How many reading this enjoy roller coasters? Or scary movies? Or action films?
My guess is that most like one or the other or all three.
Why? Because it’s fun to dip our emotional toe into deep water when we know we can take it out at any moment.
We experience a sort of “high” when the “fight or flight” adrenaline pumps through our veins but our minds know full well that we are in no real danger.
What’s much more difficult is to commit to experience in real time with real people the real emotional roller coaster of hard situations and unending sorrow or pain.
Then people tend to withdraw because they are too scared to stay.
I am so sorry that broken hearts are wounded further when friends or family just can’t bear the pain of watching us hurt and run away instead of walking with us.
They are afraid. I used to be afraid too. But I’m not afraid now.
My new bravery was purchased at great cost. And I don’t want to waste it.
This Valley is teaching my heart to reach out further, quicker, more often and to stick around longer than I was willing to before.
I want to stand with and speak courage to wounded hearts.
I want to help healed hearts that choose to be brave and commit to walk with those in pain.
And I am learning to extend grace to the hearts who choose to run away.
Fear is powerful and I can’t blame them.
But for those who remain, I am so, so grateful.
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thelifeididntchoose 
Thank you for your selfless act of sharing your honest thoughts and encouragement to all of us who have undergone the loss of our children. I have been given a heart of compassion for mothers and have looked for opportunities to be there for tem. Your blog is a blessing to me.
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Louree, Thank you for speaking courage to my heart. I am so very sorry you share this pain of child loss. May the Lord give you strength for each new day and may He bless your heart for others. ❤
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I was a roller coaster lover, lover of scary (not gory) movies, and binge watcher of action films (or “Little House On The Prairie!”) on weekends with the kids. I loved all those things. The kids loved all those things. We had a blast together enjoying them together. Laughing, joking, making fun, energized, the thrills (or a great story with Little House).
Then it hit us. My youngest, their “baby sister” was diagnosed with cancer. She was 14. An extremely rare aggressive cancer that there was no known protocol to treat it, only 20 known cases in last 20 years.
I, we, were launched onto the biggest, fastest, most terrifying roller coaster ride/horror movie/action film of all time for the next 6 months, with unending sorrow and pain, now to continue forevermore.
Barely any sleep with adrenaline pumping through my veins 24/7. Very hard, very scary and impossible decisions to make, consent forms to sign (or not), a new language to learn (crash courses in medical terminology and pharmacology and psychiatry, anatomy and physiology, and learning how to give injections so I could take my girl home between chemo trx.).
Being asked repeatedly to “Please hold (daughter’s name) down so we can access her port” was one of the hardest most sickening part of the whole ordeal. My heart was broken and in such turmoil what to do.
I was her mama, her protector, asked to betray that unspoken oath to one I loved most in this world.
My kids, all of them, were my world. When they are hurt I hurt for them a hundred times more. And I would go to the ends of the earth to help one survive.
“Mama, I just want to go home” is in my mind forever. It has been five years since she graduated to Heaven. I now hate roller coasters, scary movies and action films. My 24/7 adrenaline rush is still declining and anxiety is always there and easily heightened. There is not one thing in me or my life that has not been drastically altered, rewired, reprogrammed.
I and my kids always looked for opportunities to volunteer or to help others and were very trusting and open people. I still yearn to help people but am now very cautious and not so trusting.
My Lord has been my refuge, my savior, my best friend through this.
Everyone else scattered after the funeral.
Thank you Melanie for being here, for sharing your heart, for giving us a healing place, and a place to share too. xo
DD.
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Thank you for being here for me. Your words are healing to me. Hugs.
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