Melanie

Can’t Run Away

You know that scene in Forrest Gump where he starts running and just can’t stop?

I thought that was a funny way to deal with grief when I first saw the movie.

But now I understand it perfectly.

If I could have started running, walking or even crawling away from the heartache in those first days and weeks I would have.

Truth is, though, you can’t.

No matter how far or how fast you run, it all comes with you. I have to live in the black and white reality of a world that includes my dead son. I don’t have a choice if I’m going to keep my sanity.

And I think that’s another kind of invisible wall that separates those of us who walk this Valley from those that don’t: we know-deep down, surefire, gut-wrenchingly-KNOW there are things you cannot escape.

You can’t outrun them.

You can’t wish them away.

You can’t ignore them.

You have to embrace them no matter how prickly, heartbreaking or impossible that seems.

And then learn to live with them.

Repost: Baby Steps and Falling Forward

Sometimes I schedule a post the night before and wake up to a day that contradicts everything I just wrote.

Grief is like that.

Good day. Bad day. Better day. Worse day.

Read the rest here: Baby Steps and Falling Forward

You Are Not Invisible

I know, precious heart, as the months and years roll by and everyone else has moved forward and moved on, it’s easy to feel like no one sees your wounds, no one takes note of your sorrow, no one remembers your pain.

It can make you feel invisible.

You feel like a black and white pasteboard cutout in a world peopled by technicolor action figures.

But you are NOT invisible.

The God of the Universe sees you.

He keeps track of every. single. tear.

He cares.

Even if you are still angry with Him.

Because His love is an everlasting love. He doesn’t give up on us just because we don’t have the strength to reach out to Him. He will bridge the gap between what we are capable of doing and what needs to be done.

Sit silent in His Presence and He will come to you.

Gentle, loving, quiet and peace-filled He will come.

No matter how many humans have written you off, your Faithful Father has not forgotten you.

He sees you.

He waits with open arms.

He wants to embrace your wounded heart and your broken life.

Come home. ❤

God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home.

~Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal

Night Time is So. Much. Harder.

I’m pretty good at pushing away uncomfortable or sad or downright horrifying thoughts in the daytime.

Sunlight means there’s plenty to do and plenty to keep my mind from dwelling too long on anything that will make be cry or bring me to my knees.

But there is a dangerous space just between wake and sleep, when the house is quiet and my mind is free to explore random corners that guarantees unpleasant thoughts will pour in and overwhelm me.

I can’t tell you how many times the last moment before sleep claims my consciousness is filled with thoughts of Dominic.

Not sweet memories of his smiling face.

Oh, no.

Instead they are graphic images of what he looked like, crumpled on the ground, perhaps gasping one last time trying to fill his lungs before his soul flew to Jesus, leaving his body behind.

It’s impossible to describe the electric current that shoots through my midsection like a lightning bolt. I cannot help a heart that doesn’t carry this awful burden understand how such flashes disrupt any hope of peaceful sleep.

I used to be afraid of ghosts in the dark.

I never slept without aid of a nightlight until well into my adult years.

I’m not afraid of specters anymore.

They are small potatoes next to a mother’s own heart screaming, “Where WERE you????” when your baby breathed his last.

Nights are just plain hard.

No distractions.

Only sorrow and a broken heart in bed together.

❤

Why We Have to Tell Our Stories & Why We Need Someone to Listen

We’ve all been at the family dinner table when an elder launches into THAT story-the one that gets dragged out every holiday and several times in between.

Often our eyes roll and we exchange knowing glances with the younger set as if to say, “Here we go again!”

But we point our faces toward the speaker, lean in and lap it up.

Because we know this story is important to her or else she wouldn’t be sharing it again.

You learn a lot about your parents and grandparents, older aunts and uncles by listening carefully to the stories that have stuck around in a head that finds it hard to remember what the body had for breakfast.

Some of the stories are wonderful. Sweet, sweet memories of special times and special friends; of younger years and youthful dreams.

Some of the stories are tragic. The baby brother or sister who only lived a few days or months. The mother that died too soon because there were no drugs to treat a common condition. The friend that never came home from the war.

The stories are windows into souls.

Some of us have stories that need telling NOW. We can’t wait until our age guarantees us a captive audience.

Because telling the stories helps our hearts.

A fellow bereaved mom who has a gift for finding exquisite quotes found this one:

Sometimes I think that if it were possible to tell a story often enough to make the hurt ease up, to make the words slide down my arms and away from me like water, I would tell that story a thousand times.

~Anita Shreve, The Weight of Water

Every time I tell the story of Dominic, it helps to keep him real.

It reminds my heart that he lived, that he mattered, that he matters still.

Living on a farm I’ve buried a lot of things in this Alabama dirt, I never thought my brother would be one of them. I miss you so much Hector Dominic DeSimone! ~Julian DeSimone

And in the telling, I am giving away a little bit of him for another heart to carry. His light is passed to another soul that can pass it to another and another.

It doesn’t really take away the hurt and sorrow, but it does help me bear it.

So if I launch into the same old rendition of my favorite memories of my missing son, bear with me.

Be a witness.

Help me carry the burden.

It’s a New Chapter, NOT the End of the Book

Here they come.

It’s time for the First Day of School photo contests on social media. Shot after shot of little ones and not-so-little ones posing with new book bags and new clothes holding a chalkboard sign that indicates their grade.

And then the pictures of college freshmen toting boxes into dorm rooms, waving good-bye to mom and dad, beginning their adult lives unfettered by curfews and parental oversight.

Then the laments, “I can’t believe they are growing up!”

I hear you, mama. It IS a challenge to watch them grow up. But you aren’t really saying, “good-bye”.

I see it from an entirely different perspective.

Read the rest here: It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over

Discombobulated

Yep. It’s a real word.

And it sounds just like what it is-mixed up, disoriented and confused. Like a kid spun around with a blindfold playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey at his five-year-old birthday party.

That’s me.

I depend on routine, habit, regular workflow patterns to help me remember what I need to do and when. So if something (or a bunch of somethings!) interrupt my tired old footpath through the day, it confuses me.

I’m confused.

This summer has been full of random life events that guaranteed I couldn’t lean into my dependable routines for support and comfort.

So I’m winging it-more or less.

Actually more of the time it IS less but who’s checking?

Anyway, it’s been a good reminder that I’m not in control and that what absolutely MUST be done always manages to get done. And if the other stuff falls by the wayside, then it wasn’t nearly as important as I once thought it was.

I need to be reminded.

Because it’s easy to be frustrated over things that aren’t worth the effort, to get my priorities mixed up and let myself fall prey to the tyranny of the urgent and ignore the supremacy of the important.

Speaking of which, I think I’ll take a break, go outside and get some fresh air.

The vacuuming can wait.

And the laundry,

and the dusting,

and the….

Let’s Stop Hiding, Shall We?

You want to know a secret?

Everyone, EVERYONE, wonders if they are “normal”.

And we all try on different masks trying to hide the real us just in case we aren’t.

But none of them fit, none of them are comfortable and none of them really hide everything we wish they did.

So we go through life pretending to be someone we’re not, hoping the performance is adequate, making friends with people who are also wearing a mask and wondering why in the world it feels so false and unfulfilling.

I love, love, love this little poem by Shel Silverstein. He had a way of distilling truth to a few memorable words:

One of the gifts grief has given me is that I just do not have the energy to keep my mask on straight.

So I’ve decided to take it off.

And I find that when I do, people aren’t horrified, they are relieved.

Because that means they can take theirs off too.

❤

Trusting God After Loss: Why It’s Hard, Why It’s Necessary

One of the greatest challenges I faced this side of child loss was finding a space where I could speak honestly and openly about my feelings toward God and about my faith.

So many times I was shut down at the point of transparency by someone shooting off a Bible verse or hymn chorus or just a chipper, “God’s in control!”

They had NO IDEA how believing that (and I do!) God is in control was both comforting and utterly devastating at the very same time.

It took me awhile to revisit the basic tenets of my faith and tease out what was truly scriptural and what was simply churchy folklore.

It was worth it.

Because while my faith looks different today than it did the day before the deputy knocked on my door, it is still faith. And it is rock-solid, founded squarely on the truth of the Bible, the words of Jesus and the unalterable promises of God Almighty.

I spoke on this topic last October and developed a series of posts to make what I shared available here.

So as a follow-up to yesterday’s post (if I didn’t scare you off!), I’m putting the links to all the posts in my series “Trust After Loss” in one place.

Here they are, with a brief description of each:

God is sovereign-He rules.

God is good-He loves.

How do those two truths live together in a universe that includes child loss? How can I trust the rest of my life and my eternal future to a God who lets this happen?

Read the rest here: Trust After Loss: Admit the Pain

“Faith does not eliminate questions but faith knows where to take them”

~Elisabeth Elliot

Read the rest here: Trust After Loss: Acknowledge Doubt and Ask Questions

The same God Who keeps the earth in orbit around the sun has ordained that death will not have the last word.

Light will triumph.

Darkness will have to flee.

Read the rest here: Trust After Loss: Access the Truth

This is what it means to appropriate God’s strength:

I have to exhale my doubts, inhale His truth and then allow His Spirit to weave that truth into armor so that I am strong for battle.

Read the rest here: Trust After Loss: Appropriate God’s Strength

God is no respecter of persons.

What He did for me, He will do for you.

Ask Him to guide your heart and He will do it

❤

Why You Might Have to “Forgive” God

I love this quote.

It’s honest and exactly how I felt after Dominic was killed.

Like any healthy human relationship, forgiveness is a key component in allowing us to grow closer to those we care about. Intellectually, I believed that God is perfect, and could do no wrong. I could agree with all the scriptures I had read since I was a child that told me God cares for us with an everlasting love. But what my heart felt was that God had done Cathy and my whole family an injustice. As long as I held onto those feelings, I knew I could never move forward.

So one evening alone at home, I simply said these words out loud: ‘God, I forgive you.’

When I was finally able to let go of my ‘justifications’ for feeling angry at God, something inside of me shifted. There were no heavenly rays of light breaking through the clouds, but I could tell that much of the mental turmoil I had been struggling with was being replaced with a quiet peace.

The thing is, I knew deep down that God did not need to be forgiven. The forgiveness was meant for my sake. It opened my heart to begin to listen and allowed me to receive more of what God wanted to teach me about who He really is.

~Warren Ludwig, Jewels in the Junkyard

It may be an affront to our religious sensibilities to even suggest that we “forgive” God.

But it is a bold rendering of the betrayal my heart felt. Why MY son? Why ME?

It’s true-as long as I held onto the reasons God had “done me wrong”, I was unable to lean in and trust Him again.

Like Job, I thought I had Him figured out and could hold my own in a debate with the Almighty One.

But also like Job, when confronted with His holiness, perfection and majesty, found all I could do was cover my mouth.

And when I shut up long enough to hear Him, His voice brought comfort.

He [Christ] said not, ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be trevailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased,’ but He said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.’

~Julian of Norwich

I no longer feel betrayed.

I still don’t like this life.

I would never have chosen this life.

But I will trust the One Who made me to carry me through it.

i made you and i will carry you

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