If you, like me, have had a less-than-stellar recent record dealing with those you love, those you meet and those you pass on the street or in your car, accept this truth:
You are absolutely, positively NOT perfect.
And that’s OK.
Read the rest here: No Shame In Being Human
When I find words for my feelings it helps.
So I collect quotes, copying them down in my journal and sometimes hanging them where I can see them throughout the day.
Here are a few that speak to my heart. I hope they speak to yours. ❤
Read the rest here: Ten Grief Quotes That Speak To My Heart
The Vietnam Memorial is a beautiful and meaningful reminder of those who gave their lives in that war. The stark black stone highlights the 58,307 names engraved in its surface.
Names matter because they represent individuals that mattered-to family, to friends, to coworkers, to a nation.
I shared this years ago as part of a “Loving Well” series of posts about what grieving parents feel and what ministers to their broken hearts.
I long to know my son is remembered and still matters.
Please, Just Say His Name.
At first grief felt only like sorrow and longing and brokenness.
Then it felt like confusion and anxiety and despair.
A little further along this journey it mostly felt like apathy.
Now it feels like love.
Read the rest here: Grief-It’s Really Just Love
Seven (!) years ago today I shared my first post in this space.
It was a timid foray into the wider world just a year and a half after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
I was truly frightened that once I began sharing my intimate thoughts, good (and not-so-good) experiences and things I was learning in this Valley of the Shadow of Death I would either: (1) find out no one really cared and/or; (2) offend friends and family.
But what motivated me to overcome that fear was a sense that for all the information out there on grief in general, I couldn’t find nearly enough first-person experience written in bite-sized chunks on child loss in particular.
After Dom ran ahead, it was difficult for me to sit down and read a whole book. I needed bits I could read on a single computer screen.
I also needed someone to be upfront and honest about what it meant to continue to cling to faith even when it was hard and even when it meant acknowledging doubts and living with unanswered questions.
It’s difficult to believe now with the plethora of popular books (both secular and religious) on “open broken” but seven years ago, there weren’t many around.
So I decided I’d just say what I had to say and let it fall on the ears that might need to hear it regardless of who didn’t like it or chose to ignore it.
And here we are seven years later.
I don’t know how long I’ll keep writing-probably as long as I feel like I have something to say, people are listening and my fingers can still tap-tap-tap the keyboard.
For now, writing is what I do.
Even when life interrupts almost everything else I will find a few moments to jot down thoughts and hit “publish”.
I know some posts are much thinner than others-maybe just a meme or two and an encouraging word. Some are just reworked posts from years gone by.
But I want to show up in case THIS morning someone’s having an especially rotten one.
I want you to know that there IS life after child loss.
A very different life.
A harder life.
A life you didn’t want and wouldn’t ever choose, but life nonetheless.
And I appreciate every. single. heart. who joins me here and cheers me (and others!) along.
I first shared this post seven years ago when I began writing the blog.
When I read it now, the pain of regret is precisely as sharp as it was when I wrote it. I still wish, wish, wish I had NOT tossed stuff out willy-nilly just a few months before Dominic left us.
I’ve released lots of material things since he’s been gone but it’s been done thoughtfully and with the understanding that I am letting go of one more bit of who he was.
When I was just an overwhelmed ex-homeschool mama longing to reclaim space, I was much less careful about what I threw out.
Time doesn’t always (maybe never?) erase regret.
❤ Melanie
Just a few months before Dominic was killed, this hoarding homeschool mama decided that it was time to finally give up some of the thousands of pages of handwritten, color-crayoned papers stacked in the attic, the storage building and floating in corners and crevices throughout the house.
Four children and twenty-two years of teaching them at home had produced a mountain of memories. I began to sort through the ones I deemed “most important to keep” and “everything else”.
Several loads were taken to the dump and tossed unceremoniously onto the trash pile.
It felt like freedom.
Now it feels like regret and longing.
Read the rest here: A Life in Scraps
I believe the root of bitterness is turning away from the truth that God is faithful, loving, gracious and good.
Once a heart denies THAT, it is easily led away from the grace of God and the mercy of God.
The bitter root bears bitter fruit and has the potential to defile everyone around us and beyond.
Because when a heart embraces bitterness, it is never content to be bitter alone. It offers up the wretched fruit to anyone who will taste it.
Read the rest here: Bitterness Bears Poisonous Fruit
If you think that time makes a difference to a mama missing a child who ran ahead to Heaven without her, you don’t know as much as you think you know.
Time does not heal all wounds-especially the kind that shatter a heart into a million pieces.
It takes time for the wound to scar over, but it doesn’t undo the damage.
So if you are wondering why your coworker still takes the day off on his child’s birthday or the anniversary of her child’s homegoing, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Years disappear when those milestones loom large.
Read the rest here: It’s Been Years-What’s Wrong With You?
I cannot speak for others but in my case, it seems that I did not lose Dominic all at once.
In fact, I’m still losing him.
Bit by bit, a little at a time, nearly molecule by molecule, his mark on my life, my walls, my world grows smaller.
Read the rest here: Bit By Bit: We Don’t Lose Them All at Once
I share some version of this every year on 9/11 because while it has been decades since this tragedy, it continues to reverberate in the hearts and lives of those who experienced it.
When you lose someone you love suddenly and unexpectedly your world is turned upside down.
Those who were taken on this day 22 years ago are rightfully mourned and marked by nations.
Those of us who quietly said good-bye in hospitals or on roadside accident sites or in our living rooms when we were brought the news often mourn alone.
But know this: Regardless of how death steals your loved one, it takes great courage to live every day knowing by experience that a single moment can change everything.
We should honor the survivors too.
❤ Melanie
It’s been twenty years since the Towers fell. Hard to believe-no matter how great the tragedy, life goes on.
Like many, I was watching things as they happened that day.
My husband, an architect and engineer, saw the wobble in the first tower and knew- he KNEW- it was going to collapse. Horrified I began to understand that whoever was still in that building was running out of time.
And I cried, oh, how I cried.
It was awful.
Since then I’ve lived my own tragedy.
Read the rest here: Learning To Live With Unanswered Questions
thelifeididntchoose 