International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States. This year it’s tomorrow, May 1, 2022
I didn’t even know such a day existed until I was a mom that needed it.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/05/06/international-bereaved-mothers-day/
I read A GRIEF OBSERVED in my 30’s as another in a long list of “Books You Should Read”. I gleaned a bit here or there that I thought might be of use later on.
But when Dominic ran ahead to heaven, it was the first book on grief I bought for myself and I read it like a starving man set down to a full table.
This passage, in particular, was helpful in understanding how my absolute trust in the FACT of ultimate redemption of my pain and sorrow did absolutely NOTHING to take away the pain and sorrow-it only made it bearable.
If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her. But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild.
C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/04/29/wisdom-from-c-s-lewis/
I know (really, I do!) that people MEAN well.
I understand the temptation to share cute little sayings like these in response to a bereaved parent’s Facebook post.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/27/why-didnt-i-think-of-that/
It’s oh, so hard to know what to do when you are watching a heart break.
You want to reach out and make it better, make the pain go away, make a difference. But it seems like nothing you can do will matter much in the face of such a huge loss.
While it’s true that you cannot “fix” the brokenness in a bereaved parent’s life, there are some very important and practical ways you can support them in their grief.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/04/20/five-practical-ways-to-support-grieving-parent/
I have many friends who have chosen to get up when they could have stayed down, who have chosen love when they could have become heartless and who still smile even when life isn’t easy.
I love you. 
Moms and Dads, this one’s for you.
For not giving up or giving in.
For refusing to become bitter and jaded and instead choosing to be love and light.
It would be easier, in a way, if it happened all at once.
If the vivid memories of his voice, his laugh, his body language, his sense of humor just disappeared-POOF!-now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. Then I could make a single adjustment.
But that’s not how it is. Instead, the living proof of his existence recedes like a wave from the shoreline, only there’s no returning surge to remind me of the force that was Dominic.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2016/04/18/slow-fade/
Child loss is not a single event.
Of course the moment when the last breath leaves a body is noted and duly recorded because the law requires such. I can pull out Dominic’s death certificate (what an ugly thing to have to say about my child!) and it reads: Time of Death: 1:10 a.m. April 12, 2014.
But I didn’t know about it until 4: 15 that morning when the deputy rang the bell.
So for me, his death came then.
Read the rest here: Child Loss is Not a Single Event
In response to something I posted in a bereaved parents’ group a friend used the term “tangible absence” to describe what I was feeling.
She is so right.
When I imagine something I’ve never actually experienced-even when I might say “I miss such and such” it’s not the same as when I’ve had something and it’s been taken away.
I can only miss the imaginary in an ephemeral, insubstantial way. I miss what I once possessed in a tangible way.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/06/tangible-absence/
I don’t want to remember my son.
I want to make memories with him.
I want him to watch me grow old, to watch him get married and have children and to hear his voice mingled with his siblings at my table.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/02/i-dont-want-to-remember-my-son/
Many of you are waking up each day and facing a world you don’t recognize.
I’ve been doing this for over half a decade.
Almost seven years ago my family’s world was shaken in much the same way everyone’s world is being shaken today.
It was precisely as disruptive, unthinkable, even more tragic and there was not one thing we could do to change it except live through it.
I know thousands of bereaved parents and surviving siblings who have learned to live in the time they are given.
If you want to know how to face this crisis with courage, ask them.
thelifeididntchoose 