Remembering Jantsen: Ten Years Later
Ten years ago, on June 16, 1999, tragedy struck our family again. My fun-loving, faith-filled nephew, Jantsen, died suddenly at the age of 15. There was no warning. He went to lift weights with the football team, laid down to rest, and his heart failed him.
A while back I asked my brother, Randy Cope, to reflect on these years since the death of his son. I’ve only changed the time references from “seven years ago” to “ten years ago” — though it’s interesting that the whole Ghana story has happened since then, validating again what God has taught them through this suffering.
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Ten years ago today my life changed forever.
Actually I knew that it had changed the moment the doctor came out of the emergency room and told my wife and me that our 15-year-old son had passed from this life from what we later found out was an undetected heart problem.
I had enjoyed my life up to that point – a healthy family, a good job, and a bright future – but as I stood in the hallway of Freeman Hospital there was no doubt that things would never be the same. Before I left my son’s side that day I prepared myself for a life that resembled a scorched forest after a wild fire. The hillsides filled with lush trees and the valleys filled with wildflowers would now be smoldering ashes.
As the fog lifted so did the reality of what had been lost. Each new act brought new pain – the first trip to the store, the first Sunday at church – even the first time I decided to make oatmeal and had to figure out how to make it for one person, since he and I were the only breakfast eaters in the house.
And such was my life – for a season.
Yet one day, months later, I caught myself whistling. There wasn’t much life in the tune, but it surprised me just the same. As I look back on it now I see that moment as a sign of the renewal that was to follow.
From that first sprig of life has grown not a forest, but a park. I say park because my days are not only filled with life, but an increasing measure of purpose and meaning.
Don’t get me wrong; to call my life a park is not to say that there are no weeds. Our enemy is relentless and is not even above using my grief against me to pull me down from time to time.
Yet as I look back over these last few years I see many wonderful lessons:
• God is creative and lavish in the gifts He sends to bring comfort. He brought friends I hadn’t seen in years, books, music, nature, and even complete strangers to bring healing.
• God taught me not to fear life in the valley. The valley of suffering to me was a place to be avoided at all cost. Now I see that it is strangely a place of peace. God dwells with His suffering people in the valley – in green pastures and beside quiet waters. The Bible reads completely different now that I have this perspective of suffering.
• There is nothing more beautiful than a friend that comes running to help, even when the emotional fallout is intense. Friends like Todd, Warren, Tracy, James, and Cary, who all jumped in to save us – and a brother and sister-in-law who came to sit beside us in silence and later whispered lessons they had learned, having started this journey of grief with their own daughter five years earlier.
• With a treasure of mine now in Heaven I see life much different. It is like studying a Magic Eye drawing and suddenly seeing a beautiful scene in what you once thought was simply a meaningless mess of color.
• With Jantsen on the other bank, the water that separates this life from the next is a brook, not a ragging river – one I am anxious to step over once my work here is done.
I see the work of restoration most in the life of my wife. On that day ten years ago I prepared myself to care for her through the years. I knew she would never recover.
Yet she did.
After a season of intense suffering I watched as our Lord lifted her up – not to her old self but He transformed her into a daughter who has a passion for those that suffer. This new perspective on life has led her to start a ministry that dries the tears and brings smiles to the faces of orphaned children in countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Haiti, and Nicaragua. God also brought her – us – healing through our oldest daughter and our two young ones, whom we met when he led us to them half way around the world.
Some days the pain returns – not the intense “I can’t breath” pain that I remember from the early days, but a heaviness that I guess will be with me all the days of this life. Maybe, however, this heaviness is in some ways a blessing. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When a loved one dies, God comforts us enough to sustain us, but God leaves enough of the void and enough of the loneliness to help us to anticipate the reunion.”
And so it is, ten years later.
I can’t leave this reflection without thinking of a song by Stephen Curtis Chapman that helped inspire me to get up off the ground and “dive in” to what Got has in store for me:
The long awaited rains
Have fallen hard upon the thirsty ground
And carved their way to where
The wild and rushing river can be found
And like the rains
I have been carried here to where the river flows.
My heart is racing and my knees are weak
As I walk to the edge
I know there is no turning back
Once my feet have left the ledge
And in the rush I hear a voice
That’s telling me it’s time to take the leap of faith…
So here I go I’m diving in, I’m going deep in over my head, I want to be
Caught in the rush, lost in the flow, in over my head, I want to go
The river’s deep, the river’s wide, the river’s water is alive
So sink or swim, I’m diving in
There is a supernatural power
In this mighty river’s flow
It can bring the dead to life
And it can fill an empty soul
And give a heart the only thing
Worth living and worth dying for.
But we will never know the awesome power
Of the grace of God
Until we let ourselves get swept away
Into this holy flood
So if you’ll take my hand
We’ll close our eyes and count to three
And take the leap of faith
Come on let’s go
…
Lord, I thank you for bringing peace to the valley – and for what awaits us all around the next turn.
Mike, having just read Jantsen’s gift this post is especially meaningful. Especially that last line. What an amazing family you belong to, and even more an amazing God we love and live for.
Thanks, Amy! I just read this note from Pam:
To my friends,
I wanted to write this letter to all our friends and family who loved Jantsen and to the new friends who have read Jantsen’s Gift and have joined the journey with us.
It was 10 years today that I last saw my son. Jantsen Barrett Cope would be 25 years old now but in my head, he will forever be 15 years old. I cannot even think of him possibly married and contemplating a family with his beautiful wife. Time has frozen for Randy and I. We are spending this week – and this day — at the beach in Pensacola, FL, at the condo where we spent every summer with Jantsen and Crista. It is filled with so many great memories. Randy woke up early this morning and went to hit a bucket of balls and I will get on my the bike and take a long bike ride as soon as I finish this letter. We don’t want to be sad but there is, of course, still so much sadness and heaviness that we both are carrying. I find myself not wanting to speak my true emotions, so we will quietly embrace the day and hopefully turn every moment of this glorious day that God has gifted us with into gratitude.
I hope each and everyone of you that read this today will know that every day truly is a GIFT and at the end of the day the only thing that really matters is that you invested your time and love for another human being.
Thanks so much, and love to all,
Pam Cope
I am so honored and thankful to see people who “do not grieve as those without hope”. And knowing folks at the very beginning of this long journey, it’s good to hear from people who have found their whistling tune again. Thank you for sharing this.
Powerful. Thanks for posting.
I vividly remember that day. We were on the high school mission trip in Monterrey, Mexico with Matt and Jenna. David Lang ministered to them as he told them what happened.
Thank you for sharing this. I am working on some grief stuff right now and even though I am not there yet it gives me hope.
Mike, I attended church with you at Hillcrest and graduated the same year from Neosho High. I have followed your family’s great losses over the years and my heart has ached for the loss of your daughter and Randy’s son although I never met them. I never wanted to imagine what it felt like to lose a child, however, just a few short months ago I lost my oldest son suddenly. As I begin this journey, I draw great comfort from the messages of strength and healing you impart in your blog. Thank you for sharing your journey so others can learn along the way.
Jennie – Thanks so much for dropping this note. I’m so very, very sorry. This isn’t the place for much more (I’ll drop an email), but there is, indeed, hope. Time will help. But the journey is arduous. You will not walk alone. Mike
Mike,
I remember when Jantzen died thinking that this was too much…Megan and now Jantzen. Pam’s and Randy’s words of grief and hope give all of us permission to grieve and hope. They make the valley a place of less fear, still not a place I want to go to, but I can face it with less fear.
Thanks for sharing life with us.
I remember when you posted this at the 7 yr. mark, & how even more precious it is at the 10 yr. date. Thank you for this & letting those who don’t FB, see Pam’s note.
Today for some is just another day. But today for me is a day like no other and will always be. I don’t know of another day that changed this life of mine and so many others. It is also a day that ended and it was apparent that all was lost, but God has other plans for those that listen and who are faithful. Yes lives were forever changed but so many like Van and that precious Tatum, Mark, Marcus, Richard, children in China, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Ghana the lives are now countless after that day, especially for this fifty year old man. My life and those of my family have been blessed by knowing Randy and Pam and Mike and Diane. They all have a special place in my heart.
*taking sandals off*
qb
This is powerful. Thanks for posting it, and for reminding all of us that it’s possible to grieve with hope.
Reading your brother’s powerful and affirming words brings back the acute pain of my brother terrible loss – his son at barely 13 years of age.
Randy reminds us that yes, we will remember but that memory comes with God’s gift of purpose. I’m so thankful we can’t forget!
I think after you have been in that valley, life as you knew it changes. When I met Steve, I was still a lot in the valley after losing my husband two years before. I didn’t know how to explain things to him, but I tried. He smiled and said, Terry Edward was my brother in Christ. Someday I will met him and rejoice in telling him how I took care of you, your kids and our grandkids. It will be great. I sighed and said thank you. He took my hand and we prayed. And I really was okay.
As one acquainted with grief (wife, both parents, scores of others…)I can say this is text book grief recovery for a follower of Jesus.
Faith does not remove the pain, it rather sustains us in the midst of it.
I will share this with my Grief Share group.
Royce
I remember very vividly that day ten years ago. At Green Valley Bible Camp during the summer, I received the shocking news. Jantsen and I were never close, but he was an unforgettable part of our youth group at North Street. His contagious smile and laugh have encouraged me throughout the years, even since his passing, and his legacy for me is one of hope, one of being able to embrace each day with joy and excitement. Jantsen saw the best in everyone, saw the best in life, and with the thought of him in mind, I am able to do the same.
My prayers are with you, his family, during what I know is a painful anniversary, but my heart thanks you for having been willing to share him with the rest of us. I know Jantsen would be amazingly excited about what his life has encouraged all of us to do and to be!
Mike:
Thank you so much for sharing this story. I had some dear friends lose their 12 y/o son in Feb of this year to MRSA pneumonia. It happened over the period of about 8 days. It was so painful, still is. I continue to watch and walk with them through this horrible time of pain and recovery. Reading of the things that Pam and Randy went through reminds me of what they are in the middle of right now. All of the firsts with 2 boys instead of three boys.
Thanks for sharing.