Category: bereaved parent

Please Share!

I realized after I wrote about the recent incident where someone plagiarized my blog there was a good deal of confusion about HOW to share it appropriately.

I wanted to clear up the confusion.  So here’s how to do it:

  • I post every blog set on “public” on my personal Facebook page.  You are always welcome to share it like any Facebook post which means it will include my original comments and the link to the blog;
  • I post every blog on the public page Heartache and Hope: Life After Losing a Child and it can be shared from there the same way;
  • You can click on the LINK to the blog and use any of the social media buttons at the bottom of the blog to share to the social media platform of your choice (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, etc.);
  • If you are a WordPress user, you may reblog any post by clicking that button-you will have the option to add personal comments and then the blog will show up on your site with a link back to my original post.

I also post the blog on several closed bereaved parents’ sites on Facebook.  

If that’s where you see it, please click on the link and share from the blog itself to protect the privacy of those sites and the people who belong to them.

A great way to be sure you never miss a post is to sign up to receive blog posts in your email.  Just click on the “follow blog via email” button on the right hand side of any blog post.  

You get the whole post-not just a link that makes you click through.  That’s an easy, fast way to get it every morning without having to get on Facebook.  You can forward the email to friends if you like.

Really the only way NOT to share the blog is by copying and pasting the content and then posting it as your own.

I love, love, love when I get feedback from another bereaved parent that says what I’ve written is what they feel or have experienced.  Not because I wish this pain on a single soul, but because I know others share my pain and I am thankful that sometimes MY words help them put THEIR feelings into a form they can share with others.

So, if a particular post is helpful to you-please DO SHARE.   ❤

 

 

Repost: A Letter to My Living Children

I miss Dominic.  I will always miss him.  Our table will never be full no matter how many others come to sit round its edges.

BUT-I will not rob my living children of my heart because part of it lives in Heaven.

I wrote this for the three children that still walk the earth with me.

You made me a mother, along with Dominic, and I celebrate each one of you as a gift from God.

Read the rest here: A Letter To My Living Children*

Repost: Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother

I didn’t know last year that there was an International Bereaved Mother’s Day celebrated the Sunday BEFORE the U.S. Mother’s Day.

I hope that my bereaved mother friends took advantage of that day to think about and honor their missing child(ren).

But we still have to make it through tomorrow.  And that can be very challenging.

I wrote this last year:  Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother

Help! I Need Somebody!

So, more than twenty years on a farm and I can NOT back a trailer.  Nope.  Can’t do it.

One day I spent hours trying to teach myself how to do it.  Never was able to do anything other than manage to jackknife the trailer, go unhook it and start over.

When I go somewhere with a trailer I do one of two things:  (1) I find a space where I can drive in and be able to just make a loop or (2) I find the nearest person who CAN back a trailer, hand them my keys and ask them to do it.

I feel NO shame.

But that’s not the case with other things I can’t do.  So many times I try to avoid admitting that I am unable to meet certain people’s expectations or do certain things that I either used to be able to do or feel I SHOULD be able to do.

I think the reason I don’t mind outing myself on trailers is because that confession usually gets a laugh or a knowing look from the person who helps me or an admission from someone standing near at the feed store that they also have trouble backing up a trailer.

But when I say, “I just don’t think I’m up to teaching VBS” or “I’d love to come to that event but I’ve reached my social quota this week” or “I’m still struggling with driving by that spot or eating at that restaurant” it’s often met with (at best) a quizzical look or (at worst) a comment about how I should be “better” by now.

And then I DO feel shamed.  I feel like I don’t measure up, like I’m not as valuable as the next person or that I have failed some cosmic test.

shame-is-the-intensely-painful-feeling-we-are-unloveable-brene-brown

You know what though?  That’s a reflection on other people’s lack of compassion and experience or their personal insecurity NOT a reflection of my worth.

It is really just fine for me to admit my limitations because EVERYONE has limitations.

I can’t lift a 250 lb barbell.  But I can whip up dinner for fifty people.  I can’t read Chinese but I can read Dr. Seuss with an accent and hit all the rhymes on cue.  I can’t run a marathon but I can work all day without complaining (most of the time).

I’m human (surprise!).    So are you.

brene brown vulnerablity sounds like truth

I have some limitations as a result of burying a child. You may have limitations because of age or disease or something else I don’t know about or can’t see.

That’s OK.

Let’s make a pact:  I’ll take you as you are and you can take me as I am.  I’ll help you when you need help and you can help me when I need help.

We will extend grace and receive grace as needed to make life work.

Isn’t that really the essence of human community?

brene brown we dont have to do it alone

Head Above Water (Most of the Time)

Some days I go gangbusters-rip through my “To Do” list from top to bottom before lunchtime.

And some days I can barely get up out of the chair in the morning for a second cup of coffee.

It depends.

Most times I have no idea what throws me into a tailspin.

Oh, I’m prepared for the “circle the date on the calendar days” like Mother’s Day (coming up!), Dominic’s birthday, his heaven day and the holidays. But there are random, not-special-occasion-days that plunge my head under a grief wave that I did not see coming.

Maybe it’s the smell of cut grass through an open window or the sound of a motorcycle thrumming at the end of our lane or the sight of trees full of leaves (again-another season he isn’t here).  I really don’t know.

The drowning feeling may last five minutes or five hours.  All I can do is go with it and hope the wave spits me out sooner rather than later.

And they DO pass.

My heart is always tender, always aware of missing Dominic.  But it is better able to join in laughter and celebration than it was even six months ago.

I no longer feel as if I am drowning every moment of every day with only a gasp of air now and then.

Instead I feel like I’m swimming-tired and often out of-sight of shore-but managing most of the time to keep my head above water.

Grief waves come.  They will always come.  I have to endure the choking, sputtering, frightening, drowning feeling when they do.

But they are not the only thing I feel now.

And for that, I am very grateful.

be-thankful-for-today-change-in-one-moment

 

Plagiarism

I write because it’s important to me and because I want to share freely what I feel God is teaching me in this Valley of the Shadow of Death.

I don’t have affiliate links on my blog, don’t sell books, posters or merchandise and have no plans to do so.

But I am jealous of the content I produce.  Not jealous because I think it is of high value but jealous because the words are wrung from ny heart each evening to be posted the next morning.  Jealous because they reflect MY experience, expose MY heart and contain details of MY journey.

In all the time I’ve been sharing, I have never had a post stolen, to my knowledge.  Until the other day when I found another blogger had re-blogged my post, “International Bereaved Mother’s Day” and given credit (appropriately) to where she had found it-on a Facebook page.  

I followed the link and yep, there it was-MY post, copied and pasted changed-only to exclude Dominic’s name and replace it with “child”.  Even the graphic I chose was used.  

I contacted the page and they have agreed to correct the post and add the link to the blog. I appreciate that.  

But in responding to my concerns, the page administrator indicated that it had been found and reposted from another page ( I don’t know which one).  And that upsets me.  

I know social media is risky business and that I can’t stop anyone from doing whatever they want to once I hit “publish”.  But I would ask that in this community of bereaved parents we show one another the respect anyone deserves and honor our individual contributions, whatever they may be.

Taking the words of another and passing them off as your own is plagiarism.  It is wrong and it is hurtful.  

I will keep writing and risking but now I’m on guard and I hate that.  

If you are a regular reader/poster/sharer I ask that you help me watch for this in the future.

I want people to share.  

That’s the purpose of writing-that one more heart my be encouraged or strengthened for another day in this Valley.  So share away!

But please do it honestly 🙂 ❤

Repost: Love Doesn’t End

I know that others want desperately me to be “better”.  They want me to be happy and carefree and back to the Melanie they knew before child loss.

And not just for their sake, for mine too.  

It’s hard to watch someone you care about in pain.

But my reality has been forever changed.

Read the rest here:  Love Doesn’t End

International Bereaved Mother’s Day

International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States.  This year it’s Sunday, [May 4, 2025].

I didn’t even know such a day existed until I was a mom that needed it.

For those of us who have children in heaven, setting aside a day to acknowledge that unique mother/child relationship is helpful.

Traditional Mother’s Day is meant to be a time of celebration.  A day when children send cards or flowers or give gifts to honor their mom and let her know that years spent pouring into their lives are appreciated.

Lots of church pews and restaurant tables are filled with family as children come home to be with mom.

But Dominic can’t come home.

That makes Mother’s Day complicated for me.  

It means that while I am thrilled to spend it with the children who can make it home, there is always a tinge of sadness to the celebration.  And I hate that. Because they deserve a whole-hearted mama. 

So I’m thankful this other day exists. Thankful for a day when I can think about and speak about and embrace the child that won’t be with me next weekend.

Because Dominic is STILL my son.  He is still very much a part of my heart.  And I need to be able to speak that aloud for others to hear.  

Some mamas will be drawing or painting hearts on their hands and writing their missing child’s name inside as a beautiful outward testimony to an inward reality.  Every day we carry our missing child in our hearts.  

international bereaved mothers heart brave and courageous

So if you know a bereaved mama, give her a hug Sunday.

Make time and give space for her to share.  

And then listen, love and lift her up.  

still choose you

Flashback

I bend down and bump my head against memories.

“Mama, look at THAT!”

“Have you ever seen one of those?”

“Is it true toads give you warts?  He lives under that rock.  Don’t move it-let him live there because he eats bugs!”

“Why is the tail blue?  What happens when it breaks off?”

Young boys found toads and luna moths, blue-tailed skinks and lizards  Older boys hid with air-soft guns to ambush the other team. Young men changed oil and car parts.

And one summer a laughing Dominic lifted me high in the backhoe bucket so I could paint the top trim of the house.

Synapses fire and lightning flashes through my brain in seconds.  ONE corner of my house-all this.

Every room holds memories.  Every footfall echoes past days.  Every window frames some precious vignette in my mind’s eye.

Inescapable.

Most days I’ve learned to turn down the volume.  But today it would not be denied.

And I think, “How would I have survived those precious, precious years if I had known what was coming?”

Thank God I didn’t.

 

 

Repost: You Can Only Hold On To What You Refuse To Let Go Of

I wrote this post after hearing a radio interview in which the guest said, “You can only hold onto what you refuse to let go of” in reference to clinging to what was truly important in life.

It struck a chord deep in my heart because as the weeks turn to months and then to years, I’m realizing I must hold onto every bit of Dominic that I can.

Because no matter how much I wish it were different, time has a way of washing our minds clean of things we don’t cling to with both hands.

Those hours before I planted one last kiss on my son’s forehead, I held his hand.  

I nodded at the people filing past to pay their respects with my arm tucked behind me, desperate to cling to my child.

Read the rest here:  You Can Only Hold On To What You Refuse to Let Go Of