Melanie

Unbroken

I call my parents pretty much every morning.

It was a habit started years ago after my mother had a bad spell and ended up in the hospital. I like to start my day knowing how she and my dad are doing.

The other day Papa and I were talking about the movie, “Unbroken” we saw a couple years ago.

There’s a scene where the main character was forced to hold a heavy beam over his head in a Japanese POW camp for hours. If he let it fall, he would be shot and his torture over. Malnourished, mistreated and disheartened, he somehow found the strength to do it.

He endured.

His courageous example lent courage to the others in that camp. His victory was in not giving up or giving in, though he bore the scars for the rest of his life.

These past months have been difficult ones for both of my parents. Mama’s fall, heart attack and multiple hospital stays have left her very different than she was last summer. Someone needs to be with her all the time.

That means my dad-who has no physical limitations-is as housebound as she.

Papa is absolutely committed to caring for Mama and he’s doing a great job.

But it’s hard on a heart to be confined when you are surrounded by so many chores that need doing and so much wide open space that begs you to get out in the sunshine.

He is enduring.

And I am thankful for his example.

So few of us will have an opportunity to do really grand things that make headlines. But most of us will have a chance to be faithful in hundreds of small things that make up meaningful lives.

Quiet, everyday commitment to not giving up when life is hard and rest seems so very far away is victory even when it doesn’t feel like it.

It speaks courage to other hearts to hold on.

Truly.

Always.

Repost: Emotional Bankruptcy-I Can’t Spend the Same Energy Twice

I wasn’t born with an “I don’t give a hoot” gene.

When I commit to a person, a project or a problem, I’m all in-no holding back.

That’s why this side of Dominic’s leaving I’ve been very cautious about making commitments. But in the past year I’ve begun branching out and joining in again.

In many ways it has been a positive experience.

In other ways, not so much.

Read the rest here: Emotional Bankruptcy: I Can’t Spend the Same Energy Twice

Nothing New Between Us

Why are the photographs of him as a little boy so incredibly hard to look at? Something is over. Now instead of those shiny moments being things we can share together in delighted memories, I, the survivor, have to bear them alone. So it is with all the memories of him. They all lead into blackness. All I can do is remember him, I cannot experience him. Nothing new can happen between us.

~Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

Death is never welcome.

It is always a reminder that I live in a broken world where sickness and time, accidents and sinful choices press the life out of bodies and I am left behind to mourn.

But when people die at a ripe old age, I look back fondly on what they’ve done, where they’ve been, the legacy of work and love and family they leave behind.

No one lives forever.

In the back of my mind I can make room for that fact, even though I don’t like to bring it out and consider it very often. Those that are much older than me will (all things being equal) leave this world before us.

I joined them.

There is part of their lives I know nothing about. And there will be part of mine they will not share.

But my child?

I have known my child since before he entered the light of this world! I felt him in my womb. I experienced who he was before anyone else met him.

I never, ever expected for my life to outlast his!

I always thought there would be new experiences between us, new memories to tuck away, new adventures to look forward to.

Out of order death is unexpected, unnatural, unbelievable.

“Nothing new between us.”

Breaks my heart every time.

Anxiety and Child Loss

I am much, much better than I was the first two years after Dominic ran ahead to heaven.

I’ll be honest though, sometimes all it takes is the tiniest trigger to make my heart race, my hands shake and my eyes well with tears.

It still surprises and frightens me that anxiety is so close to the surface.

But I guess when your world has been shattered violently and utterly by what you never imagined would happen, that’s a reasonable response.

Read here Why Anxiety is Part of Child Loss.

Ask Me, Please.

I have been guilty of this more times than I ‘d like to admit.

I assume someone else’s feelings mirror my own and act on that assumption by withdrawing or not showing up or “giving them space”.

But the problem is, most times, on reflection, I realize my action (or inaction) was really all about sparing my own feelings or staying within my own comfort zone.

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

~Jeremiah 17:9 NIV

So I’m learning to ask hard questions.

And I wish others would do the same.

Before I assume someone doesn’t want companionship, or a phone call or another text or message, I’m trying to give them the opportunity to say no.

I’ve been surprised more than once when I wanted to keep my distance in the name of “giving someone space” or “not bothering someone” that if I DID reach out, she responded by saying it was just what she needed.

I admit that asking risks rejection or worse-I might end up bearing the brunt of someone’s very bad day (or week!). But not asking means I may not be doing precisely the thing God wants me to do. I may be choosing the easy way out and rationalizing it so I feel better but the poor heart that needs my companionship or encouragement is left without the very help I was meant to provide.

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.

Who knows? Maybe this is exactly the good work God has prepared in advance for me to do.

Jealousy-Reaching For What I Can’t Have

I thought I had at least a passing understanding of what grief is, what it feels like, how it impacts a heart before my son died.

But I was wrong.

Until you live with it day in and day out for weeks, months, years you really just. don’t. know.

There are so many feelings wrapped up in what we call grief. So many surprises along this path.

Who knew that the same heart that would do nearly ANYTHING to spare another parent the awful burden of child loss could also be wildly jealous of that same parent’s intact family?

I confess, mine has been.

I have scrolled through social media posts about fun family vacations, beautiful weddings, newborn grandchildren, happy graduations, first jobs, Christmas photos, and family reunions where the number of people present fill the frame to the edges of the picture and been angry instead of happy for them.

It takes every ounce of self-control not to covet what I will never have.

Jealousy is a green-eyed monster and I want no part of it.

But I have to fight to keep it at bay.

I have to recall the years I was given with all my children happy around my table. I have to remember the laughter, the shared experiences, the love and fun.

I have to focus on the gift and not the loss.

Sometimes I can. Sometimes I can’t.

It’s getting a little easier now to “rejoice with those who rejoice” and not also feel jealousy lurking in the shadows.

I pray one day I won’t feel that green-eyed monster breathing down my neck at all.

Though the Mountains Fall

I spent my teen years living in a suburb of Denver where the mountains marked west and you didn’t need a compass or GPS to get around.

It never occurred to me that the mountains might crumble or that I might wake one morning to find them somewhere else.

They were steady, sure and absolutely dependable.

When I moved to Pittsburgh and was forced to navigate without mountains to guide me, I found it easy to get lost (and I got lost a LOT in the first few months!).

The landmarks I had depended on were gone.

That’s what it felt like when I received the awful news.

In the first shock of death everything that has seemed most dependable had given way. Mountains were falling, the earth was reeling. In such a time it is a profound comfort to know that although all things seem to be shaken, one thing is not: God is not shaken … the thing that is most important is to do what the psalmist does later, to be ‘still’ and know that God is God. God is God whether we recognize it or not. But it comforts us and infuses strength into our faltering spirits to rest on that truth.

~Elisabeth Elliot

The earth beneath me gave way. I was falling.

But God…

When my heart was shattered, my hope hanging on by a thread, the Spirit of God brought truth to mind and gave me the strength to hold on.

I trust God’s Word and His character, even when I don’t understand what He is doing.

His faithful love endures forever.

I can depend on that.

No matter what.

Why I Say, “My Son Died.”

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.

It is heartbreaking, lonely, heavy, hard and utterly devastating.

As a believer in the promises of Scripture, I use it because I want to paint a stark contrast between hopelessness without Christ and the hope I have because of the blood of Jesus applied to my heart and the heart of my son.

Without that assurance, the hopelessness would continue for eternity.

But because of Jesus, while this reality is harsh, hard and heartbreaking, I have an eternity of rest, renewal and redemption to look forward to.

I think each of us finds our own path through this Valley and should say or use whatever word is best for our own heart.

This is simply one choice among many.

I’m so sorry that we need ANY words to describe our child’s physical absence in this earthly journey.

Repost: Be Free to Celebrate [Or Not!]

Often bereaved parents dread the major holiday season that starts in November and lasts through January. We brace ourselves for THOSE days because they loom large on the calendar and give fair warning.

But the year is chock full of minor holidays and other celebrations that require just as much emotional energy as the “big” ones.

If I’m not careful, they will slip up on me and drain me dry.

So here’s how I try to approach them.

It helps my heart.

Maybe it will help yours too. ❤

One of the most challenging things that faced me immediately after Dominic’s funeral was that we had two college graduations, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, his birthday, a wedding and my own thirtieth wedding anniversary within two months.

Thankfully we had some amazing friends and family that stepped up and filled in the gaps.

Read the rest here: Be Free to Celebrate [or Not!]

Sunflowers Sing Praise

I love, love, love sunflowers!

Always have.

I love their bright aspect that brings a smile to my face no matter what mood I’m in or what trial I’m facing. Their happy, heavy heads declare that today is a day to shine!

Last week as I was walking, getting some *fresh* air in congested California I passed a house where some precious soul had planted a row of sunflowers and they were standing bravely, boldly behind the fence that declared, “This far and no further”.

Their heads were turned toward the eastern sky, soaking in the sun’s rays and reflecting back the light and life that sun brings to everything on earth.

There is no denying that sunflowers sing praise.

They sing praise to a new day when their heads rise to meet the sun.

They sing praise to provision when they follow the light as it moves across the sky.

They sing praise to rest when their heads droop as the sun sinks low in the western horizon.

They are a living testimony to our Creator.

sunflower explain miracles plant a garden

I want to be like the sunflowers-compelled to turn my face to the Son.

I want to be a witness to the life He gives and sustains.

I want to reflect and represent Him boldly, bravely and big.

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