Stress is a fickle glue. Our concern over Zach should have cemented us to each other. Instead, we drew our agony around ourselves like a force field. Inadequate protection at best. Distance-maker at worst. It was as if letting ourselves be vulnerable with each other would have made us brittle. We couldn't afford to crumble.

We functioned. We remained committed to each other. But how was it that we felt so disconnected when permanently connected by a shared tragedy?

We allowed each other the gift of separate approaches to the same crisis.

Ambiguous disappointment often accompanies ambiguous loss. For so long we disappointed each other--drawing close when the other needed space, keeping our distance when the other needed closeness, misreading each other's cues about whether an incident was comedic or catastrophic in the other's opinion, misjudging which of our children needed us most at any given moment.

Until that moment, I had assumed my job--my role in the crisis--was to absorb the grief, anger, and pain building up and spilling out around Tammy and our kids. Absorb their grief so they wouldn't feel the full brunt. My job. But that night, I expressed my sorrow rather than trying to deflect or divert the hard hit Tammy had also taken. Judging from her response, it appeared more meaningful to her than the strength I'd been trying to portray.

I felt like I was in the middle of a slow-motion shipwreck. The ship was sinking, and no one could change that. I could barely tread water in the swirling, debris-ridden sea of emotions--fighting to keep my nose above the waves, struggling for each breath.

How does a person manage a loss that isn't?

In a time of grief, it's the symbols that cut the deepest--the single red shoe in a pile of dusty gray war rubble, the grease-stained recipe card in Grandma's handwriting, the flag-draped casket saluted at the airport, the first wildflower that pushes its way through the ashes of last year's forest fire, the guitar whose voice would never be heard.

That's the Zach I wanted back. The son I knew and loved. But it seemed almost greedy to long for that. He was alive. Shouldn't I be grateful? How dare I say it wasn't enough?