A conversation with Doug and Kimberly Mogck begins where any conversation about death and loss should start, with talk of life.

“Kellen was such a perfectionist, type-A person,” Kimberly says of her son, who died in 2004 at the age of 18 in a car accident. “He made life a challenge for himself, he was so focused. It was like, ‘How many people can I fit in a day? What all can I do in a day?’ Looking back, we’ve always wondered, did he know his time was limited?”

Doug adds, “His friends shared with us later that when they planned something fun but then said, ‘I can’t, I’ve got to do this or that,’ he would say, ‘We’ve got to do it now; I may not be here very long.’ We never knew he said that to people.”

“His last two weeks, he used up all of our phone minutes for the month of January – remember we had minutes back then – he used all of our family minutes calling people, almost like he was saying goodbye,” Kimberly says.

“I knew his time was limited. The Holy Spirit revealed that to me early that he wasn’t going to have a long life. I didn’t tell very many people that: Doug, my mom and sister, a couple of close friends. Sometimes I’d think I misunderstood, but it never really left me.

“When he got to be college-aged, I thought, ‘Maybe I’m wrong.’ I wasn’t, which is why for me it felt like I always knew he wasn’t mine. He was God’s. But it was hard to let him go.”

Kellen was fearless, a good athlete, and committed to sharing his faith and living life to the fullest. “The kid had planned out his life,” Doug says. “It’s just that God had different plans for him. We had to come to that realization, but at the time, there was no way I was going to accept that. I heard Chris Tomlin’s song, ‘Good, Good Father,” today, and it was a good reminder: ‘He is perfect in all of his ways.’ It took this loss, this tragedy, for God to convince me of that.

“Kellen’s accident was a Thursday night in February. With his brain injury, they had to put him into an induced coma and get the swelling under control within 72 hours. Each day after, the swelling was still there.”

He continues. “I don’t know the exact timeline, but I remember a time between Thursday night and Sunday when he died, Kimberly leaned over him and said, ‘If this is too hard, Kellen, it’s okay. You can go.’ I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t accepting that at all. I’m thinking he’s going to walk out of there. I’ve just got to take control, figure this out, work with the doctors to get done what needed to get done. That’s where my mind was the whole time.

“On Saturday, the doctor told us that brain damage was setting in and that we needed to start making arrangements. This is it. Still, I didn’t want to accept that.”

“He made it to the next morning,” Doug says. “I got up early, went into his room, and told him I loved him. Then I felt this strong urge to just walk, to get away from the situation for a while. So I walked the halls of the hospital and pondered, ‘What’s next? There’s got to be some way.’ I still had hope he was going to walk out of the hospital.”

“As I’m walking the halls, I’m hearing cries for help, but no one is coming. No nurse is coming. Am I hearing things? Is it my imagination? Then I realize something: If God grants me my wish for Kellen to live, it may not be what I’m hoping for. It may be a life of disability. He may not be able to function or might always need help.”

“I just stopped in the middle of the hallway, threw up my arms, and said, ‘Lord, he’s yours. Whatever you want for him.’ This incredible feeling of peace came over me,” Doug says.

“I went back to where our friends and Kellen’s friends were and just felt like I had to tell somebody. So I pulled my friend Olin aside and said, ‘I’ve got to share what just happened.’ I barely got those words out of my mouth when the nurse came and asked the family to come. Kellen had gone into cardiac arrest. The staff tried to resuscitate him for 45 minutes, but he went to be with the Lord. And I thought, ‘He was waiting for me to say it’s okay. At least, God was.’

“Looking back at my Christian walk, it was one of convenience. I felt I could do things my way and hadn’t trusted in God’s way. Not only did he give me peace, that total surrender to trust in his way has impacted me ever since. We have to live our lives every day knowing that he is in control. That was life-changing for me.

“When our two younger children would go out in a car or drive a car, there was this feeling of, ‘Can this happen again? Yes.’ And you have to just say, ‘God...’”

“They’re yours,” Kimberly says quietly.

“They’re yours,” Doug finishes.

“It’s a total surrender of your life to him in a way that I had never realized before that you have to do,” he says.

“That’s not to say that it was easy or that acceptance came right away,” Kimberly says, and Doug agrees. “You still have to deal with anger and the why questions of grief,” Doug adds.

“We never played the blame game,” Kimberly says. “Where does that take you? We could have asked why it wasn’t a better car, or should he have even been driving in those conditions, or why he went into a grove of trees instead of the open meadow. You think about those things, but you can’t stay there.”

“At the time, you think God could have taken control and prevented him from going into the trees,” Doug says. “In our human mind, we know how the accident happened and how it could have happened differently.”

“We don’t blame God,” Kimberly says. “When your time is up, your time is up. You’re called home. But I’ve always wished for a glimmer, an idea of why God took him, this outstanding young man. What are you doing with him up there that you wanted him more than I could? But he wasn’t mine for the long haul.”

Doug says, “There’s one thing that people who haven’t gone through a loss like this think, and it’s that you should be okay in a while, a few months. The journey shouldn’t be this long. Grief is a lifelong journey.”

“People look at us and say, ‘Oh, I would love to have Kimberly and Doug’s life,’” Kimberly says. “We have a good marriage. We have good friends who love us and who we love. God has been good, but there is hard stuff and ugly stuff too.” There are still wounds for them and their family, things they are still waiting for God to redeem and use.

“The grace we live our lives in, people see that,” Doug says. “They comment on it. And my response is always, ‘That all comes from God. If we didn’t have him front and center in our lives, if we didn’t accept who he is and trust our lives to him, we would be totally different people. You wouldn’t see the grace you’re seeing right now.’”