Along Philomath Boulevard is a store I pass by regularly but can’t bring myself to enter. The sight of it reminds me of the last time my son Jonathan and I were there. He’d asked to go. It was a nice outing for the two of us, but I can’t take him there now.
Jonathan died in September of 2020. He was only 14.
To me, this store I drive past feels haunted, not with anything sinister, but with sorrow and grief. Still, it scares me in a way. My chest aches at the thought of it. I don’t know whether I’ll ever walk through its doors again.
I don’t know why this place in particular traumatizes me so much. It’s not the only nearby location Jonathan and I spent time together. Perhaps I feel this way about this place because I didn’t visit often and haven’t had a need to return. Perhaps I’m haunted because the store reminds me of Jonathan’s creativity and ingenuity. He loved to imagine, re-envision and build.
And yet I’m surrounded by his creations — wooden swords he made hanging above my office door, his Lego creations on my office shelves. These I can look at, reflect on, and smile. Grief is such a strange thing.
For our family, Philomath is a place of both trauma and joy. Happy memories and painful ones. This town is our home, and we feel at home here. Rooted. Committed. But I also feel homesick here — not for some place I’ve lived before, but for a Philomath where Jonathan is still with us, where his two younger siblings still have their older brother, where our dog Willow still has his boy, and where my wife Genece and I still experience all the stress of raising a teenager learning to drive and become an adult.
Sometimes people need to leave the place where their lives fell apart. Sometimes the trauma is too much and it’s unhealthy to stay. If our living children had witnessed their older brother deathly hurt, I think we would have had to move. As it was, we considered the idea of leaving, aware that staying would be painful. But we chose to stay.
Why? In part because Jonathan is here, resting at the south end of Mount Union Cemetery under an evergreen tree he would have loved. Leaving the area would mean leaving him, and that would bring its own pain. Our daughter Vivian, who died a newborn in 2009, is buried in Frisco, Texas, and that distance feels like another loss.
We also stay because we’ve made Philomath our home. Reminders of Jonathan abound, some tinged with sadness, others overflowing with it, but they’re reminders we’ve chosen to create or embrace. We think of him when we’re attending school plays and musical performances, when we see the teachers, school staff and friends who knew him, when we’re splashing in Marys River or taking Willow on a walk around Bald Hill.
Driving to the medical building in Corvallis is always hard — I’ll never forget following the ambulance to the hospital, a neighbor driving us as we held on to what little hope there was. There are good people here, supporting us, lifting us up, keeping us going.
It hurts to live in Philomath, but it’s the pain of living, grieving and healing that would follow us anywhere. It’s not unbearable. In a way, this town feels like the memory garden Genece constructed in our backyard — a place of life and growth and warmth. It’s like the pictures of Jonathan that adorn every room in our house — an evocation of a once-growing boy in a still-growing town. It’s like the bin filled with his Lego blocks — a space still holding exciting possibilities. I never tire of driving back into town, seeing Marys Peak on the horizon, often cuddled by clouds. I know I’m home.
I won’t say life here is never challenging. Bouts of depression hit me unexpectedly — and not so unexpectedly. Some days I feel full of purpose and energy, others aimless and unable to function. I can’t always predict when attending events in town or simply taking a walk or bike ride will bring me peace or heartache. Sometimes the two are mixed.
At a recent Music in the Park, members of the high school band played “Mr. Blue Sky,” a song Jonathan adored when he was much younger. Genece and I looked at each other knowingly, took the other’s hand and squeezed, both of us wondering whether Jonathan would have been among the performers were he still with us.
I can’t say for certain exactly what the future holds, but some time ago we purchased two burial plots next to Jonathan for Genece and me when our time comes. Whatever else happens, Philomath will be our home, in death as in life. It’s a good place to be.
(Kyle Cupp is an author and content strategist based in Philomath. He’s written for national publications on the topics of grief, the employee experience and leadership.)
Memory Eternal +