Obviously, I'm not dead. Not yet, anyway. I'm not talking about an actual physical death in this piece. I'm talking about something worse.

I just finished reading "Fathered By God". Simply put, it’s an amazing book that his driven me to tears, and not the “I’ve got something in my eye” tears. No, I’ve had to put this book down, put my head in my hands and weep. Big. Fat. Tears.

But, wow…have I ever needed to read this book.

Essentially, the book describes a man’s journey in his life and all the different stages we encounter. Eldridge calls these stages: Boyhood, Cowboy, Warrior, Lover, King, and Sage. None of us pass through these stages perfectly and cleanly. No, a “king” can still show signs of “boyhood”. But, we should eventually pass through the stages and move into the next one fairly cleanly.

Anyway, two things: 1. If you’re a man, READ THIS BOOK and 2. If you’re a woman, make sure the men in your life read this book.

Yes, it’s that important.

The book calls us men, “Unfinished Men”. No man wants to look at himself as incomplete, weak, or needing someone or something. I’ve heard it said that a man’s biggest fear is inadequacy. That may or may not be true. But, no matter how we slice it, incomplete, weak and in need we are. There’s no doubt about that. Why? Well, there are probably lots of reasons for that and many of them are visited in the book.

What this book has did for me is force me to face some pain that I’ve long avoided. The pain is no one’s fault, though there are some in my life who feel that they are the source of my pain. No, that’s not it. I have two wonderful parents. I never doubted that I was loved by either of them. I still don’t.

I also had great role models growing up. My grandfather, my coaches and fathers of my friends who stood in the gap for me and showed me what it meant to be a man. My dad is a man’s man too. He can fix cars, create things with his hands, and is the hardest worker I’ve ever known.

And yet, I’m still unfinished. Why is that? It’s because I’ve never really accepted that I am “the son of a kind, strong, and engaged Father, a Father wise enough to guide me in the Way, generous enough to provide for my journey.” I've viewed God as...well...God. I've never REALLY viewed him like a son views a father.

Okay, Greg, that's cool and all, but the title of this blog talked about you dying. Let's get to that.

Right...the day I died. I've written before about my brother's death on January 17, 1976. I remember details of that whole experience. I heard the anguished cries of a mom who just lost her child. That's terrible enough, but it was my mom's screams I heard. Screams I can still hear. I can still see my dad's tears...the first time I ever saw him cry...when he told me that my brother was "an angel now". You see, my brother Mark wasn't the only one who died that day. All three of us died in different ways. My parents joined a club that NO ONE wants to join.

And so did I.

We didn't choose that. No one would ever choose that. But, there we stood. Our lives forever changed. I can't begin to feel what my parents felt that day. But, it's only in the last week that I've fully understood what that day did to me. Simply put, my boyhood died that day. I lost both of my parents that day. Certainly I didn't lose them physically. But that parents that I had the night before that happened never came back to me. Now look, I'm not saying that I had a perfect boyhood before Mark died. I didn't. Mark was handicapped and was a handful. My parents really struggled to keep up with him. But still...

The book talks about there being six stages in a man's life. These are: 1. Boyhood, 2. Cowboy, 3. Warrior, 4. Lover, 5. King and 6. Sage. The author, John Eldredge, says that "each stage has its lessons to be learned, and each stage can be wounded, cut short, leaving the growing man with an undeveloped soul."

When Mark died, my boyhood died. Nothing was the same after that day. NOTHING. A short time after Mark's death, my parents divorced and I eventually had to move away from all my neighborhood friends. For the biggest part of my life, I blamed the divorce of my parents as the source of my pain. But, in a strange revelation, I now realize that that wasn't it at all. That was collateral damage from Mark's passing. I can't say that my parents would have, or even should have, stayed together had Mark not died. There's no way to know that and it doesn't really matter. I'm also not selfishly focusing on my pain here. All I'm trying to do is share my journey with you and maybe...just maybe...my journey help someone else in some way.

Eldredge describes the boyhood phase as "the time of being the beloved son, the apple of your father's eye. A time of affirmation."

Now let me stop here and say that I have no doubt in my mind that my father loves me. No doubt. He and I have a good relationship and there's no man I respect more on this earth. But can I say that I knew I was the "beloved son" and the "apple of my father's eye"? No. I can't. Now, that's not because I'm not the beloved son or the apple of his eye. I think that if you were to ask him if I am those things, he'd say "yes" in a heartbeat. And I believe him. That's not the point here though. The point, and the question, is, "Did the boyhood Greg know?"

No. He didn't. But that's not anyone's fault. As I said, part of my dad died when Mark died and the person who emerged from that tragedy was a different man. Understandably so too. I can't imagine a worse pain than the death of a child. So, make sure you understand, I'm not blaming anyone here.

But I didn't have that affirmation of which Eldredge speaks. Here's more: "Without that affirmation, this core of assurance, a man will move steadily through the rest of his life, trying to prove his worth and earn belovedness through performance or achievement, through sex, or in a thousand other ways. Quite often he doesn't know this is his search. He simply finds himself uncertain in some core place inside, ruled by fears and the opinion of others, yearning for someone to notice him. He longs for comfort and it makes him uneasy because at thirty-seven or fifty-one shouldn't he be beyond that now? A young place in his heart is yearning for something he never received."

And that, in one paragraph, is my whole adult life.

When Mark died, my world was no longer a safe place. In many ways, I was on my own...and I wasn't ready for that at all. My boyhood stage had been stolen from me. Additionally, even though my father was still physically alive, he was also shattered. He had lost his youngest son and then he lost his wife, oldest son and home through divorce. I was nine years old. I needed to be taught things...taken on adventures...shown how to be a man...but I didn't get that. I didn't get that because my dad COULDN'T do that. He was just trying to survive.

The interesting thing about Eldredge's stages is that once one ends, you don't go automatically into the next one. So, even though I was still in my boyhood stage, I think I went straight to the "warrior" stage...and I was way too young for that. I had had my whole world turned upside down and I was trying to figure out how to survive too...just like my dad. I didn't know that I was, but now that I look back on it, it's so evident. I needed to just be boy and then transition into the cowboy stage. But I didn't. Things became a battle. Everything was a battle. Anger set in. I became confrontational. Anyone who knows me will agree that I'm confrontational and can be controversial. I've never had a problem speaking my mind...even when that was the 100% wrong thing to do. In fact, I think I'm still too much "warrior". I've always explained it away that I just have a bad temper, but I now think it's more than just that.

This is a good time to add this: just because a boy's father is physically present in the home doesn't mean that the boy isn't suffering from "fatherlessness". Eldredge addresses this when he writes, "His father might be physically present, but unavailable in every way, hiding behind a newspaper or spending hours on the computer while the young man waits for the father who never comes. Much of the anger we see in young men comes from this experience, because they are ready and fired up but have no outlet, no place to go. So it comes out in anger."

Let me say here that I'd much rather have had my dad unavailable because of our circumstances than to have my dad in my house but just too preoccupied with his life to care about teaching me how to be a man. My dad never just intentionally didn't choose me. I've been an angry guy most of my life, but I'll bet I'd have been even angrier had my dad just not chose me.

My "cowboy" stage was virtually non-existent. I didn't really have anyone to take me on adventures (as Eldredge describes). I spent a lot of my pre-teen and teenage years in my room alone...listening to music. I have no doubt that's why I love music and the stories behind the lyrics. Perhaps that's why I'm doing things now that are so out of my comfort zone. Stuff like taking classes at 9Round, using a personal trainer, joining a crowded gym...all that stuff is way outside my comfort zone, but certainly qualifies as "adventures" in a way. For too long, I found my adventures in unhealthy ways. I tried to prove myself worthy. I wanted to make sure people knew that I was smart and that I had what it takes. A respected mentor once asked me, "Why do you always feel the need to prove yourself?" It's only recently that I could begin to answer that question. The answer is, "Because I never thought I was worthy, so why would anyone else?" As it turns out, I wasn't trying to prove it to anyone but me.

So, here I am, 48 years old...a father of two...and I've just learned something about myself that I never knew. I misunderstood so much about my childhood. I will say that reading this book has been emotionally taxing, but freeing. I feel less anger. I'm starting to see things differently. I'm learning to be comfortable in my own skin. I don't feel like I have to prove anything to anyone anymore. I still have things I need to prove to myself though. I'm working on those things.

So, even though January 17, 1976 was the day I died, I'm choosing to live with a new perspective on that day from this point forward.