The Image of Innocene and the Darkest Night - A Story of How We Prevail

In loving tribute to my brother Dustin Ryan Bartz

April 18, 1989 - Sept 23 2002

On the cross the only sinless man to ever live expresses the dark hour of the soul: “My God, My God! Why Have You Forsaken Me?” Jesus Christ, more connected to God than any of us, felt the isolation, the loneliness, and the grief of separation. The dark hour of the soul seems to be something inevitable, and paradoxically something beautiful.

In life we strive for the feeling of connection with God and His creation around us, for reassurance of his love, for comfort, and gratification for our good deeds. But stories like that of Job or Josiah let us know that life is not always balanced on what we perceive as a fair system of justice; the Bible shows again and again that we should not fairly expect good reward for good deed. Look at Christ – not a blemish and his own people would accept nothing but his execution. Something in the course of life, in what it is to be a Christian seeking God, says that we don’t get to have a rosy walk only through the alluring garden of love and comfort. God put thorns on roses for a reason and that image serves as good symbolism for a Christian life.

My dark night of the soul comes at age 16, probably two months after my brother had past away. Just this Friday, someone who knew my brother described him to me as ‘the image of innocence.’ He was 13 when he past away, about 10 years after the doctors expected him to die. Dustin was born with myotonic dystrophy, a severe muscular disease that in essence spreads muscle cells too thin to function on a full level. He also had a birth complication – he was born with water on the brain, an undeveloped language area. My brother never spoke nor walked, but he could grunt in 100 different tones, use basic sign language, and had a laugh that spoke the universal language. My brother would lay on the floor with his Mickey Mouse puppet, toss the puppet aside, stare up towards the ceiling, and laugh as if watching some great show the rest of us could not see. I was told by multiple people that he laughed at the sky because he saw the angels dance.

My brother was born when I was 3 years old. Before I even met him, I was told my brother would likely pass away before I did. My family always treated my brother’s life as a gift, as a rare blessing given to us to help reveal what life is really about and share his laughter with a world that needed touched by his simple joys. He is still to this day the best person I have ever been graced to know. Constantly he outpaced doctor’s expectations. He might have lived in the hospital the first three years of his life, but that boy lived. The doctors said he wouldn’t survive, wouldn’t live past three, then seven, then twelve. The heart is the biggest muscle in the body, and at age thirteen my brother’s heart stretched too thin.

I remember the morning I walked up stairs, saw him lying down sleeping, pausing at the door waiting for his breath. He took a deep breath and I walked out the door, never to see him breathe again. I never said goodbye, didn’t hug him that day, and didn’t get to tell him I loved him. During a chemistry test later that day I was called into the office. I took two steps out of my classroom and I either heard in my head or thought to myself (however these things happen) “your brother is dead.” I stopped in my tracks, shook my head no, said he had to be fine, took a drink from the fountain, and finished the trip to the office. My parents were both there, and my mother had been crying. My mother was the one to tell me, “Darcy, your brother is dead.” I stood stone faced and all I could say was “I know.” I didn’t cry for another 10 minutes, but tears weren’t rare after that. My brother had a cold as he had 100 times before; that was it. The simple fact was his heart couldn’t support his maturing body anymore. He was probably 5’6, 130 (and remember he couldn’t walk, so we carried and lifted).

The days after my brother’s death were when I came to realize how much love and support existed for my family. We had a kitchen full of casseroles, friends sending baskets of cards, and family constantly at our side. Those days are why I will give my best to Salina for as long as I can, because they gave their best to my family. God’s body wrapped their loving arms around us and carried us through.

It was the months after that were tough. I kept going to school, to practice, tried to go on with my life. But my world had changed, I was different; I had seen the innocence of the human soul through my brother and the goodness of God’s people through the community. I wanted to be something more for God, for myself… and you know what? I was stuck in high school where people get stoned, drunk, get into fist fights, drop out to work at McDonalds, have babies at 15, lie, cheat, and curse their creator. I saw people that didn’t have a blessing like my brother, saw how lost our society can be, watched as wandering souls hurt each other. And I began to struggle with my faith.

The night I struggled most with the darkness I cried until my body shook, felt weak with the sorrow, and let myself turn to rage. I first punched a pillow, then threw it, but the pillow’s softness wasn’t enough. I had kept one of my brother’s toys, a system of hoops and turns with different shaped beads, and threw it with all my strength against a concrete wall. When I saw it break I told God just how angry I was, how unfair it was to show me beauty and innocence then make me go on in a world without my brother, in a world of dirt, filth, treachery, and pain. I told God He was failing His creation because when people can be so beautiful we instead choose to be so plain, and ugly. I held it against God that he would give me sight of goodness, and yet make me wallow in muck. I cried myself to sleep that night, a sleep of darkness without any dreams, and woke only to sleep walk through the next few days letting life go by in drifting haze.

I can’t tell you what changed my mind, only that good habits saved me. I still went to church, because it was what I had the habit of doing; went to youth group, not because I felt called to God, but because it was what I had been doing. And God worked through them. When I was too angry to let God talk to me, he talked through people subtly and found a way back in. And today I wouldn’t consider myself a pessimist, but I would tell you that humanity is fallen, and that society is not as God intended, but what changed is that I wouldn’t want to run away from it. I came out of my dark night because people supported me, and that’s what I want to do with my light that I have now – use it through relationships to support people for God, and not when it’s easy, but especially when they are too angry to hear him. We can’t see God’s goodness everywhere we look, but we know it’s there, and we seek to let it grown. We all know life can be tough, and that’s exactly why we need each other, need good habits, because when we do come across the dark night of the soul it isn’t ourselves that pull us out, but God’s creations around us that bring us back to ourselves, our purpose, and our God.

The toy I broke that night still sits on a dresser downstairs, a bit caved it from its broken piece. It was my brother’s favorite, representing his joy, my pain, my anger, and my growth. On my sentimental days I go and push the beads, spin them up the incline and thank God for the gift my brother was, for how beautiful he was to have in my life, and for having the love and wisdom to pull me from my rage against Him and bring me out a better person. That time in my life was my trail by fire, an unpleasant time that I would never want to go through again, but would never want to miss. God had a plan even in the pain, teaching me about myself and His way to make me who I need to be for him. Life isn’t a fairy tale, and God isn’t a teddy bear, and the universe is better because of that. Christ’s willingness to suffer to the point of feeling forsaken is what saves humanity. His perseverance through the darkest night any of God’s creation has ever faced is why we can receive God’s grace. Our willingness to not have an easy charmed life of pleasure is why we choose to be Christians, and our perseverance through the dark nights is why we can spread God’s light.