Phone Calls

Marshall's struggles from yesterday continued into today. Last night as Marshall was still talking about his difficulties and his need to talk to a man who had been through the same experiences, it dawned on me that I might know someone. Soon after Nolan's death, I had been approached on Facebook by an old high school acquaintance of mine, Chad. He had reached out to me because he too knew the hardship of losing a child. His son Grayson was born premature and lived only 40 days before Chad and his wife had to make the most difficult decision of their life - they had to take their only child off life support and hold him in their arms while he died. Although are situations differ slightly, the end result is still the same. We all lost our son. Our firstborn son at that. Since Chad had so willingly reached out to me in my time of need, I thought that he might also be willing to talk to Marshall about his experiences.

So I went out on a limb and I messaged him and asked, giving him Marshall's cell number in case he was willing to call him. This morning, Marshall received a call from Chad. Marshall sat out on the balcony of the apartment and talked to Chad for hours. When he came inside he was all teary eyed and a completely different person. He couldn't stop singing Chad's praises and was so thankful that finally he had met another man who was willing to talk about his loss. Not only did Chad talk about his own personal experiences, but he listened to Marshall talk and he cried with Marshall. It's amazing what one phone call can do to change your perspective on things.

The whole rest of the day Marshall looked like he a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Chad had told Marshall that he was willing to talk to him again whenever Marshall needed him and the two made plans to meet when Chad and his family go on vacation to Myrtle Beach. I've never seen Marshall so happy to be on the phone with someone for hours. Chad was Marshall's own personal therapist today. Later I received a message from Chad saying that he hoped he had helped Marshall. I replied back that he had no idea how much he had helped him. I thanked him again for being so willing to talk. There are so many women willing and able to talk about or write about their grief but the male perspective is nearly vacant. I had spoken yesterday to a friend of ours who had just been to reading of a play entitled "Still." She too had said that one thing she had mentioned in the talk afterwards was that while the play was great at showing a female's take on the loss of a baby by stillbirth, there is little if anything out there that shows the male perspective on it. I told Marshall this in the hopes that maybe one day he will get to the place where he can write or sing about it.

After the cathartic phone call, Marshall and I spent the afternoon hanging out with our nephew Robi. We all went to eat at one of our favorite pizza joints - Hawthorne's Pizza - and then spent some time at the house doing a little work. It was nice to have a good day after the heaviness of yesterday.