I absolutely understand that when people say things like, “Just think of all the wonderful memories you have” or “He brought you so much joy”they mean well.
Because it’s true-I have beautiful memories of Dominic. And he DID bring me great joy.
But I had those things BEFORE he was beyond my reach.
Eleven years later and I’m still on the struggle bus with this one.
I used to be able to keep clutter manageable, clothes put away and counters and carpets clean.
Now I sometimes come downstairs and wonder what tornado has blown through the family room only to realize it’s an accumulation of several days’ chores left undone.
Sigh.❤
I freely admit I was never a housecleaning fanatic.
With a busy family, a small farm and mountains of paper, pencils and books scattered around I was content if the most obvious dirt was swept up and the sink free of dishes.
But, I DID have a routine. I DID clean my bathrooms and wash clothes and make beds and vacuum the rugs on a regular basis.
Not anymore.
Even all this time after Dominic ran ahead to heaven, I have not reestablished any kind of rhythm.
Summer time has its own way of highlighting Dominic’s absence.
Warm days and extra daylight can sometimes slow things down so that every moment hangs heavy with longing.
When we gather with family for cookouts or reunions or Fourth of July in this mama’s heart there is always an empty chair even when every available seat is full.
❤
Most people realize that the “big” holidays are painful for bereaved parents-Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day-that makes sense.
But what most people don’t know is that every single red-letter day-even the obscure ones-can be hard on parents missing a child.
One of the things I’ve been forced to embrace in the wake of child loss is there are very few questions, experiences or feelings that are simple anymore.
“How many children do you have?”
A common, get-to-know-you question lobbed across tables, down pews and in the check-out line at the grocery store. But for many bereaved parents, it can be a complex question that gets a different answer depending on who is asking and where we are.
My heart hurts every time a name is added to this awful “club” no one wants to join.
One more family knows our pain.
One more family has an empty chair at holiday gatherings.
But I am thankful for the moms and dads that share their hearts in bereaved parents’ groups. I’m thankful for the safe space to speak honestly about what this life feels like and the challenges that greet us in this Valley.
A fellow waiting mom, Brenda Ehly, shared this on her personal Facebook page. I asked her if I could post it here and she graciously gave me permission:
“So, every now and then, I am asked, ‘How are you?’
Just in case any of them meant, ‘What is it like to be grieving a child during the holiday season?’ let me try to explain:
First, imagine you have stepped into a bear trap.
It hurts.
A lot.
Sadly, it’s a magical bear trap, that you will never be able to remove. (That’s your initial loss). Weirdly, after awhile, you sort of (not exactly) get used to it.
Now, imagine that at completely random intervals, a large bear suddenly appears, and, mistakenly thinking that you’re the one who’s been setting bear traps in the forest, repeatedly punches you in the nose.
Hard.
This bear throws one heck of a punch. (This is what happens when you go shopping at the grocery store and Andy Williams croons, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!” at you).
So, is it all miserable, all the time?
Absolutely not; every now and then, an adorable, enchanted raccoon brings you a tall mocha and a blueberry scone, and that is very nice, because even if you’re stuck in a magical (and excruciatingly painful) bear trap, a tall mocha and a fresh scone are still welcome and refreshing.
I’m really thankful that more and more Christians are willing to shed false positivity and embrace lament.
Because the truth is lots of stories this side of eternity end in tragedy or at least unmet expectations and sorrow instead of glorious, victorious sunshine and roses.
Crops and marriages fail. Dreams come and go.
We hope for healing but don’t receive it.
Loved ones die.
Let’s just be honest about it-about ALL of it.
❤ Melanie
In the wake of burying Dominic, the most difficult spiritual discipline for me to recover has been prayer.
In part because my heart just doesn’t know what to ask for or how to talk to a God Who has allowed this pain in my life.
In part because I don’t really have a framework for placing the prayers I want to pray inside my ongoing struggle to commit my future and the future of my family to the hands of a Father Who didn’t step in to prevent Dominic’s death.
I still struggle with this.
When it’s not your kid you can think of all kinds of lofty, theologically correct arguments or reasons for why God answers one prayer and not another–for why one person is healed and not another–for why one person survives a devastating-should-have-killed-him accident but not another.
But when it is your child that doesn’t survive or isn’t healed or is stolen through the violent actions of someone else…well, that’s a different matter entirely.
I prayed every day for my children. I asked God to protect them, to give them wisdom, to draw them to Himself and to guide their steps.
I never thought I was “giving orders” to God, but I did expect that my prayers would be honored-that by praying in obedience to biblical commands and in accord with scriptural principles I was making a difference in the heavenlies.
Like Daniel, who received word that his prayers had helped Gabriel fight against the prince of the air opposing him, I sent my petitions as weapons and armor against any schemes of the evil one that might threaten to undo my family. (Daniel 10: 1-13)
Herein lies the problem: when things go well, when the job comes through, the test score is great and the person walks out of the hospital, healed and whole, we say, “God answered prayers.”
And I believe that He does.
But if we ascribe glory and praise and honor and thanksgiving for the blessings received, how are we to understand and talk about the ones denied?
The nation of Israel was looking for Messiah-expecting Him.
Yet when He came, most missed Him. They had decided for themselves what He would look like, what He would do and how He would rescue them from bondage.
God’s ways are inscrutable.
I’m not arguing that prayer doesn’t matter.
It does.
I am commanded to pray. And God’s faithfulness to answer prayer is documented from Genesis through Revelation.
But I would argue that the way we speak about prayer, as if we understand how it works and how God works in it and through it, is often unhelpful.
The book of Job pulls back the curtain on what was happening in the heavenlies when God allowed Satan access to Job’s life. We know that Job’s earthly suffering represented a testimony for God against the Accuser.
But there’s no evidence that Job ever knew.
There was no dramatic revelation by God to this man that had lost EVERYTHING except his own life (which he would have gladly given up) and his wife (who, it seems, went on to bear him more children-oh joy!). Instead, God confronts Job with questions, not answers.
My heart wants answers, not more questions.
I doubt that I will have them this side of heaven.
So I have decided to speak more honestly about my experience with prayer, to refuse to pretend I understand how it works any more than I understand how God breathes life into bodies or takes souls to heaven.
I will pray, as best I can-mostly recalling God’s own words to Him-and resist my desire to think that because I pray, I can direct His hand.
When Jesus was in agony at Gethsemene, He asked His Father to take the bitter cup from HIm, but in the end, submitted to God’s will and plan.
That is all I have left for me as well-to submit and be made into whatever God has ordained.
I will trust in the goodness and faithful love of my Heavenly Father, because He IS my Father.
I will lean into His heart even when I cannot see or understand the work of His hands and follow because He is the One Who will lead me Home.
It’s not true for everyone but it is true for enough of us. The second year after child loss can be especially hard.
Numbness and the rhythm of all the “firsts” in the twelve months following Dominic’s death kept me both anticipating the shock and protecting me from its full impact.
The second year was when it dawned on me that I was doomed to repeat this cycle as long as I lived.
I was absolutely overwhelmed.
❤ Melanie
I remember very well the morning I woke on April 12, 2015-it was one year since I’d gotten the awful news; one year since the life I thought I was going to have turned into the life I didn’t choose.
I was horrified that my heart had continued to beat for 365 days when I was sure it wouldn’t make it through the first 24 hours.
And I was terrified.
During that first year there were multiple punctuated stops along the way-the first major and minor holidays scattered throughout the year, a family wedding, two graduations, Dominic’s birthday and on and on. I’d muddle through and then turn my face forward towards the next one looming in the future.
There was so much emotional upheaval, so many things to process that I was unbalanced, focused only on survival without a thought to anything beyond the next hill.
But when I realized that I’d made it through one year, was still standing, was still breathing and was (apparently) going to survive this horrible blow, I began to think about living this way for the rest of my days.
And it was overwhelming.
Facing something for a defined period of time-even an awful something-is doable. There’s an end in sight, relief on the way, endurance will be rewarded-just hang on.
But when a heart can’t lay hold of the finish line-well, that’s enough to undo even the bravest among us.
All the things I muddled through the first year were just going to circle back around over and over and over for decades!
My grief took on a new dimension-it wasn’t something that was going away-it was life long.
I spent the entire second year and most of the third just wrapping my mind and heart around that FACT and trying to develop tools to carry this burden for the long haul.
Every heart is different, every family unique.
The second year is NOT harder for everyone. I’m not even sure it was HARDER for me. But it was definitely different and full of new challenges.
It forced me to dig deeper than the first year when I was mainly in survival mode.
The crying tapered off but the reality of my son’s absence loomed larger. The breathless agony of his death really did grow more manageable but the prospect of this being a life sentence weighed more heavily on my heart.
But God’s grace has been sufficient in every season of my grief. He has sustained me, strengthened me and carried me.
Here I am-six weeks into year [eleven]-still standing, still fighting and still holding on to hope.
I first shared this years ago when I was reflecting on half a decade of living without one of my children beside me. I’ve now had more than another half decade to think about why or IF I’ll continue to write.
Every so often I take a day or two to consider whether I want to keep posting. I have to admit sometimes that I wonder if I bang the same drum for too long it will sound loud and obnoxious to some people’s ears.
But then I get a message or a comment from someone fresh on this journey and they feel seen, heard, validated and safe.
So I write on.
And I find that writing brings clarity and comfort to my soul. I still have things to say and I hope what I say still brings some small measure of light, love, life and hope to other hearts.
❤ Melanie
I was one of those people years ago who set her sights on starting and maintaining a blog.
I thought I would post a few times a week and share anecdotes about my family and critters, insight into daily living and inspiration from Scripture and interesting quotes.
No, not THIS blog-the other two I started and quickly abandoned to who-knows-where in cyberspace.
Trouble was that the subject matter, while near and dear to my heart, wasn’t personally compelling enough to keep me disciplined and actively writing.
If someone had said, “Pick any topic to write about”, child loss wouldn’t have been in the first million choices.
No one CHOOSES child loss (Thus the name of the blog: The Life I Didn’t Choose).
But untold numbers of parents EXPERIENCE it every year. This very day, parents somewhere got a knock on the door or a phone call or sat next to a hospital bed as life slipped slowly from their child’s tired body.
Since I was already journaling and had walked this Valley for nearly a year and a half, it dawned on me that the ramblings I’d put down might be helpful to another heart. So I started THIS blog in September, 2015.
And I’ve been here ever since.
I’m not in the raw, breathless place I once was. But grief and loss are part of every breath I take, part of every moment I experience.
I miss Dominic. I still consider death an enemy. Every day I hate what was stolen and long for what was. I mourn the changes grief has wrought in my family. I wish things were different. I discover new ways loss impacts my life and new ways of coping with it.
So I keep writing.
I don’t want anyone to feel alone in this journey. I don’t want anyone to think there’s no way to survive. I don’t want a single broken heart to doubt that God is here and that He will help you hold onto hope.
I’ll spill my heart out in words until the words are exhausted.
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.
Today is forty-one years since we said, “I do” and had absolutely NO idea what that would look like.
I first shared this years ago on our anniversary because I wanted other bereaved parents to know that while it is hard (and isn’t marriage always hard?), it is not impossible for a marriage to survive child loss.
We are definitely not the perfect couple. We fuss and we struggle. We sometimes retreat into our own separate worlds as we process some new aspect of living this earthly life without one of our children.
But we have learned that we are stronger together and that we are willing to do the work necessary to stay that way.❤
Today my husband and I celebrate 41 years of marriage.
Our thirtieth anniversary was a mere two months after we buried our son.
Here’s the last “before” anniversary photo (2013)-unfeigned smiles, genuine joy, excitement to have made it that far:
This is us on our thirtieth anniversary, at our oldest son’s wedding -holding one another up as best we could:
This is us a couple of years ago:
We are definitely the worse for wear, but we are still here.
Together.
There are a lot of myths floating around about what happens to a marriage on the other side of child loss. The one tossed out most often cites a “study” reporting 90 percent of marriages fail after the death of a child.
It’s just not true.
But the danger is that if you believe it is true, you may stop trying. You may stop reaching out across the painful abyss that threatens to keep you apart forever. You may decide that living alone with your broken heart is better than living alongside someone who may be broken in very different ways than you are.
It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The truth is that child loss is no more likely to destroy a marriage than a list of other terrible life events-even though child loss is the most terrible.
A child’s death shakes a marriage to its foundations and reveals the weak spots. And EVERY marriage has weak spots.
So the challenge in this season of marriage-like every season of marriage-is to turn toward one another instead of away.Choose to do the work necessary to make it:
Do the best you can to take care of your own emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual health so that you can come together stronger and better able to help one another.
Assume the best and not the worst about your spouse.
Allow for different grieving styles and different ways of honoring your missing child.
Get help from others.
Don’t expect your spouse to carry your load of grief as well as his or her own.
It takes energy and commitment right when we don’t have any to spare. But at least in this, we have a choice.
I have already lost so much over which I had no control.
I will fight for what I CAN hold onto as hard as I know how.
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