A Reminder
TB’s Abridged Life Story
My preference would be to live the life of an innocuous middle-class husband and father. If the life I live was my choice, I would more than likely choose something along the lines of Ward Cleaver than the life that has been given to me. This life is not my choice. My life has been and is filled with more hills and curves than the most extreme roller coaster ride. Imagine the experience of zero gravity as you crest the summit of the climb just prior to being plummeted down the sheer face of the other side. At the bottom of the climb, crushed by the power of the multiple Gs and forced down into the seat, you strain to remain upright. Taut muscles, white-knuckled fingers and aching bones strain against the forces as your body whips through turns, first left, then right, then upside down. Roller Coasters are the highlight of a visit to an amusement park. I love riding roller coasters and experiencing what I just described. However, a ride on a roller coaster lasts approximately two minutes. The fear we feel is exhilarating because it is engineered, tested and controlled. Imagine the weightlessness you feel is fear because you think you are about to careen out of control. The crushing forces as we bottom out in the climb are not frightening because they actually offer some comfort after experiencing zero gravity only moments before. Imagine feeling this crushing force with every breath you breathe – knowing it as the first sensation every morning when you open your eyes. I am not Ward Cleaver; I am Thomas Burleson. Please buckle your seat belt, ensure the restraining bar is in the full down position, keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times…it is time for the ride to begin.
This ride begins on August 21, 1999 – a day as close to perfect as was humanly possible for my family. This was a special day because my family was going to Six Flags in Gurnee, IL. My recollections of that day include hours filled with laughter, squeals of delight and love. Tiffany, 11, made a pot of coffee and brought a cup into the bedroom and woke me up with a soft kiss on my cheek. I cooked breakfast with the kids that morning. Dallis, seven years old, was standing on her stool in front of me flipping the pancakes while I watched. Tiffany was sitting on the countertop pouring the pancake batter into the skillet when needed. Daniel, thirteen years old, was sitting on the breakfast bar watching the girls and I cook breakfast. The kids and I sang silly, made-up songs that morning. After breakfast, the kids, my wife Eva and I left for Six Flags.
We arrived at Six Flags and Tiffany and I walked through the main gate of Six Flags. She was smiling and laughing because she was close to me I had to walk like Frankenstein to avoid stepping on her heels. Inside the main gate, Daniel started calling me a wuss, a baby and a chicken because I refused to go on rides that spin in circles. Dallis was not tall enough to ride many of the rides at Six Flags. Daniel and Tiffany volunteered to alternate gong on rides that Dallis could enjoy. Much later that day, we were walking through the midway. Eva and I held hands. That moment in time was the first time in many months that I felt anything resembling love for Eva or felt loved by her. It was close to 9:00pm and Dallis saw the American Eagle roller coaster. She sprinted up to the “You have to be this tall” sign and stood as straight and tall as she could. Finally, Dallis was tall enough to ride an adult roller coaster! Eva and I felt a palpable sense of relief. Dallis was very frustrated because throughout the day, she had not been tall enough to ride any of the adult roller coasters. Daniel and Tiffany sat in the car in front of Dallis and I. Dallis immediately raised her arms above her head and started screaming at the top of her lungs. Unfortunately, the ride had not started and we were waiting for people to sit down in their cars. Well, Dallis did not stop screaming and somehow was able to scream louder when the ride actually started. Approximately half way through the ride I looked at Dallis. She had the biggest, brightest smile I have ever seen on her face and she was laughing, a big, robust belly laugh. The American Eagle roller coaster was the last ride we rode that day. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day. I thought that ride was the exclamation point for a great day. I have never been more wrong in my life.
At 11:02pm, a drunk driver on the wrong side of the road crashed head-on into our VW microbus. My wife, Eva and our three kids were killed. I was seriously injured. My neck was broken in four places as was my left clavicle, and two ribs on my right side. Plus, I was bruised up and down my body. I have very few memories of the moments before and after the accident. However, these memories, though few in number, are very drawn out and I see them in vivid detail. I remember seeing two bright, white lights – they were so bright it was all I could see. I remember feeling icy coldness in the emergency room. I remember the doctor reaching out, holding my hand and saying, “Thomas, I’m sorry but your family has been killed.” I responded by asking him, “Did they suffer?” The doctor told me, “No, they did not suffer.” I remember a nurse starting to cut off the shirt I was wearing. I looked at her and with a single tear rolling down my face asked her not to cut off my shirt. The kids and I wore matching shirts that day and I wanted to keep my shirt as a memory. I’ve never seen a person as sad as that nurse was in that moment. She whispered, “I have to cut off your shirt so we can examine you.” I slowly nodded my head and looked away while crying more tears. The only warmth I felt was the path of my tears down my face. However, it was not the only warmth I felt that night.
I was flown to Froedert Hospital in Milwaukee, WI. By the time I was loaded onto the helicopter I knew that I would make a 100% recovery from my physical injuries. During the flight I prayed silently for someone to hold my hand. The flight nurse, Sharon, reached out and held my hand the instant I completed that prayer. I have never felt love as I did in that moment in the helicopter. The only way I can explain it to you is by comparing it to how a baby must feel while in their mother’s womb, totally encapsulated by the amniotic fluid, feeling the warmth from their mother’s body and hearing and feeling the beating of her heart. The love I felt was everywhere; I felt the love inside my body – I felt the love outside my body. It is impossible to determine the source of this love; it just is. I believe I would have died that night if that prayer had not been answered. This was the first of many of my prayers that have been answered and the beginning of a journey that has been at times wonderful, and awe-inspiring and at times incredibly painful and black.
In the days after the accident I was surrounded by blackness and felt a confusion that was nearly impossible to break free from their bonds. Every night I had the same nightmare over and over again. I dreamed I was attempting to climb the sheer face of a cliff. Below me was an ominous black being that called my name over and over again, although I could not actually hear my name aurally, I felt my name being called in my soul. Every time my name was called, my heart would skip a beat. Frantically, I attempted to climb this cliff hoping to reach the beautiful blue sky above me. The harder I climbed the farther I slipped down the face of the cliff. This dream was the same every time except for the last night I dreamed this nightmare. The dream was the same in the beginning as every other night, except the ending was different. Suddenly, I became very calm and stood perfectly still. I looked up at the beautiful blue sky. I looked down at the frightening blackness below me. I closed my eyes, released my hold on the cliff, and fell into the blackness. After that night I never had this dream again. There were many more nightmares that I had to navigate both in real life and in my dreams. However, that night was my first tentative step toward seeing the beauty life had to offer.
Fourteen months after the accident I traveled to Nepal and trekked to Mt. Everest Base Camp and had the opportunity to see two drastically different examples of beauty. I have two very special memories from this trip. The first memory occurred during the first week of my trip. In Katmandu, I was walking down the street and the poorest, dirtiest person I have ever seen in my life was sitting on the sidewalk in the shade of a building. I did not realize she was a woman until I was just three or four feet from her and noticed she was holding a baby to her breast. This woman was wearing rags and reminded me of the photos of the Jewish prisoners in the concentration camps. The socks I wore cost more money than she earned in a year. We made eye contact and then this woman did something that stopped me in my tracks. She smiled. It was a heartfelt smile as if she was concerned for me. This lady reached out to me and made human contact. She did not do this in an attempt to pry money from my wallet. Her smile was a simple ‘hello’ shared between two strangers. This woman?s smile humbled me and has become a very spiritual experience over time.
The second spiritual experience I had while in the Himalayas was special because it was between God and me. We were at 13,000 feet and had just finished trekking for the day. Our camp was in a farmer’s field that was dormant until the next growing season. I walked up to the summit of the mountain. My senses were alive. The hairs on my arms were standing on end. I should have felt fear because during this walk a cloud surrounded me and my visibility was reduced to mere feet. As I reached the summit the cloud I was in melted away and in front of me was Mt. Everest. This mountain is massive. I was standing on the summit of a mountain that was 13,000 feet tall and Mt. Everest stood twice as tall as the mountain I was standing on. I have never felt so insignificant and significant at the same time. I was insignificant because this mountain towered over me as a testimony to God’s grandeur and power. I was significant because I had the opportunity to be there at that moment which was a testimony to God’s grace and love.
God’s grace and love is expressed in more ways than we, mere humans, can understand. In the months after the accident I was trying to discern God’s will and direction for my life. God wanted me to forgive the man that killed my wife and our three beautiful children. The man that mailed a letter to the Daily Herald that said I was drunk the night of the accident, the he was a good man, that he saved my life, the he smelled alcohol on my breath, that he was ordered by the Police to stay quiet and that he was not on the wrong side of the road that night and that I was at fault. The man that caused grief was black inside me that I wrote a suicide note and came close to killing myself. The man that never admitted guilt or said, “I’m sorry.” How could God expect me to give this man the gift of forgiveness? I battled with God many nights struggling to not give in to God’s will. I saw this act of forgiveness as an act of weakness on my part and as a failure in my family’s eyes. There are times we push God’s gift of grace away and there are times we want God’s gift of grace so desperately that we cannot open it quickly enough.
September 6, 2002 is an example if God’s gift of grace that I could not wait to open. The hours from 7:00am to 5:00pm flew by so fast they felt like a dream. I remember bits and pieces. The hour from 5:00pm to 6:00pm dragged by so slowly that I nearly screamed at the Pastor, “Will you just hurry up!” September 6, 2002 is the day Mollie and I married and, in my opinion, the preacher took too long to pronounce us man and wife. The journey to reach this point was a long and winding road (my apologies to the Beatles). It had taken me three years to understand that it was ok for me to fall in love again, for me to hold a woman in my arms as husband and wife, to make love to this woman with the hope of having a baby. It was ok for me to have hope and to live life. Our relationship had many stops and starts in the beginning, thanks to my indecision and confusion on many different levels. Mollie and I have a wonderful life: we have sea-kayaked in the Fijian Islands, climbed a mountain in Washington State, flown to Vienna, Austria and took a Castle walking trip to Prague, Czech Republic. Mollie and I have a son, Elijah. He is 17 months old and a pure delight. Mollie and I have had two miscarriages. We have had a daughter with Trisomy 18. Abbey lived for 38 hours and 24 minutes and died in my arms
There are times I feel like I am back on that sheer cliff. I have been called a ‘modern day Job’ which is not who I am. Who I am is this: a man who knows to relish the little moments like when he shares an adult roller coaster ride with his daughter. A man that knows no matter where you are in life, God can reach you. It does not matter if it is when you hold your newborn son for the first time or if it is when you are holding a knife contemplating suicide and wondering if you would feel the knife hit the bone. A man that knows the act of forgiveness is as much a gift for you as it is for the person that is forgiven. A man that understands that everyone is made in God’s image no matter whether they are poor or rich – and they have value as a miracle of creation. A man that knows that faith hurts and it is supposed to at times. It doesn’t help if you know the answers because the pain is the same. Basically, I have started learning about faith and love.
Well, as you can see my life is nothing like Ward Cleaver’s and I am glad. Ward can keep his push reel lawnmower and his ‘Good Housekeeping’ wife June, with her high heel pumps, string of pearls and meticulously cleaned house. Ward is a wimp and June is boring (don’t even get met started on ‘Wally and the Beav’). I do not want that life. I want my life and I am going to suck every ounce of marrow out of this life and leave it gasping for air on the day I die.
I came across this document. It serves as a good reminder for me.
Blessings,
TB
