At the time all I could manage (barely!) was the twenty-four hours of each long, lonely and pain-wracked day.
After seven-plus years I’ve learned to look ahead, plan ahead and forge ahead to birthdays, holidays, special days and not-so-special days.
But it takes a great deal of effort and often uncomfortable conversations because no matter how long it’s been, I’m still dragging loss and its after affects behind me.
I wrote this in 2016 when I was desperate to communicate how hard it is to try to marry joy and sorrow, celebration and commemoration, light, love, life and darkness, grief and death.
It really doesn’t matter if it’s your first December after loss or it’s your tenth, the holidays bring unique challenges for those of us whose hearts are wounded.
I have to remind myself every year that I need to grant grace, set boundaries and take each day one breath at a time if I’m going to make it through.
❤
It comes up again and again-and not just for the parents facing their year of “firsts”: How do I survive December with a broken heart?
There’s no single answer or list of things to do that will suit every family.
But there are some general principles that can make even this awful reality a little easier.
Yesterday I confessed that I was already exhausted and we were barely into December!
But I managed to drag the tree down from the attic and adorned it with the faith fortifying ornaments I’ve acquired since Dominic left us seven plus years ago.
I didn’t finish making things sparkle but I did make a dent in it.
Tomorrow is another day but tonight I will sit and savor the twinkling lights that remind me darkness doesn’t win.
❤ Melanie
It’s a question every hurting heart has to answer if you celebrate a traditional western Christmas: Will I put up a tree this year?
I had a few months of lonely travel through the Valley of the Shadow of Death before I had to answer that one.
Dominic left us at Easter, so by December I had learned that wishing didn’t make anything better nor did it make decisions disappear.
As Christmas drew near, I just could not bring down the usual decorations from the attic.
Most parents feel a little stressed during the holidays.
We used to be able to enjoy Thanksgiving before our 24/7 supercharged and super-connected world thrust us into hyper-drive. Now we zoom past the first day of school on a highway toward Christmas at breakneck speed.
For bereaved parents, the rush toward the “Season of Joy” is doubly frightening.
Constant reminders that this is the “most wonderful time of the year” make our broken hearts just that much more out of place.
And while I am truly grateful for another trip around the sun, since Dominic left us it’s not a simple celebration of life lived and the hope of years to come.
The last birthday I had with an unbroken family circle was a lovely surprise party for my fiftieth held in Dom’s apartment.
As families gather around tables and in backyards to celebrate fall birthdays, Thanksgiving and (soon!) Christmas, my heart longs even harder to hear Dominic’s name.
Of course I remember him-he’s my son-and of course others do too.
But it is especially helpful this time of year to have friends and family speak of him aloud.
Thanksgiving is only a little over a week away and I know many are making final plans and preparations to gather family and friends around the table.
In the rush toward celebration, please don’t forget those in your circle who have suffered loss.
The past months have prevented or limited many of the ways we publicly gather and mourn so it’s easy to overlook that some families are facing their first set of holidays without a loved one.
Even the second or third Thanksgiving with an empty chair is unbelievably hard.
Here are some helpful ideas to get you started.
❤ Melanie
We are all on a journey through life and each carry some sort of load. Mine is child loss. Yours may be something else.
We can help one another if we try.
Love and grace grease the wheels and make the load lighter.
Here are ten ways to love a mourning heart at Thanksgiving:
It’s a nearly universal human tendency to try to fit another’s experience into our own.
Even though I try hard not to, I still often find myself saying things like, “I know just how you feel” or, “This worked for me, it ought to work for you”.
Trouble is, grief is as individual as a fingerprint.
If you’ve justjoined this awful “club” the thought of celebrating anything may make your heart shrink and your eyes fill with tears.
I understand!
That’s precisely the way I felt for a very long time. Not because I didn’t think there were still oh, so many things and people worth celebrating, but because I couldn’t remember what joy felt like much less experience it.
My heart was filled to the brim with pain, sorrow, longing and fear-there just wasn’t room for anything else.
Still, I kept up the discipline of celebration even when I wasn’t feeling like celebrating.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, as I picked my way through memories and feelings and did the work grief required, I made space in that broken heart for other things.
And now I can testify that celebration is once again a gift!
I not only mark the big things-like birthdays and holidays-but also the little things-like making muffins with my grandson.
Any and every excuse for a photo or a cupcake!
Today is my oldest son’s birthday and his dad and I are here to celebrate it with him for the first time in I don’t honestly know how many years. I am happy to make him a yummy meal (or take him to a favorite restaurant) and buy a special treat to mark the day he said “hello” to the world.
And I’m more than happy to spend time with him and watch as he pours into his own son some of the love and life we’ve poured into him.
So if you aren’t “feeling it” try faking it or at least showing up.
Eventually there will be a moment when your heart once again embraces joy.
thelifeididntchoose 