I’ve had a lot of people “hold the door” for me on this journey of child loss.
Most of them have not walked in my shoes but they could see my soul was worn and I needed encouragement.
For that I will be eternally grateful.
Read the rest here: Empathy: Let Me Hold The Door For You
Died.
It is a harsh word.
I understand completely that some parents don’t want to use it to describe their child and I respect that.
I have chosen to use it often (not always-sometimes I say “left” or “ran ahead to heaven”) because what happened IS harsh. I don’t want to soften it because there was nothing soft about it for me or my family.
Read the rest here: Why I Say, “My Son Died.”
I think Dominic’s death has made me brave in this one tiny place: I say things I might not have said before. I risk pain in relationships where I might not have been willing to risk before. I assume that if I don’t speak important truths RIGHT NOW I might not get another chance.
I long to be a burden bearer for my friends and family because I know what it is to bear a burden.
So I ask and don’t assume.
If someone wants to be left alone, then they are free to tell me.
But I will not stay silent or keep away simply for my own comfort.
Read the rest here: Ask Me, Please.
What’s changed and what is still the same seven years down the road of child loss?
I’ve thought about this a lot in the past few months as I prepared for, greeted and marked another year of unwelcome milestones since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
Read the rest here: What’s Changed, What’s The Same Seven Years Down The Road Of Child Loss?
Like it or not the stereotype often rings true: women emote and men clam up.
I see it play out every day in the online support groups to which I belong. If you check the member list there are quite a number of dads in the mix but it’s exceedingly rare that one of them posts or comments.
I get it. I’m a wife and mother to three boys (now men). All of them are better at compartmentalizing difficult situations and pushing down emotions than I am.
When I have something heavy on my heart it almost always spills out and splashes across everything else.
They, on the other hand, will sit on sadness or anxiety or the never-ending missing that makes up child loss/sibling loss until it finally becomes more than even their iron-clad emotional chests can hold.
Even then they often weep in private, mourn in secret.
That’s unfortunate because it means they are frequently forgotten in society’s rush to comfort parents whose children make it first to Heaven.
Much is made over bereaved moms and Mother’s Day. There is even an International Bereaved Mother’s Day on the Sunday before Mother’s Day (U.S.). I (and others) take that opportunity to have a separate day to think about, mourn and celebrate the life of my child gone too soon.
But dads kind of get short shrift.
While there IS an International Bereaved Father’s Day ( August 28, 2022), it’s nowhere near as well-recognized as the one for moms.
I’ve written often about how important friends are to our grief journey. They can encourage, provide practical help and simply by their presence remind a heart that darkness and despair is not all there is.
Men need friends who will step up and step in. They need masculine examples of sharing and caring.
They need grace and space to unlock the chest of emotions that they sometimes keep tucked away and hidden from their family because they think it’s their job to “be strong”.
So if you know a dad whose child has left for Heaven, reach out in the next couple of weeks before Father’s Day.
Take him fishing. Go for a ride. Tackle a project together.
Be a safe place for them to let their guard down, to open up, to release pent up emotions and (possibly) frustration.
Dads grieve too.
Don’t forget them.
If you’ve never been caught short in the midst of an unexpected downpour you might not know how important refuge under the boughs of a cedar or oak tree can be.
Living in the middle of woods, punctuated by open pastures, I’ve retreated more than once to the safety of thick boughs which limit the rain’s ability to soak me through.
I have memorized every safe haven between the road and the middle of my 34 acres.
Faithful friends are like those sheltering trees-offering respite to a weary heart, providing a safe space to take a breath, granting protection when we are pursued by the enemy of our souls.
When Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I was a mess.
Most folks that brushed shoulders with me in public might not have guessed but those who knew me well saw me devolve from “got it together” to “don’t even know what I should be getting together”.
I was utterly devastated.
Some people were repulsed. They either couldn’t handle my ongoing neediness (a week or a month on the prayer list ought to be enough according to them) or they simply found my presence too uncomfortable a reminder that bad things happen regardless of how “good” you are.
But there were a few…a precious, precious few who refused to go away. They showed up and stayed.
It didn’t matter if they had any remarkable insight or help or “solutions” to my heartache.
What mattered is that they bent over my broken heart and provided shelter.
We all need sheltering trees in the storms of life.
And I am beyond thankful for every single person who is brave enough to bear the brunt of evil winds to provide that shelter.
❤
I remember the early days after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven when people were still checking in often on our family.
Some days there were a dozen or more messages that really, really needed an answer.
But I just couldn’t.
“How are you?” is often a more difficult question than you might think when your world is falling apart.
I wanted to tell the truth about how hard the days were and harder still the long dark nights but it felt too personal, too frightening and too likely to be misunderstood by a heart with no frame of reference.
So most of my responses looked something like this:
Read the rest here: Sorry I Haven’t Texted Back
It would be so helpful if there was an app to track stress like there is to track spending.
Wouldn’t it be marvelous to get an alert that said, “Low Balance”, for mental, physical and psychological reserves like the one you can get for your bank account right before you are heading to overdraft territory?
But there isn’t.
And few of us are very good at gauging just how much is left in our mental wellness accounts which means we often keep giving when the well is more than dry.
I’d be lying if I said I spend the same amount of time crying, lamenting and bent over in agonizing pain that I did in the early days of mourning Dominic. I’ve found a way to keep him close, to trust his soul to Jesus and to (largely) live in the present instead of always longing for the past.
There are days, though…
Some days are easy to anticipate-birthdays, holidays, the awful anniversary of his leaving-and some sneak up on me. I can often trace my overwhelming sadness to a specific trigger or memory dug up in a drawer or found in a pile of photos.
Occasionally, I have a horrible weepy day for no discernable reason.
That’s when I walk my heart back through recent events and always come to the same conclusion-I’ve let myself run dry:
What I’ve come to understand is that stress is a HUGE impact on my grief and how I experience it.
I won’t patronize folks reading this with a simplistic (but wholly unhelpful!) suggestion to “reduce or avoid stress”.
For heaven’s sake! If we could do that with a snap of our fingers we would hardly need someone to tell us to take advantage of that solution.
Truth is, stress is often largely outside our control.
But there ARE some things I can make choices about. So I do. I look ahead at the calendar and note upcoming milestone days. I plug in doctor’s appointments, birthdays and holidays. I review every invitation to celebrations or lunch in light of what is already inked in.
I’ve learned to be honest with folks about my limitations and send a card or gift through the mail if I can’t be there in person. I sometimes suggest an alternative date and time if the one a friend offers just doesn’t work for me. I stand firm in my opinion that “no” is a complete sentence and as long as I’m kind and gracious it is not incumbent upon me to offer an explanation for why I’m turning down an invitation.
And if I have an unexpectedly hard day-from grief or activity or because of my RA-I drop back the next day to allow time to recuperate and rest (if at all possible).
The reality is that child loss means there is ALWAYS a certain low-level hum of stress in my life.
Adding to that already higher-than-average stress means it’s easy for me to be tipped into unhealthy territory.
Crying is only the tip of the iceberg.
Health problems, heart problems, relationship issues and other long-term consequences often result.
It’s not only OK for me to set boundaries to protect my health and my heart,
It’s absolutely, positively the right thing to do.
❤
Thankfully for most parents graduation isn’t really an end. It marks a transition and perhaps growing geographical distance, but the relationship will continue.
Your child may be harder to reach, but they are not utterly beyond your reach.
You might stand at the doorway of their empty room and wonder when they might come home for a visit and wake up under your roof again, but they WILL come home for a visit.
I’m not diminishing the very real sense of loss parents feel when the child they have nurtured begins a life apart.
But some of us face something harder.
My child is utterly unreachable.
Read the rest here: Please Be Patient With Me
If I had my way I’d store up grace like green beans-stacking one can atop the other “just in case”.
Then I could decide if and when to open it up and pour it out.
But grace isn’t like that. It’s a perishable though infinite commodity-like manna.
Read the rest here: Daily Bread: His Provision Is Sufficient
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