174 | "Living Forward" After Child Loss with Neal and Rhonda Harrington

My friends Neal and Rhonda Harrington join me on the podcast today to share the story of their 19-year-old son Adam, who was killed by a lightning strike in August of 2006.  Adam was jogging at the high school track with his granddaddy when the incident happened, and in that split second of time, the Harringtons’ lives were forever changed. 

In today’s episode, they share who Adam was, the story of what happened and its immediate aftermath, the sovereignty of God in a situation like this, and some of what they’ve learned over the past 17 years since Adam’s homegoing. 

They have a lot of wisdom to share about how we can "live forward" after child loss, and I believe you’ll be encouraged by our conversation.  Then be sure and come back next week as we extend our discussion to include some very practical insight into living life as a bereaved parent.

You can follow Rhonda's blog by clicking HERE.   

All views expressed by guests on this podcast are theirs alone, and may not represent the Statement of Faith and Statement of Beliefs of the While We're Waiting ministry.

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Transcript

00:00:00 - Jill
Hi, Neal and Rhonda, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

00:00:04 - Rhonda
Hi, Jill. It's a great pleasure to be with you today.

00:00:07 - Neal
Hey, Jill, thanks for having us.

00:00:09 - Jill
Yeah, we have been trying to get this podcast interview together pretty much since we started the podcast back in the summer of 2020, so I'm glad that we're finally sitting down together today. It's been a long time coming, but it's going to be a great time of visiting together. So I want to start by giving you guys an opportunity to tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves. Tell us where you're from and what life is like for you there.

00:00:36 - Rhonda
All right, well, I'll start. I was born and raised here in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Went away to college and met Neal. We got married, lived in Wisconsin for two years, moved back to Jonesboro, Arkansas. We raised our family. I was a teacher for 28 years, taught at Arkansas State University prior to that, kindergarten. And then when we moved to Hot Springs, I taught at Henderson State University. And now I work in the business that we have, and I try to do some writing projects.

00:01:06 - Neal
Yeah, we've been married for it'll be 40 years this December. And we own a staffing agency here in Hot Springs. It's Express Employment Professionals. We're blessed to have a house on Lake Hamilton, and we both serve on several boards here locally, and we try to stay involved the best we can in our community, but the best thing we have going is our recent membership into the Grandparent Club. So we now have a two month old granddaughter named Harper, and she is truly a gift from God.

00:01:34 - Rhonda
And we have her parents, Ben and Libby, our son Ben and his wife Libby, who we love dearly.

00:01:39 - Jill
Yes. It's funny how the parents kind of move to the back burner when the grandchild comes along, right? Talk about Harper first and then oh, yeah, she has parents too, so I love that. Well, thank you for telling us a little bit about yourselves. We're really here today to talk about Adam, and I would love for you to take a few minutes and just share a little bit about Adam. Tell us who he was. Just help us get to know him a little bit.

00:02:09 - Neal
Adam was our firstborn son. He was saved when he was nine years old in a cemetery, of all places.

00:02:15 - Jill
Oh, wow.

00:02:16 - Neal
We were practicing his bike skills when he came to an empty grave. I was following right behind him, and he asked if that person went to heaven, and I told him only if they had Jesus in their hearts. And he said he wanted Jesus in his heart. And I told him we'd talk about that later. When we got home, he said, no, dad, I want Jesus in my heart now. So we leaned against an old cedar tree there in the cemetery, and that's where he received Christ. It was such a blessing to be able to lead him to the Lord. But as he grew, I mean, he had a great childhood. He had many friends. He was voted prom king. And Mr. Nettleton High School and Jill, just for the record, our youngest son, Ben was also prom king in his class. So we were two for two there.

00:03:02 - Jill
Wow, what an honor.

00:03:05 - Neal
Adam played sports, was in choir, played guitar, and loved to hunt and fish. He was very mature for his age and just had a love for life in general. He was studying to be an anesthetist at the University of Arkansas when he died at the beginning of his sophomore year. And of course, we think he was special, but so did many others.

00:03:25 - Rhonda
And just to add to that, he loved, loved his family. He loved being with family. He would skip Friday nights with friends to be with family at hamburger cookouts at the grandparents house. His priorities were really always God, family and country. He was very patriotic, and he actually wanted to join the military straight out of high school. And I cried and begged him to, please just try college. Please try college first and then you can join later. Because I had in my mind, oh, we're at war, and you'll go over there and something will happen. And of course, God knows all things, and no matter where he was, that was his day. But he did go on to college and loved his freshman year at University of Arkansas.

00:04:13 - Jill
Sounds like a very well rounded young man.

00:04:16 - Neal
He really was.

00:04:17 - Jill
Yeah. And what a privilege you had, Neal, to lead him to the Lord that day. What a blessing.

00:04:23 - Neal
Yes.

00:04:24 - Jill
Yeah. So talk about what happened in the summer of 2006.

00:04:30 - Rhonda
All right, well, the summer of 2006 started out in June. We took a family cruise. Neal got a bonus, and we decided rather than stick it in savings, we would take a family trip. And so, thankfully, we did make that choice and had a wonderful time together. The four of us came back, and it was an exciting time. And Ben was getting ready to be a senior and Adam was getting ready to start his sophomore year at University of Arkansas. We were living in Jonesboro, Arkansas, at the time, and I had a conference where I was presenting in Hot Springs, where my parents lived. So I invited Adam to come with me to see his grandparents for one last time before he went back to college the next week. So we came down to Hot Springs, and the very day that Adam went to heaven, he first went with his granddaddy to I think they went bowling, ate pizza, came back and talked to his daddy on the phone. Then he went to the track with my father because my father liked to walk on the track. And Adam was actually training for a marathon. So they went to the track. My mother and I were at the house two blocks away. It was not stormy. It was overcast. And a thunder rumble like I've never felt before felt like an earthquake. It shook the house. And my mother and I were just amazed at how much it shook the house and rattled everything. And about probably 20 minutes after that, my dad called and said, you need to get down to the track. Adam's been struck by lightning. So we jumped in my car and drove down there. And what happened was Adam and my dad had finished a lap, and my dad said, I'm going across the street. I'm through. And Adam said, I'm going to do one more lap, Granddaddy. And my dad was across the street from the track at his truck when the lightning struck Adam, and it knocked my dad to his knees across the street. So my dad got up and saw Adam lying on the track, waved down a car who had a cell phone to use, and this sweet, sweet Good Samaritan came and started CPR on Adam. And Mother and I got there, and I knew immediately when I saw him that he was probably already in heaven. But all I could say was oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. And then I got in the car with my parents and went to the hospital to wait for the ambulance. And at that time, I called Neal, who was in Jonesboro, so I'm going to let him share. I have my story of that day and he has his story of that day, so I'll let him go from there.

00:07:20 - Neal
As Rhonda said, I was in Jonesboro and I started preparing a meal for my dad and me, but I'd lit the grill, and I strangely remember cutting some squash for our meal when the phone rang and it was Rhonda. And she was obviously upset about something. From what I'd interpreted, her father had been struck by lightning and was headed to the hospital. So when we ended the call, I remember thinking her dad had lived a good long life and was now in heaven. He was a strong Christian. And then right after that, my dad walked into the house and Rhonda called again and she started to explain the situation and said that it wasn't her dad that died, it was Adam that had died. And I think the Holy Spirit allowed my father to get to the house before I fully understood it was Adam that had died and not her father. But my memory of what happened next is a bit fuzzy. Word must have traveled pretty quickly, though, because my pastor showed up at our house, it seemed like, in the next few minutes. And I remember just being in the worst physical pain I'd ever experienced. Our pastor, my dad ministered to me. Our youngest son, Ben, was out with friends. So once I gathered myself together, I called him and told him to come home. And when he got there, I had to tell him that his brother had died. It was the worst day.

00:08:40 - Jill
It's so hard for me to imagine what you guys went through that day. My story is so different in that we had time to prepare for what happened with Hannah. And I cannot imagine just waking up. It's a normal day, you're cutting squash, you know, with your family, and then all of a sudden you get a phone call like this. How did you all deal with that suddenness, that shock?

00:09:11 - Rhonda
Well, when you say shock, that's really what happened with my personality. I don't know why, but I hold it together really well at the beginning of any crisis. And so when that happened, we were at the hospital. And friends I have some relatives who are nurses at that hospital, so friends and some family came immediately. As soon as they heard, they took us to the little room to let us know that I knew when they brought the ambulance around and the lights were not on, that he was already gone. They took us to the little room and I had everyone join hands and I prayed and I thanked the Lord for Adam. And I just was leading a prayer service basically for a while. And I know that that is just the shock and adrenaline pumping through my body. I had to go back to my parents house and wait for Neal and Ben to have the three hour trip down to get to me. And really and truly, the shock and adrenaline for me lasted for about the first four months because we were so consumed with wonderful people who filled our home with their presence and food and anything they could think of that would help us in any way. And so we were occupied basically with people who were supporting us. And we rested it into that to the degree that we didn't have to let our own feelings swamp over us constantly.

00:10:44 - Neal
Well, and on the flip side of that, I was in a puddle on the floor, basically just getting out a lot of emotion. I was in shock and I was just living 1 second, 1 minute, 1 hour at a time. My mind was just in a state of free fall. And I remember, which is really strange, one of my first random thoughts was, God, what about my future grandkids? I don't know why I thought that, but we've waited 17 years and now we have a grandchild, so that's a great blessing.

00:11:17 - Rhonda
One of the things that really looking back helped us. Neal and I talked constantly to each other about our feelings and we told other people our feelings and our story. So that helped us get those emotions out. That helped us not stifle or put down the feelings that could disrupt us later on. But our number one priority really was Ben at that time. He was getting ready to start his senior year. He was our number one priority. We wanted him to be okay, so we needed to be okay so that he could be okay.

00:11:54 - Jill
Right. This may be a little bit of a sensitive question. I think I personally would struggle with the sovereignty of God in a situation like this. Of all of the things you think of God being in control of, the weather is right up there. He is the creator. He is in control of all of those things. Is that something that you guys struggle with or had to work through?

00:12:23 - Neal
Everything that happens is sifted through God's hands. He knew that was Adam's day, and he knew about the pain that our family was getting ready to experience. Obviously, he could have stopped the lightning bolt, but that wasn't his plan. And according to statistics I've read, two people on average die from lightning strikes in Arkansas every year, and there was over one in a million chance of that happening. But it did. And we just never know our day. But we all have to be ready.

00:12:56 - Rhonda
I have kind of, over the years, developed a mantra that I use all the time now. Nothing happens to us that God does not allow. Do I think that God put his finger on that lightning bolt and directed it toward Adam? No, I do not believe that. Do I believe that he could have stopped it? Yes, I do believe that. But I also trust God to want the best for us at all times. And even saying that helps you believe it more when you're not feeling it. So nothing happens to us that God did not allow.

00:13:32 - Jill
Yeah. Again, our situation is so different, but our daughter was diagnosed with a cancer that is very rare in somebody who's 17 years old. And for us, that was our lightning bolt. And that, like you said, came through the hand of God for reasons that we don't understand, but that we have to trust that he is sovereign and he knew what he was doing. 

So at the time that this podcast airs, it will have been over 17 years since Adam went to heaven. How would you say that your grief has evolved through the years?

00:14:07 - Rhonda
Well, I will say that it has been an evolution of my mind, emotion, and perspective. The rawness of the early days and months and few years without Adam has been slowly smoothed over, not because of the saying time heals all wounds. In fact, I would support a different version of that. How you use your time may heal your wounds because you have to make a choice to get better. You have to make a choice to dig out and to trust God in all things. And part of that is just being in his word all the time. The closer you are to Him, the more you trust and the stronger your faith grows and the more you cry out to Him. You can either throw the verses at the Lord and say why, or you can stand on the promises of the Lord and trust, even when you may not even feel like it.

00:15:11 - Jill
Yeah. How about for you, Neal?

00:15:14 - Neal
Kind of along the same lines as what Rhonda was talking about, I don't really think that time actually heals, but it does give you time to mature in your faith and better understand how God works in your life. My grief is more forward thinking now instead of looking back on what could have been. I'm definitely a work in progress.

00:15:34 - Jill
Yeah, I think we all are in that regard, for sure. So, Rhonda, you have a blog, and you have written quite a bit for several years now. You don't write very often, but when you do, it is very much worth reading. So I was reading back through your blog the other day, just kind of preparing for this interview, and I happened upon a post that you wrote on August 11, 2018. It was the twelfth anniversary of Adam's homegoing, and in that post you listed a dozen lessons that you had learned in those first twelve years, and you titled your list “A Dozen Doses for Forward Living”. I would love for you to share those with our listeners. They're just so practical.

00:16:19 - Rhonda
All right, well, thank you for even noticing my blog. I'm not real consistent with it. However, I definitely do it on the anniversary of Adam's heaven date. So I would be happy to share the Dozen Doses for Forward Living, in my experience. 

Number one is cry out to God. He can take your heartbreak, he can take your anger and despair, your depression, every other feeling you release as he assures you of his presence. And there were many days that I've just cried out, not really interested in moving forward. Especially at the beginning, I was focused on survival and really just couldn't believe that he actually let that happen to Adam. The physical and emotional release is healthy, and it provides a calm after the storm. I know that you can feel this too, Jill and Neal as well, and most people who our audience would be. After you do have a physical release, you get your cry out. You actually feel better after that kind of a release, because if you don't release it or keep it bottled up or ignore it, those feelings will just burst forth when you least expect it. So I still cry out to God over Adam and many other things. 

The second one is talk to other people. Choose wisely. Those people, though, who will allow you to share without offering packed solutions, who will keep your confidence, and whose only motive is to offer support as you begin to shuffle through your new reality. You do need trustworthy friends for this. I wanted to talk to other bereaved parents who I knew personally. And that's why I think there was such a connection. When we met you and Brad, it was just like we had known each other forever because of that one strong, strong connection. You want to be around people who know what you're talking about. I have also had a trusted friend group that loved me so well. They've listened to me, cried with me, and even laughed with me. But there's also a need sometimes to seek professional counseling to help with coping skills. And there are some excellent Christian counselors who provide that deeper level of support when it's needed. And these first two lessons I really titled are focused on the emotional and physical release, which are both crucial to moving forward, because if you don't let it out, what you keep prisoner will imprison you.

00:18:48 - Jill
That's true.

00:18:49 - Rhonda
The third one is make a conscious decision to move forward. Yes, it's easier to rest right at the bottom of the pit where you were shoved by grief or thrown by grief and loss. But the cost of staying there includes isolation, depression, self absorption, and fear. So we need to choose to move forward. And moving forward doesn't mean we're forgetting anything or anyone. But that forward movement offers hope and peace and the resolution to live well while we're waiting. I have used that term so many times. I so appreciate that you came up with that, your team, whoever came up with that for that ministry. I have used that so many times in so many ways.

Number four is find a focus outside of yourself. If you have a nine to five job, much of your time or focus may be determined for you. However, your mind focus may not keep the same hours. You may be doing a routine job where your mind can wander, and so you need to be conscious of that. There are countless charitable organizations that need volunteers with time, money or efforts. I actually became involved with Habitat for Humanity the year after Adam died, first on the Family Selection Committee where we visit people who were applying for homes, and then later I served on the board. And it was so heartwarming and enriching in my life to volunteer in that capacity and meet people and connect with people who needed a hand up. The time commitment needs to be manageable for whatever you choose to do, and I just am thankful for networking connections with friends who know about different places to volunteer. And your church is always a good place to go if you don't have an organization in mind already. 

Number five is helping others. We know that helping others causes you to focus outside of yourself and may or may not require a lot of time or personal contact. There are lots of ways to help other people. Examples include helping with yard work or cleaning, taking someone a meal, sending a card calling to check in with someone. You can run errands for somebody or pick up or drop them off, serve on committees, just visit with them, even on the phone. But those things, when you're reaching out, really reaches in for you as well. 

Number six is to spend time in God's word daily. I did this from the very beginning, and I will tell you, I was raised in a church. I was brought up in church, so the Bible has always been very important to me, and this specific focus on spending the time has really deepened my faith, too. The Holy Spirit has modified my attitude over the last several years since Adam's been gone. At first, I was very flippant of some of those promised verses, like, I have plans to prosper and not harm you found in Jeremiah, and the one where it says, honor your father and mother and you will have a long life. And at the very beginning, especially the first, probably three years after Adam went to heaven, I was a little bit flippant about those verses. It's like, oh, yeah, right, yeah. Adam was honoring his parents and all those things, and look what happened. But time and my focus in God's Word and spending time with him in prayer has really changed my heart in that direction. I do trust God, and the more consistent you are in reading and studying Scripture, the more the Holy Spirit instruction becomes meaningful in your life. Oh, I did want to say, one of my friends said, you prepare for hard times ahead by walking with Jesus right now. And I will make this comment in between all of this list, that Adam going to heaven is not the only really hard, big, huge thing we have faced in these last 17 years. There's always that next thing. And so the lessons learned because of Adam going have also prepared us to deal with other things as well.

Number seven, be prepared. I'm just leading right into that. Be prepared. You will experience other difficult circumstances, some to this severe degree, because we're not promised a perfect life or even an easy life here on this earth. So if you're still living in your fairy tale world, be informed. Difficulties, tragedies, or grief abound all around us, and everyone will at some point be impacted by these in some way. Though God created a perfect world without sin, man and woman blew it, and we are all now in a broken world, and I say Adam and Eve blew it. I blame Eve for a lot of things as I'm aging as a woman, which I know is not right. Neal laughs at me when I do that. 

Let's see, the next thing is pray. Number eight is pray. I was taught the nighttime and mealtime prayers when I was very young, so you might say I've always been a praying person. But I have learned a lot about levels of prayer. They're general prayers for salvation, for lost souls, for world peace, release from poverty, and then more specific requests for people that we know who are sick or need help. But then there are the deeper, gut wrenching pleas for help, comfort, healing or peace when our world is turned upside down. From praying to take the next step, to giving thanks for peace, I've learned to pray in ways that I really never knew existed. So there is just that next level of prayer that hits home. And that next level of prayer may include no words when you're just laying face down on the floor and you're trusting the Holy Spirit to get your message in heaven language to the Lord on your behalf. But I will say that prayer is based on being in the Word consistently. God wants to use us for his glory, and the more we pray and study Scripture, the more direction we will receive. 

Number nine is give yourself permission to be happy. The first time I laughed after Adam died, I felt guilty. How could I possibly find humor in anything? Again, not only was I judging myself, I also thought others would judge me for my behaviors. But as time passed, I made the conscious decision to move forward and not to dwell in the despair felt at the start. I found my spirits lifting as I focused on others and started volunteering. I know Adam would not want me to feel guilty or suffer in any way. And sharing in the happiness of others may sometimes be a two edged sword when you make comparisons. But that can be a trap that we try not to fall into. 

Number ten is try not to make comparisons. Emotions can run high when comparisons are made between your situation and those of others. Remember, only someone who has been through what you've been through has a perspective similar to your own. So when you get that first wedding invitation to your son's friend's wedding and your son will never get married. When you see the family vacation pictures where no one is missing or you hear about career futures where your son didn't get one, understand that the world keeps turning and no one is deliberately pointing out how you are missing out. In fact, you are being included by people who love your family. Believe it or not, many people compare types of loss, and I've certainly been a part of that. But boy, have I learned my lesson. Please don't tell me that you know how I feel because your 95 year old grandmother died. Let's see, my 19 year old son died and your 95 year old grandmother. Really? Even after all this time, I fight falling into that comparison trap. But the main way I do this is to try to find God's purpose for me, right? 

Number eleven is discover your purpose or purpose. I'm a firm believer that God will reveal his purpose for my life through prayer, scripture, other people and opportunities. And I also think these work together for confirmation. Otherwise I'd be a member of every Bible study, community group and charitable organization in my area and would have no time or stable focus. We can be too busy, we can say yes to too many good things and not just pick the best things that God has for us. In my experience, prayer is the basis for everything else. To work together, we need to pray even before we read our Bible, ask the Spirit to make it meaningful for us and provide direction. Be ready for receiving readiness. I want to be ready to receive each message God has for me. On a humorous note, I recently told a former pastor and friend that when I complete one of the books of the Bible in my quiet time, I pray over a closed Bible for direction to the next book I need to study. And he said, oh, you cut for scripture and started laughing. So I never have thought of it quite like that. But I hold the Bible closed, pray over it and open it up. And if I have not already journaled in that book, that's the book I do next.

00:28:25 - Jill
That's your next book? Yeah. Makes sense.

00:28:29 - Rhonda
And number twelve spending time with friends who move you forward. There are special friends in life who make you a better person through support, encouragement, empathy, motivation and love. And you can count on them for honesty and to provide challenges as friendship deepens and expands. These people have your best interests at heart. So being open to feedback is the key to recognizing yourself in reality, you know, which may or may not be the world everyone else sees. There are certain friends who I trust implicitly to tell me when I need to change my perspective, to tell me how things are being received by others when I don't see it that way. And that is very important for all of us to be able to have trustworthy friends who can be honest with us and we can receive constructive feedback and not be defensive all the time. Realities we create for ourselves sometimes contain limitations that develop into strongholds, preventing us from making progress. But true friends help us lift the veil and see the truth when we pray for clarity. God may be preparing all of us right now to be that special friend for someone else in the future though all of those suggestions were just really dependent on choosing to move forward. That's not easy, but my goodness, I have seen how much worth the effort it is in the last 17 years in my life.

00:30:01 - JIll
Yeah, well, and what I love about that list is how you emphasize moving forward. Very often bereaved parents are kind of told to move on. Don't you think it's time to move on? It's been 17 years. I think you need to move on? Well, we don't believe that we move on after the loss of a child, but we do believe that we can move forward. And that's a very different thing than moving on, moving forward. We carry our grief with us as we move forward. And I think one of the reasons people are hesitant to move forward after the loss of a child is they feel like they're leaving their child behind and we're not at all. As we move forward, we are actually getting closer to our children. And so that's what we try to emphasize at our retreats. And your list there gave us a lot of things, a lot of very practical things we can think about as we are in that process of moving forward, not moving on, but moving forward. So thank you for that.