.  It hit on May 18, 2016 when my son, David Glasser, a Phoenix Police Officer, was killed in the line of duty as he was responding to a robbery call.  The waves of grief and anger and pain roared over my life – foaming, surging and destroying.  They violently ripped away any expectations I had for today and totally decimated my dreams for tomorrow.

The waves roared all night and grew stronger in the darkness.

But they were most painful in the daylight when I could see the desolation they had left.

The holes.

The emptiness.

The loss.

My two fatherless grandchildren.

This storm left my ‘stuff’ but took my son.   And I would give everything I own for one more hour with Davey.

To see his smile.

Hear his laughter.  And his jokes.

And one more ‘love you’.

Surviving the worst has taken away all of my fears.  Because fearing that something bad would happen did not change the facts about the bad things that happened to my children.

Fear is useless.

Fear does nothing but stop us from doing things we should do.

Fear keeps us on the defensive.  It keeps us cowering in the corner.

My prayer for all of us who have experienced the worst is that we will find courage in knowing we have survived.  I pray that we will act on  that courage because we survived for a purpose.  And I pray that we will set aside our useless fears so we can make the time we have left on this planet count.  Because our time is short – often much shorter than we know.

Davey would be extremely proud of the David Glasser Foundation which was created to continue his fight against hate and ignorance and violence.  He would love the reality of all of us working together to push back the darkness – one step at a time.  We are not stuck on yesterday, afraid that something else that’s bad is going to happen today or tomorrow.  It probably will – our fears will not stop it.  But our actions might.

With courage and conviction, we are moving forward, continuing Davey’s battle and making it our own.

The challenge I give everyone today is to figure out how to be a part of the fight for what’s right.  You are welcome to join with us by donating to the David Glasser Foundation or find your own battle.  There is much work to be done to reestablish truth, honor, respect, and love in our country.

May God give all of us the courage we need to do our part in helping to make that happen.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.

Each day, as we get closer to Christmas, the hole in my heart grows a little bigger,

May 18, 2016 my world blew up – thrusting me into a dark, confusing, very sad place.  A place of grief.  A place I never wanted to go.  My son, David Glasser, a Phoenix Police Officer, was killed in the line of duty.

I have had other people very close to me die – my mother, father and older brother.

But this was not the same.  Not even close.  And I can’t even explain how much worse it has been compared to other deaths in my family.

My first year after Davey was killed was filled with a swirl of emotions.  My heart was smashed as the light Davey brought into my life disappeared.  My plans and dreams for him were ripped away.  I was smacked in the face with situations that were extremely tough.  It all hurt.  That first year was unbelievably difficult.

I was hoping the second year would be better.  People always say that the first year is the worst, don’t they?

But it wasn’t.  In the second year, I began to feel the pain of permanence.  The reality of life long-term without Davey didn’t seem possible.  But it was happening.

And it keeps happening.  I have experienced how empty his birthday feels without him 5 times. I know what Christmas and Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are like without Davey.

I know the heartbreak behind the smiles when we celebrate the birthdays of his children when a very happy and proud father is missing.

There are no words to describe how awful the permanence of this situation feels.  It’s impossible.  I believe strongly in the goodness of God…..but this doesn’t feel good.

In the months following May 18, 2016, I had no idea how my family and I would find our way back to our normal.  Now, 5 1/2 years later, I understand that we will never go back.

That time, that place is gone.

My life – our life – back there is gone.

So we have to move forward – a new life, a new reality, a new normal.

Sometimes this new place is filled with sadness as the unending reality of the situation painfully etches itself onto my soul.  Most of the time light shines through the darkness and the blessings that fill my life today overcome the sadness.

I don’t use the word ‘healing’ in relationship to grief and loss I’ve experienced from Davey’s death because that sounds like it goes away, becomes a barely visible scar.  I don’t think that’s a good description of this journey of survival.  Often something will happen that touches a piece of my broken heart and the tears that slide down my face are visible evidence of how much I have lost.  I’m gradually getting used to my life without Davey but this broken heart is not going away and it’s not invisible.

In some ways, each new year gets more difficult –

because this is feeling more and more permanent.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.

This will be my 6th Christmas without my son, David Glasser.  He was a Phoenix Police Officer killed in the line of duty on May 18, 2016.

If you have experienced loss, you have probably heard this many times – “the first year without them is the worst”. Crowds of people told me this during that first Christmas season after Davey’s death.  And, yes, it was very tough.   The Christmas season lasted forever.  It was hard to be around so many smiling people who were celebrating and having a fun time.  I was not having a fun time.  My smiles were few and far between.  I felt a huge amount of relief when that first holiday season was finally over.

So I was hoping that what people told me was true and the coming years would be better.  It surprised me when the second Christmas was even more painful than the first as the permanence of the situation started to become a reality.  The permanence of the pain has become increasingly real during the 3rd,  4th and 5th years of living with the growing hole where Davey should be.

This will my 6th Christmas without Davey – and it’s happening again.  It’s my Quadruple Whammy.

One punch, two punches, three punches and then – the final punch.

The first punch is Davey’s son, Micah’s, birthday in the beginning of November.  I still don’t want to believe that Davey will never be at any of Micah’s birthdays, graduations, wedding, or hold his own grandchildren.  We have lost so much.

Next comes Davey’s birthday in November – a couple of weeks after Micah’s.  It was his 40th birthday this year – full of great memories laced with the pain.  He should have had 60 more birthdays.  We have all been robbed.

The third punch is Thanksgiving.  There are times when I struggle to say, “Happy Thanksgiving” to people.  For me, it’s compounded by the fact that my father died on Thanksgiving 43 years ago.  I ride an emotional roller coaster up and down during November.

And then the final whammy – Christmas.  So many great Christmas’ with Davey!  He was a light in my life and now it’s hard to ignore the darkness.  So I focus on how grateful I am for the birth of God’s son, Jesus, my Savior.  Jesus is the light of the world and the hope he gives me lights up the dark places in my life.

I’ll just say this right out loud for me and for people like me – I’ll be glad when New Years Eve is over and another holiday season is past.  I feel pretty beat up by the time January rolls around.

People like me are called Survivors.  I’ve spent almost 6 years so far learning just how much surviving goes into this.  Every year, we have to ‘survive’ the holidays and birthdays and other special days.  We never know when something is going to reach out of a perfectly normal celebration and punch us in the gut.  It comes out of nowhere and spins us into the dark hole of grief we had hoped we left behind.

You have heard this from me before and you are hearing it again because it’s still true.  I have discovered that the best way for me to survive and deal with the whammies is to focus on all the good I had in my life before Davey was killed and all the good I still have.  When I focus on all I have lost, the pain intensifies.

I have also decided to get as close to God as I can and he comforts me each time my heart breaks a little more.

Because my quadruple whammy is not going away.  It’s happening again this year.

Miss you, Davey. 

Love you.