Moving Forward

One of my goals on this journey of losing a child is – don’t get stuck.

The experts tell us there are 5 stages of grief that we all go through, sometimes more than once. I have met people who were stuck in a stage like anger and bitterness and haven’t moved forward. I didn’t want to be like them.

I had to figure out how to move forward – even when I didn’t want to.

It’s not easy.  My world shattered when my son, David Glasser, who was a Phoenix Police Officer, was killed in the line of duty on May 18, 2016.  Each day that followed was empty and the pain intensified each night. My mind wanted to focus on all of my broken dreams. The future I had expected was filled with fun and great times with Davey is never  going to happen.  What I had lost created a huge hole.

And I wanted to stay there.  That felt like the place I was supposed to be…..

Until I looked at my grand darlings, Davey’s son and daughter.  They have their whole lives to live and their lives cannot be all about what they have lost.  Their future is bright and full of possibilities and I need to be a positive, encouraging part of that future.

I also looked at the rest of my family.  We have all been left behind on this earth to accomplish what God has planned for us.  We have a purpose.  We’re not supposed to get lost in the dark places on this road and live there the rest of our short time on this planet.

So it became one of my goals – don’t get stuck.

Moving forward is a battle.  As the list of things Davey is missing grows, so does the sadness of not having him here.  As the years go by I lose more and more parts of him and it hurts.  There are days when I don’t want to go forward because it’s just too much of a struggle.

But it’s worth it.  I have met many people on this tough journey whose worlds have been blown apart by a tragedy…. and they are still living in that tragedy every day.   Honestly, they just are no fun to be around.  They have traded the good things of today for the pain of yesterday.  They have refused to rebuild their dreams for the future and they are mired down in the dark times of the past.

I know that getting stuck and living like that could be easy to do.  But I’m refusing to go there.  I have found that it really helps me to focus my mind on all the good things I had and all the good things I still have.  When my thoughts start to dwell on all of the good things I have lost, I have to stop myself.  None of that thinking helps me.  That is the slippery slope that slides into the muck where people get stuck.

Being a part of the David Glasser Foundation has also helped me move forward.  Honoring Davey’s legacy by doing positive things in his name really helps the future look brighter.  Sponsoring youth sports teams brings joy to my life because Davey played basketball and baseball and loved all sports.

There is still a lot of work to be done.  Not everyone needs to start a foundation, but I have suggested to other people who have experienced a huge loss to think about possible ways they could honor the memory of the person they lost while creating a positive future.  College scholarships are a great option to remember someone who loved education and help someone else reach their educational goals.  Sports scholarships are also great to remember someone who loved sports and give other kids a chance to improve their skills in the sport.  Remembering the person we lost by helping someone else can reclaim some of the future that was stolen from us when the person we loved left us.

Rebuilding a positive future.  That’s the goal.  That’s the struggle.

And it’s worth it.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.

_____________________________________________

If you would like to read more of this story, I have published a book on Amazon, “Then I Looked Up: Losing a Child, Finding His Legacy of Love”. This is the story of Davey’s life, his death, and my journey of finding hope and purpose after losing a child.

On By Judy GlasserIn When the Worst HappensLeave a comment

He Is With Me

On By Judy GlasserIn When the Worst Happens2 Comments

God has often spoken very clearly to me through Isaiah 43:2 these last 7 years since my son, David Glasser, a Phoenix Police Officer, was killed in the line of duty. Here is my response –

When I am passing through the waters of grief...

*of disappointment…

*of disillusionment…

*of pain….

God is with me.

When I am passing through a river of tears…

*pierced by the shattered pieces of my broken heart.

*trying to figure out how to live with a huge hole in my life…

the river does not sweep over me.  God is with me.

When I am walking through the fire of anger…

* not happy with my reality…..

* overwhelmed by grief….

I am not burned.  God is with me.

I am passing through.  I’m not getting stuck in these places.  Everything that happens in my life has first gone through the hands of my Father God.  He has a purpose.

So I will trust him as I pass through the water, the river and the fire.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.

Please Let Me Wake Up

It happened again this week. While talking with someone I just met, the subject came up and I said my son, David Glasser, had been killed in the line of duty 7 years ago.

7 years ago.

Sometimes the pain feels like yesterday. It’s very hard. And saying it makes it more real.

For weeks after Davey’s death, I would wake up every morning hoping that it was all just a bad dream.

Praying that it was all a nightmare that I could wake up from.

Every morning I would open my eyes and look around my bedroom – hoping I wouldn’t see the frame on my dresser which holds the last Mother’s Day card I’ll ever get from Davey.  The one he signed “I love you”.

fullsizerender-2

Every morning I would hope I wouldn’t see the box with his picture and a flag and his medal of honor that stood on the counter in my kitchen.

Every morning I hoped I wouldn’t see the memorial handed out at his funeral which I posted in our living room. He had such a great smile!

Every morning I wished that this would be the day that his tall, lanky frame would come back through my front door.

But I saw the card and the flag box and the memorial and Davey never walked through my door again.

Because it wasn’t just a very bad dream. The worst happened.

The nightmare is real.

 There’s a big gaping hole in our lives.  We can’t go back to our old lives because Davey is not there. It’s like a dimmer switch has been turned down on the light and laughter and joy in our world.

If you knew him, feel it, too.

img_2481

I don’t know how people can deal with tragedy like this without faith in God. I believe that Davey is in heaven with his Father God.  With my Father God.  He’s there with my mother, father, stepfather, brother and many more of my family and friends who have gone home before him.  I believe that God is in the process of bringing good out of the evil that was done.  I believe that I’ve been left behind because God has a part for me in his plan.

Davey walked into my dream a couple of months after he was killed.  I was sitting at the table with my daughter-in-law and my little granddaughter.  It felt like a regular ‘time to color’ or ‘let’s eat’.  Then Davey walked in and sat down.  He gave us a big smile.  He didn’t say anything.  He just smiled at all of us.

I looked around the table at all of his ‘girls’ and blinked.

Maybe everything else really was all just a dream!!

It felt so real.  The explosion of hope in my heart was so strong that it woke me up.

And the nightmare was back.  Sometimes I just want to live in that dream.

But Davey’s  big smile stays with me.  He’s happy.  He is in a place with no sadness, pain or nightmares.  The battle between good and evil that he committed his adult life to here on earth is over for him.  Where he is, the good guys have won.  Davey has won.

On the day that is already determined for me, I will see him again.  It will not be a dream, it will be my new, eternal reality.

What about you?

I know Davey would like to see you again, too.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.

On By Judy GlasserIn When the Worst Happens4 Comments

I Want to Go Back

On By Judy GlasserIn When the Worst Happens6 Comments

I have days when I want to go back in time. I would gladly go back to anytime before my son, David Glasser, who was a Phoenix Police Officer, was killed in the line of duty.

So much was lost when he died. So much has changed.

Do you ever want to go back?

God speaks to me – and to you – today through Isaiah when he says, “Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43: 18-19.

God is doing a new thing in my life and in your’s. He wants our eyes to be focused on today and tomorrow. The past is past.

I have been watching God do an entirely new thing in my life since my son was killed. God has a very different plan than I had for the rest of my life and he is gradually revealing it, one step at a time. I could have never imagined this – it’s totally different than the plans I had.

God is making a way in the wilderness that defined my life after Davey died. He is leading me to streams which feed my soul. He is guiding me out of the wasteland of grief and pain where I found myself 7 years ago.

The past is past. God wants my ‘now’ to count. He wants your ‘now’ to count.

He is doing a new thing.

If You Ever Need Anything

On By Judy GlasserIn When the Worst HappensLeave a comment

It happened again this week.

A man came to my front door and introduced himself as David Acunto. He is a police officer in the city where we live and he is running for re-election on the city council. He gave me a flyer which included this picture of him in uniform.

My first thought was – “How great to have a police officer on the city council!”

Then he pointed to the Thin Blue Line Flag we have hanging on our front yard light and said, “Is your son a Police Officer?”

Fortunately, this was not a day where my emotions were running high so no tears started rolling down my face when I told him, ” My son was a Phoenix Police Officer who was killed in the line of duty.”

He immediately said, “I’m so sorry” and reached into his pocket to get his business card.

“Please take this. My cell number is on it – call me if you ever need anything.”

Over these last 7 years since Davey was killed, I have heard these exact words from hundreds of law enforcement officers. They always include their cell phone numbers because they mean it. They would show up. He never asked when my son was killed – because it didn’t matter that it was 7 years ago.

Fallen but never forgotten.

Last year after my husband had by-pass surgery, a retired law enforcement officer and his wife mowed and trimmed our yard for 12 weeks as my husband went through rehabilitation. I mowed it the first week and – wow – I was glad when they offered. I haven’t mowed grass since I was a kid and I hated it. Our calendars were also filled with doctor’s appointments and more procedures so it was awesome to check mowing the lawn off of our long list of things to do.

Another very special thing about this was, if Davey was living close to us, it would have been him mowing our yard. So this really felt like Davey’s Blue Family was stepping in for him and taking care of us at a time we could use some help.

Davey would have loved that. It was reported in the Phoenix newspapers that, a couple of hours before he was killed, Davey called up one of his Brothers in Blue who was sick to set up a time to mow HIS yard.

If you ever need anything.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.

The Moment

I remember the moment I realized that everything in my world had changed. All of the horrible things that had happened to me in the last 15 hours connected in my brain for the first time and I knew that my life as I knew it was gone – blown up – smashed.

Nothing would ever be the same.

It was the moment when I was holding my son, David Glasser’s hand in his hospital room early in the morning after he had been shot the day before in the line of duty as a Phoenix Police Officer. The doctors had just announced their final report.

Davey was officially gone. A machine was still making his lungs breath and drugs were making his heart beat so that he could fulfill his wish of being an organ donor.

But the Davey I had loved and cherished from before he was ever born was not in this ravaged body laying in this hospital bed any longer.

I wanted to crawl in a corner and never leave. I didn’t want to know what a world without without Davey felt like. I didn’t want to face the avalanche of pain and loss that had already started to come crashing down on me and my family.

I didn’t want to.

I told God I didn’t want to.

I remember feeling a torrent of tears dripping down off of my face, soaking the front of my shirt. And I didn’t care. It was all too devastating.

Then, as Police Chaplain Bob Fesmire prayed over all of us standing around Davey’s hospital bed that morning, I felt God’s strong arms of love wrap around me. My Abba Father reminded me that, even though Davey was gone, God is always with me and he was going to walk down this very dark road right beside me, all the way to the end. He reminded me that he had always been beside me during all the tough times in my life – loving me and comforting me. He promised me that he was going to do that again.

And I knew he would. He had done it before, he would do it again.

And he has. God has been my Rock and my shelter as this hurricane of pain and loss decimated my life. He has given me strength and confidence as I have watched him put my life back together – piece by piece – making a much different picture than before Davey died. God has given me hope as he reminds me I have been left behind because he has a purpose for me here.

As I remember that moment in the hospital, I am thankful for how faithful God has been in my life these last almost 9 years.

And I know he’ll be walking closely next to me the rest of this journey, until I see Davey again in our forever home.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.

___________________

If you would like to know more of this story, I have published a book on Amazon, “Then I Looked Up: Losing a Child, Finding His Legacy of Love”

On By Judy GlasserIn When the Worst HappensLeave a comment

It Leaves a Mark

There is a cost.

There is a commitment.

Love leaves a mark.

The cost is being more concerned about another person than you are about yourself.  What I want is not the most important thing when I love someone.

Commitment means loving this person even when they are unlovable.  Sometimes it means offering help and other times it means drawing helpful boundaries.

Loving someone well takes a lot of energy and patience, wisdom and understanding.  Loving people well is a lot of work.  And it leaves a mark.

I have discovered that this mark doesn’t go away after someone we love dies.  This mark is permanent and never leaves us.

David Glasser, my son, was a Phoenix Police Officer who was killed in the line of duty on May 18, 2016.  The mark he left on us was an unusual kind of love.  It was an outspoken love – a love that broke down some of the walls we have built as adults.  He said ‘love you’ often and you knew he meant it by how he included you and had fun with you and was loyal to you.  You knew there was a commitment being made when he said ‘love you”,

It wasn’t just something he said.

The mark Davey has left on us is big.  We have discovered how large of an impact he made on our lives as we continue to love one another with an outspoken love like he taught us.   Saying it and showing it.

The cost of loving people out loud is giving up some of our ‘separateness’ and privacy. The cost is taking our eyes off of ourselves long enough to see someone else that needs a hug or a hand.  The cost is letting others love us, knowing that this love will leave a mark.  It will change us.

The commitment is not giving up even when its tough or strange or even a little weird.  Yes, weird.  If you’ve been really trying to love others, you know what I mean.  The commitment is setting love as a priority and letting go of other things that we always used to think were important.

If I were to draw a picture of the mark Davey has left on us, it would not be a heart.  It would be a magic wand.  Because I have discovered since Davey’s death that loving people out loud has magical qualities which cannot be explained.

Love changes things.  It has a supernatural power that comes straight from God.  Love brings light into the darkness.  Love soothes pain and sadness and loneliness.

Love really can change the world.

Thank you for the permanent mark of love you have left on our lives, Davey.

Miss you.

Love you.

On By Judy GlasserIn When the Worst Happens2 Comments

So Much

On By Judy GlasserIn When the Worst Happens4 Comments

I have lost so much. And it doesn’t stop.

My son, David Glasser, was a Phoenix Police Officer killed in the line of duty on May 18, 2016. When Davey died, he took all of my plans and dreams for the rest of my life with him. He was included in all of them and a central character in many.

They were all ripped away. I’ve been on a journey of creating revised plans and dreams these last 7 years. It hasn’t been easy. It’s nothing I wanted to do but it needed to be done. God has a purpose for why I am still here so I move forward, one painful step at a time.

My daughter, Katie, and I recently had the opportunity to travel to Rome, Italy together and get on a cruise ship that toured the Greek Isles. It was fun and we made a boatload (pun intended) of new, precious memories.

But my heart broke a little more every time I thought about the last time we were in Rome – Davey had been with us. Almost 16 years ago, my whole family toured Italy for 2 1/2 weeks. That family is no longer whole because we’re missing a main person – Davey.

We just keep losing.

That’s what so different when a child dies . Davey should be here – right now. I was not supposed to go to his funeral, he was supposed to go to mine. He would have been a part of everything that has happened the last 7 years. He should have had a part of everything that will happen in my life until I leave this planet.

Today, on Father’s Day, its especially hard because Davey left his two small children behind. He was already proving to be a great father before he died. He was involved with everything about his children and spend a lot of time with them. They have lost so much.

It’s a very tough journey. If you are interested in reading more of my story, I recently published a book on Amazon, “Then I Looked Up: Losing a Child, Finding His Legacy of Love.”

Sometimes its hard to keep a positive attitude about tomorrow knowing that I’m just going to keep losing what should have been. I’m getting used to life without Davey but I don’t like it. I’m getting used to losing more every year –

but I don’t like it.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.

It’s A Struggle

On By Judy GlasserIn When the Worst Happens3 Comments

I have been struggling with the grief of losing my son for over 7 years. Recently, I have gotten a new understanding of just how many of you are also struggling with grief and loss. You are travelling with me on this very tough journey of surviving the death of someone we were very close to.

In February I published a book on Amazon, “Then I Looked Up: Losing a Child, Finding His Legacy of Love.” This is the story of my son, David Glasser’s, death in the line of duty, his life and my search for hope as I figured out how to move forward after my life exploded.

Since publishing the book, I have received many messages from people who have read my story and they tell me how it helped them with their own struggle. These messages have come from all kinds of people, not just those who lost a child. I have heard from sisters, wives, brothers, husbands, children and everyone else out there who has been grieving the death of someone who left a big hole in their lives. I have heard from people who are experiencing grief over divorces. I have heard from people who are not struggling themselves with grief right now but reading the book has helped them understand family and friends who are.

It has opened my eyes to how many grieving people there are in my world who are dealing with these tough, painful emotions.

“Your book changed my life.” one of my neighbors told me when I saw her at our shared mailbox. “I was stuck in a deep, dark pit after losing my best friend and now I have started to move forward and enjoy my life again. I’m sending the book to a friend who really needs it.”

“God spoke to me through your story and it changed everything” another friend told me as she sat down next to me at Bingo. Her husband died last year and she couldn’t get past some of the ‘What if’s’ of the situation until she spent some time studying Job 14:5. “A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.”

” The truth in your book helped me answer some questions I had that made me get stuck in anger and bitterness, ” a sister of a fallen officer wrote. “Now I feel motivated to move forward and honor my brother’s life.”

” Your book helped me process my daughter’s death from over 20 years ago in a new way” said another friend. “I have a much more positive perspective now.”

And the comments, texts and emails continue to flow in.

What a blessing! I am extremely happy that sharing my story is helping other’s deal with their own broken hearts in a positive way. It gives purpose to my pain.

This is what I believe is happening – in the book I shared the truth that God has taught me about life and death and how different his perspective is from your’s and mine. I also told you my story which gave you ideas of how you can apply this truth to your situation.

When our lives are anchored on God’s truth, he can make all the difference.

One of my favorite comments is when people tell me they sent the book to a friend or family member. You are the people who know people who would benefit from reading this book. A lot of you are doing this!

Keep it up! I love it! It’s something positive we can do when we find ourselves in a “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say.” situation.

Meanwhile, we all continue the struggle – together.

Miss you, Davey.

Love you.

Exiled

On By Judy GlasserIn When the Worst HappensLeave a comment

You may have heard this famous verse from Jeremiah, “For I know the plans I have for you, ” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” 29:11.

What an awesome promise!  We love to print it on plaques and hang it on our walls.

But did you realize that this promise was originally made to the Israelites who had been exiled by God to Babylon?  God let the King of Babylon capture Jerusalem and take the Israelites away from their homes.  Right before his promise concerning his good plans for them, God told Israel through Jeremiah that they would be in exile for 70 years.

70 years.

This meant that many of them would die in Babylon – never going back to Jerusalem. The Israelites had been ripped away from the homes they had expected to live in for the rest of their lives.  They were now living in a foreign land – exiled – and many of them would die far from their home in Jerusalem.

Do you ever feel like you have been exiled?

I have.

I do.

The life I expected to live was suddenly snatched away from me when my son, David Glasser, was killed in the line of duty six years ago.  My world has changed so drastically that sometimes it feels like I am now living in a foreign land.  I’m exiled far from what I thought the rest of my life was going to look like before Davey died.

And today, God is saying to me – and maybe to you – that I will continue to live in this foreign place until he comes to take me home.  While I’m here, he has plans for me.  He is giving me hope and a purpose.

After his initial famous promise in Jeremiah, God gives us more promises.  He tells us that when we pray, he will listen.  When we diligently look for him, we will find him.

I know God always keeps his promises – that’s a fact.  I have discovered that reading his Word, absorbing what he is saying to me and growing my trust in him gives me the strength and peace I need for each day as I live out the rest of my days…

here in exile.