I had never experienced anything like this before. My son, David Glasser, was a Phoenix Police Officer who was killed in the line of duty on May 18, 2016.
I had no frame of reference for the devastation that happened in my life when Davey died. My entire world turned up side down while my heart broke into a million….painful….pieces. My life became dark and I lost all joy. I didn’t smile very often and, when I did, it was a fake smile I would plaster on my face so people wouldn’t worry about me.
In the midst of the shock and the swirling going on in my head, I made the very good decision to look up to God and let him lead me on this extremely painful path of losing a child. He gave me strength. He gave me peace. He made sure that I knew he loved me with a perfect love….in spite of my circumstances.
There were 2 books other than the Bible that have given me significant help on my tough journey. I blogged about one of them last week. The other book is The Land Between by Jeff Manion. The subtitle is “Finding God in difficult transitions”. Jeff uses the story of the Israelites spending 40 years wandering in the desert and points out the many lessons God was teaching them. They were not lost – they were in an early version of Sunday School. God used this time to grow their faith and grow their knowledge of him.
This is the same for you and me. Most of us at one time or another will end up in a place where life is not what it was and where the future is very uncertain. If you have lost a child you have either been there or are there right now – The Land Between.
I totally related to this after Davey was killed. I was in the desert. A broken, bruised, bleak, desert. I felt lost. My old life was gone and all my dreams of the future with Davey in them were ripped away.
I found a purpose for my pain as I read “The Land Between”. I learned many very valuable truths from God during my time in the desert. I watched God gradually start putting the broken pieces of my life back together, creating a much different picture of my future than I had before.
I am through the desert now and very grateful for all God taught me there. I just published a book on Amazon, “Then I Looked Up: Losing a Child, Finding His Legacy of Love” which includes a lot more of this story if you are interested.
There is still a growing hole in my life where Davey was supposed to be but my memories of my life with him have become more precious than painful.
Law Enforcement is one of the most contagious careers I have ever seen. When dad or mom is a doctor, there is sometimes one doctor in the family. If a parent is a lawyer, there might be one child who becomes a lawyer. Or one child becomes a pastor when a parent or a grandparent is a pastor.
But how often do you see all three kids in the family become doctors? Or lawyers? Or pastors?
Not very often. One of the exceptions is law enforcement where it happens often. Whole families of law enforcement are everywhere – often including grandparents, cousins and in-laws.
Why is it so contagious?
Why does a child of a police officer become a police officer when they had a front row seat to the long hours, the self sacrifice and the danger?
It’s because they have a front row seat that they also see the character, courage, strength and integrity it takes to be a good police officer. Many other people talk about making a difference in the world and then go into their safe places to work where they spend countless hours trying to increase profits – it’s all about the money. Every day. They might take 5 minutes out of a day to write a check to a charity of their choice, but they don’t get dirty or tired or hurt or killed when they do it.
Law Enforcement Officers are front line difference makers. Every stop, every call, every situation – they have an opportunity to make their community safer and protect the innocent. They come face to face with the evil that the rest of us try very hard to avoid. We run from danger, they run toward danger.
I will never forget watching a video of the Boston Marathon bombing several years ago. The bombs went off and people started screaming as they ran away – except for the first responders in the crowd. On or off duty, it didn’t matter. They ran towards the bombs, toward the danger.
Difference-makers.
Law Enforcement careers attract people who respect law and order. These people believe in sacrificing themselves to help others. They know that serving their communities is honorable no matter what anybody else says. They dedicate their lives to pushing back the evil in our communities so that the innocent can have a safe place to live and raise their families.
Difference-makers.
Instead of just talking about it, they are doing it. Children of law enforcement officers see this – they live it – and they can’t imagine dedicating their lives to anything else. So they become officers.
There are more careers usually in the serving category that are contagious as well. I know there are teaching families, fire-fighting families and military families. Why? These are also difference – making careers.
My husband and I both served in the U.S. Military and I was a little surprised when neither of my children showed any interested in going into the military. Then I had to smile when my son, David Glasser, started talking about becoming a police officer. That’s as close as you can get to being in the military without being in the military. I totally understand why many people go into law enforcement after years in the military. Respect for law and order, serving your country, self-sacrifice, honor, courage – it’s all the same.
Being a difference-maker.
It’s contagious.
Davey lost his life in service to his community. His death is a tragedy. It’s very difficult and painful for those of us who have been left behind. I am thankful that he died honorably – protecting and serving others.
Davey was a difference-maker.
His life and death has had a big influence on many people and the David Glasser Foundation is still making an impact on the lives of children and families Phoenix today. I recently wrote a book about losing Davey and my journey of survival. It’s available on Amazon if you’re interested in knowing more of this story – “Then I Looked Up: Losing a Child, Finding His Legacy of Love.”
It’s the toughest thing I’ve ever done. Figuring out how to deal with the extreme grief and loss I felt after my son, David Glasser, was killed has been a brutal journey. He was a Phoenix Police Officer who was killed in the line of duty on May 18, 2016.
My life blew up…. and then crumbled. Everyone closest to me spiraled off into their own pits of grief and pain as their worlds turned upside down without Davey. My husband had multiple bombs going off in his life – his father passed away 11 days before Davey was killed. Davey was his best friend….and now he was gone, too.
After the initial dust of the explosion settled, I realized I didn’t know much about extreme grief. My mother and father had passed away along with my older brother. My mother was the youngest child of 16 kids in her family so there was a regular progression of grandparents and aunts and uncles funerals as I grew up.
None of that felt anything like Davey’s death. A child at any age dying before their parents is devastatingly different.
The experts tells us there are many stages of grief and I experienced all of them. I have met people who have gotten stuck in some of the negative stages of grief like bitterness and anger. My goal was not to get stuck. I wanted to deal with my grief in a healthy manner that was going to help me move forward.
God had a huge part in helping me work through the negative stages of my grief. He was my Rock and he gave me strength to ‘be there’ for others in my life when I had no strength of my own. He has walked closely with me down this very dark path of losing a child.
Other than the Bible, there were a couple of books I found very helpful. One of them was Option B by Sheryl Sandberg. She was planning to share the rest of her life with her husband, growing old together as they watched their grandchildren learn how to walk and ride a bicycle and drive a car. This was Option A.
Then her husband suddenly died while exercising, leaving her behind to do everything by herself. This was Option B.
Sheryl didn’t want Option B. But that was her only choice.
Wow! I could relate to that! I was supposed to grow old watching Davey retire from the Police Department and follow his dream of teaching in a high school and coaching basketball. I’m sure he would have coached both of his kids in a variety of sports. I was supposed to watch him walk his daughter down the aisle and play with his grandchildren. I could go on and on. Option A was fantastic!
I don’t want Option B – life without Davey. But I have no choice. The evil in our broken world catapulted me into Option B.
One of the main ideas that stuck out to me in Sheryl’s book was that we can build our resilience. Resilience is our ability to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties. It’s how tough we are. We can develop processes that improve our response to problems and help us bounce back more quickly.
Yes. I was extremely interested because I knew Davey’s death may be the largest tsunami to hit my life, but it wasn’t going to be the last tough situation I was going to have to deal with. I didn’t want grief issues piling on top of health issues piling on top of relationship issues until I got ‘stuck’ in negativity. And we know, it’s not a matter of ‘if’ something bad is going to happen to us, it’s a matter of ‘when’.
I am also a process-oriented person so – Yes! Give me a process!
I didn’t get a process that was going to work for me from reading the book, so I started praying about it and God gave me one. He reminded me of the things I know to be true about him. He reminded me of his promises to me and that he always keeps his promises.
So I gradually developed my own process of filtering everything that happens to me through these truths –
God is in control – of everything.
God is good, all the time.
God loves me with a perfect love.
Nothing is impossible for God.
He has promised that he is working everything out for my good and he always keeps his promises.
These truths keep me grounded and in line with God when my painful circumstances try to make my emotions go up and down and around on a roller coaster. I have given all my ‘why’s’ to God – he’s in control. I don’t understand everything and I don’t like what has happened to me but I’m going to trust God with all of it.
He is God…and I am not.
This process has been invaluable to me as I go down this very dark and long road of living here on earth without Davey. Everything that happens to me gets filtered through what I know to be true about God and I rest in His goodness.
My response to bad things happening to me was just tested again – remember I said, it’s not a matter of ‘if’, it’s a matter of ‘when’.
Last June 30th, my husband was taken to the emergency room by an ambulance. It was a life threatening situation. In the emergency room, they called a ‘code’ and the available hospital personnel came running to help. They saved his life that day.
Many people talked to me about how ‘scarey’ that must have been. I realized my process of growing my resilience had really worked because I was not scared, I was not worried.
God was in control. He is good, all the time. He loves me and he loves my husband with a perfect love. Nothing is impossible for him. He is always working things out for my good.
I also believe what God says in Job 14:5 that he has numbered our days before we were born. Our final day on earth is already decided. So the doctors could not have saved my husband if it had been ‘his day’. Obviously, if he had died, I would have been upset. But he was still alive by the time I got to the emergency room so there was no reason for me to be upset or scared. The fact that I was calm and confident that God was in control enabled me help my husband have a positive attitude as he went through a long and painful week of procedures and surgeries followed by 6 more months of rehabilitation and procedures.
It works. You are welcome to adopt and adapt my resilience process if you like.
Because the question is not ‘if’, the question is ‘when’.
They were my dreams for the future of my son, David Glasser, who was a Phoenix Police Officer killed in the line of duty on May 18, 2016.
There are times when the piles of my broken hopes and plans overwhelm me. There are so many good times with him that have been snatched from my life. So much happiness and so many smiles that will never be.
Davey would have been retiring from the Police force right about now. He planned to get his teaching certificate to teach in high school and coach high school basketball. He would have been an awesome teacher and an even greater coach. I witnessed some of his potential when Micah, his son, grew old enough to start playing in various sports leagues. Davey was always beside him during water breaks, giving him tips and encouraging him.
Unbelievable. So much has been lost.
Davey was always the responsible oldest child. He cared for his father and I – making sure we were doing well and getting any help we needed. A couple of months before he was killed, my husband and I had rented an RV in Denver for a week and then drove it from Denver down to Phoenix. Davey was not happy when he found out we had gotten back and we hadn’t let him know we were safely home. He took his responsibilities seriously.
A couple of months before that I was driving my car with a donut (spare tire) because I had had a flat tire and couldn’t find the time to get it fixed. He refused to let me drive my car to work on the freeway because donuts were not made to go that fast. It’s not safe. He insisted that we switch cars and he got my tire fixed for me while I went to work.
He was supposed to be here beside his dad and I as we move into the fall of our lives. He was supposed to grow old with his wife. He was supposed to coach his children’s sports teams and proudly watch them graduate from high school. Then he was planning to happily watch them graduate from ASU (if he got his way). We were supposed to share the joy of weddings and his grandchildren with him.
But it’s all gone.
Only the painful rubble of my dreams is left.
I’m standing here because I’m not sitting. I’m not getting stuck in the rubble.
I’m still here because God has a purpose for me. I discovered that one of God’s plans was for me to write a book about this journey – “Then I Looked Up: Losing a Child, Finding His Legacy of Love”. It includes the parts of my story that I’ve never blogged about and I published it on Amazon almost 2 years ago.
It’s obvious that I’m not done yet. So I’ll keep moving forward, going where God leads me until he calls me to my forever home – where there are no tears, no grief, no rubble.
My Family Bleeds Blue 