09/04/2026
My son died and then comes nightmares
This is my first holiday without my son.
I'm out here on Caden's pathway — the last little project he ever built for me, this quiet stretch of concrete where I feel closest to him. Caden was killed in a small plane crash on August 1st. People who've lost someone always say the firsts are the hardest, and now I know why.
Something caught me completely off guard this weekend: the nightmares. I don't usually have them. Two nights ago I dreamed Caden was alive — vivid, real — and inside the dream I felt this flood of relief: "Oh thank God, it was just a horrible dream, he's fine." Then I woke up. And it's not fine. That felt cruel in a way I wasn't prepared for.
I'm fighting hard to stay out of the feel-sorry-for-myself ditch. The grief is valid — but I refuse to curl into a ball and die of a broken heart. So you put one foot in front of the other, and you breathe.
As a doctor, I'm watching my own body the way I watch my patients'. When you stop eating, stop sleeping, stop drinking water, your system goes into crisis and fires all its emergency hormones — and for a moment it makes you feel better. Grief does the exact same thing. But it's a short-term high with a brutal price tag: you feel awful later. So I'm taking care of myself on purpose, and deliberately wrapping positive memories around my son instead of only sorrow.
Here's the reframe that's holding me up: Caden isn't a "was." He IS. He is my son. He is busy — and if you knew Caden, you know he was always busy, endlessly social, quietly checking in on people, a whole little life of connections I'm still discovering. I believe he's exactly like that now: with my dad and our ancestors, up to his projects, in a place that every account I've read describes as light, warm, and good. And the longest I will ever be apart from him was the day of the accident. Every day since, I'm 35 days closer to seeing him again.
When the wave hits — and it hits like a freight train, like being squeezed in a vise — I've stopped trying to think or read or logic my way out. I just let it be there: "I'm feeling this, and it's okay." Then it passes.
This weekend I'm also choosing to be present — with my wife, my sons, my new daughter-in-law. And I'm learning something hard for a guy wired to give, give, give: how to receive. How to let people love me and help me through this. That's a rewire.
Two last things, because so many of you ask how to help. Don't ignore it. The words that land are simple: "I love you, I'm here — would you tell me a memory?" A patient did exactly that this week, right in the middle of her workup, and it was the sweetest gift. That's what I'll do for others now. And gently — the "God takes the best," "he's in a better place," "it's all part of the plan" lines still sting. I know they come from love. They just don't land the way people hope.
Caden graduated. He's still here. He's just different. I love you, love you, love you, son. And I hope this helps someone else walking their own first holiday without the one they love. 🕊️
