KAMIKAZE KYLE

“Death and life are permeable states because

the ‘Risen Christ’ represents to us everyone who has ever died.”

I Cor 15 (version unknown)

Life is a mystery. Death, also.

Of one thing I am certain, Heaven would never be selfish and keep our loved ones locked away from us. Jesus’ Paschal mystery (the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ—the work that God the Father sent His Son to accomplish on earth) is about much more than the miracle of a physical body resuscitated beyond the grave. For every human, there is a path of ‘dying to the Self’. In Christian theology it is called kenosis (a Greek word meaning the act of emptying), and relates to our fears, and to the identification with a limited, disconnected ego. The word kenosis is used in Philippians 2:7, and says that Jesus made himself nothing. The verse translates to becoming entirely receptive to God’s divine will. 

I imagine, on resurrection day, Jesus burst through each realm—from earth to hell, to heaven, and back to earth—to reveal to us what is possible.

My husband, Bob, and I have a GodSon, Kyle. Kyle passed in March 2019 after a courageous seven-year battle with a brain tumor.

Kyle, like all of us, is a child of God. God’s son. In those final months as he endured suffering, those two words, usually with different meanings, began to merge, becoming one and the same in my breaking heart: Godson and God’s son became GodSon. 

When his body died, we experienced deep grief. In a time when we needed support from others, it seemed difficult for others to understand the effect of Kyle’s passing on us—we were close. This was not the passing of an extended friend. There was a stinging pain to this; even our church family didn’t seem to comprehend the relationship. It was painstaking to repeatedly explain that our grief was intense and prolonged because of this special assignment—that we needed prayers and care too. Over time, I have been able to show our community what it means to Bob and me to have a spiritual son. Once we see ourselves being God’s child, we extend this to others much more readily. 

Kyle loved to express himself with tattoos and, about a month before he left his body, I was visiting and he wanted to tell me about his next tattoo (his tenth, I believe.) On that visit, Kyle found it difficult to speak and became increasingly frustrated. Mark, Kyle’s dad, told Kyle not to worry, and he pulled out his phone and brought up a picture of a skull with goggles and a helmet. It was a morbid image. For a moment, I was lost for words. Then I noticed the skull had a yellow scarf and so I said how much I loved the sunny color he’d chosen. But in my head, I was thinking: Kyle, WTF?

The next day, as I prayed for him, it hit me. That was no ordinary skull, that was a kamikaze pilot. I googled the image. Sure enough, plain as day, there he was. I’d missed it because I had been taken aback with the death imagery. I texted him excitedly: Kyle, you couldn’t have known this, but that is the name of my book. You are getting a kamikaze pilot tattoo. 

(Note: even before I knew what this book was about, God had given me the unique name for it.) 

Kyle couldn’t use his hands that well, he was limited to texting with emojis. He shot back a thumbs up. I typed back: We have such a special connection, you and I… I later wished I’d added: a soul connection…

And then he sent me a red heart. 

Moments ago, I stopped typing this draft and went to my phone with the thought that the old text thread would be there so I could quote verbatim. But I found an empty thread. I burst into tears. Gone. Whyyyy? I wailed.

The day after the red heart text, I prayed for Kyle, again, and texted him: Buddy, you know you are not this body with an expiration date, a brain riddled with tumors. You are not a mouth that can’t form words or hands that can no longer type. You are a soul filled with love, a Spirit which soars with God throughout eternity. I know he sent me lots of red hearts that day. My heart burst; we understood one another at a level beyond language. 

Kyle’s soul knew he’d put on his goggles and helmet to protect him as he traveled through the realms. No need to make that stop in hell since Jesus took care of that for all of us. Kyle was fiercely declaring: death has no hold on me. Death is not the end. What appears dead is only dormant. 

Search for love beyond your fear and your limited mind. Enter your heart to discover a realm of heaven. Go searching, come looking, like Mary Magdalene did at Jesus’s tomb. Look for evidence of Heaven in your life. Discover Him in your inner world. 

Wherever there is beauty, there am I. Laughter, that’s me. The break of dawn, me. A peaceful time chilling with friends, I’m right here. Tears? I am with you in your pain.

Know that this is Him, this is you, and this Him is in you. 

These hearts of ours, these walkie talkie hearts that work as spiritual receptors, can receive the love of heaven and get you to feel it, all from the realm that Kyle now occupies. Heaven is within us. Heaven is now. It’s a newly opened space from where grief dug its grave in us. 

We may have had a fixed idea about our physical reality. We may be stuck in our Western brain. But we can change. We can and must lift ourselves out of our despair and continue our searching in the East. 

Bob and I do it for Kyle. Who are you doing it for? Who will you do it for?

Out in nature, we’ll find our nervous systems regulating, and we’ll relax and get present. We’ll invite the Spirit in and tell Her to have Her way with us. Enchant me! We consent to your action. We want to know about God’s son. We shout into the void of the night sky: “What have you done with him?” 

This speaks to Christianity rooted in wisdom and mystery, recognizing us as incomplete until love opens the door to connection to the Holy Spirit. Our Eastern practices bridge the way to what was always intended but somehow derailed. I recall many occasions where the Spirit required obedience; the ‘go’ to receive or serve in ways that I didn’t often understand at the time. We follow the One who makes us “go”. He is the Life.