They Don't Always Send Chaplains

By Lee Erickson, MA, LPCC

Before grief begins, there is often a moment when the world still looks normal—until it doesn’t. Shock has a way of slipping in quietly, freezing time and rearranging reality in an instant. It is protective, numbing, confusing.

The story below is a deeply personal one, drawn from a moment in my own family’s life. It’s a glimpse into the first wave of shock—the space between not knowing and knowing, between thawing raspberries and the weight of unbearable news.

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Donna Erickson had woken early Tuesday, March 5, 2002, because she was determined to make a batch of raspberry jam. She had hauled up a five-quart pail of raspberries from the chest freezer in the basement. Now they were thawing on the kitchen counter. In her early 70’s, she still had energy for jam.

Roger Erickson, her husband, also in his early 70's, was sitting in the living room of the home they had owned for almost 40 years. He had already walked across the street to get the mail at the post office, a mundane task he had done nearly every day there was mail delivery since they had bought their house. Now he was deep into his second cup of coffee and mulling over some junk mail they had received. He had the television on in the living room.

It was about 8:00 a.m. and Donna lifted her head from doing dishes at the kitchen sink and looked towards the alley that separated their house from the back of the bowling alley. She noticed that there was a police car parked there. The kitchen had a breakfast nook that faced the alley. The house, which sat on a corner lot was located at the junction of Ash Avenue and 6th Street in the sleepy town of Westbrook, Minnesota. The house was located a block off Main Street and two blocks from the High School.

In the same instance that she was processing the police car parked in the alley along the side of their house, there was a subsequent knock at the back door. In her gut she knew something was wrong.

It was Alan, the local police chief who also happened to be a high school classmate of her second oldest son, Doug. He had his policeman’s shirt on which indicated it was more than a social call. In a small town, everyone knows everyone else. Alan had stayed around town and worked his way up to police chief.

It was still relatively early in the day and it was strange that he had stopped by to visit.

She walked down the short hallway and opened the door. She didn’t need to hear a word—she already knew something was wrong.

“It’s Doug, isn’t it…”? Donna said before the police chief could utter a phrase.

She had been trying to call Doug repeatedly for the past few weeks but every time she called she got a busy signal. After several attempts, she called Myrtle, the elderly woman who lived downstairs from Doug in the duplex he rented from her.

“The cars are out front," Myrtle said, confused by the call. "Do you want me to go up and see if he’s home?"

"No, that’s okay," Donna replied. "Just let him know we’re trying to reach him if you see him."

Roger knew that his wife was a worrier.

“We can go up and see how he’s doing,” he said to her one morning over coffee.

“No,” she said. She didn’t have it in her to do all of that again. For more than 30 years, they had driven hours to check on their son—taking him to rehab, buying groceries, listening to stories and promises of quitting whatever vice had taken hold. There had been so much hope in the past balanced with crushing disappointment.

But now the answer to the mystery of why they hadn't heard from him was at the back door squarely staring her in the face. Donna called for her husband who came quickly.

Alan, with a crack in his voice, holding back his own emotion, told them the tragic news. While police work is often difficult, it can be especially painful when you have to deliver devastating news about someone you know personally.

With her husband standing beside her, Donna heard how her troubled son had killed himself with a shotgun. She heard how her grandson had been the one to find her son. They talked for a while longer. They were crying.

Alan said he was sorry to have to tell them. He gave them a phone number to call. It was their son’s phone number. Alan walked down the three small steps back to the sidewalk that ran along side the garage and back to the alley where his car was parked.

Donna closed the door behind Alan and collapsed into her husband’s arms, sobbing.

It was the news she had never wanted—but deep down, always expected. Inevitable.

After some time went by, they picked up the phone and dialed the number that Alan had given them. It was the medical examiner, who must have still been at their son’s home. He told them, in detail, what had happened. He told them that Doug had killed himself with a shotgun and his son had found him. He asked if they would like to speak to their grandson. Donna said yes.

"I’m so sorry, Grandma. I’m so sorry…" her grandson kept repeating, again and again.

“It’s not your fault,” she replied. “This isn’t your fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault.”

But in her heart, she quietly wondered if there was more she could have done to prevent this. It’s a nagging wondering that would take years to sort through and even when the thoughts of guilt and regret would be laying dormant for months or years, sometimes after slowly seeping, they would materialize out of nowhere to haunt her.

“We will be up on Wednesday,” Donna told her grandson. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said through his tears.

She was suddenly exhausted. The phone call had sucked the energy from her but she knew she had to muster some more. She picked up the phone again and with the heaviest of hearts began dialing.

The raspberries sat on the counter, melting.

No jam would be made today. The priorities had changed.

Eventually the raspberries would end up in the garbage.

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They Don’t Always Send Chaplains

By Lee Erickson

All winter, she dreamed of raspberry jam.

She had just hauled up two five-quart pails

of frozen raspberries, tucked away

in the basement freezer since last summer,

waiting for transformation.

Later, she would reseal the lids,

toss the sweet, beautiful berries

into the garbage can.

Priorities change.

Later, in the drugstore entryway,

the policeman’s wife grabbed her,

hugged her, sobbed.

Her husband said it was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

Said he was traumatized by the memory of

pulling up to the house that day.

Notifying her.

After all, they’d graduated high school together.

Roamed the same high school halls—

just boys then, no burdens to encumber them.

Now, the policeman brings news

she had always feared,

had been bracing for most of her life,

yet still could not bear.

That summer, she and her husband

decided to move to a place they’d driven through once,

because they thought it was pretty.

That fall, a hummingbird arrived,

hovering at the faded feeder

still hanging under the awning

outside the kitchen window.

I asked if she thought it was some kind of sign.

She shook her head in silence,

taping up another box

filled with mixing bowls and kitchen utensils,

barely acknowledging the question.

She remembered—

there were no lights, no sirens.

No procession of squad cars.

No chaplain to “there, there” away the horror.

Just his high school friend,

in a policeman’s shirt.

Ripped jeans.

Nervous voice, cracking.

Tracking spring snow into the entryway.

And after he was gone,

all that remained was

just a kitchen sink of tepid water,

and buckets of raspberries,

melting, purposeless,

never fulfilling their promise.

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A Note on Shock

Shock doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like dishes in the sink. Like junk mail on a coffee table. Like raspberries thawing on the counter while the world shifts forever.

If you are in that fog—waiting for your body, your mind, or your heart to catch up—please know this: you are not doing anything wrong. Shock is the body’s way of protecting us until we’re ready to feel what we cannot yet hold.

Grief often begins in silence. In frozen moments. And in thawed fruit that will never become jam.

There is no right way to grieve, and no wrong way to begin.