Grieving parents often face the additional challenge of trying to help their surviving children process the death of a sibling.
While there are many factors that influence how a particular child understands and works through his or her grief, age at time of bereavement plays a significant role.
Children’s grief can look very different than that of the adults around them.
And that grief may resurface later on as the child grows and matures, even long after the death of a loved one.
I try not to pull the “life’s short” or “you never know” card on people very often.
But there are lots of times I want to.
When you’ve said a casual good-bye to a loved one thinking it’s not that big of a deal only to find out the last time was The LAST Time, you learn not to let things go unsaid or unmended.
It’s never too late to begin the habit of speaking love, blessing and encouragement to important people in your life.
Even if it makes them (or you!) uncomfortable.
Maybe especially then.❤
I’m not sure when I began practicing this but I make a habit of telling people I love them even if it makes them uncomfortable.
I remember saying it to my granddaddy who never told anyone-asfar as I know-that he loved them.
I spoke it over each child as soon as she or he was laid in my arms.
Growing up, I closed every telephone conversation with, “I love you” and taught my husband to do the same.
I also try hard to tell people other important things right when I think of them, instead of “later”-whenever THATmay be.
I’m so, so glad I do and I did.
I have many regrets about Dominic’s too-soon departure from this life.
But I don’t have this one: Unspoken words of love and affirmation.
The last time he was home, it was nearing final exams and I felt like I needed him to know how very proud I was of him and how very much I admired the man he had become. So I stopped him as he was leaving, turned his strong shoulders to face me square, and looked him in the eye to give him words of blessing.
I didn’t get to hold his hand as he left this life.
But I’m confident as he breathed his last, he knew he was loved.
Don’t waitto tell the people that are importantto you that they ARE important to you.
Don’t save words for “next time”, “later” or “when we get together again”.
I think often about the things my children know that others don’t have to know.
The fact that life is precious, short and never guaranteed no matter how young or healthy you may be.
The reality that doing everything right or keeping your nose clean or staying “prayed up” doesn’t guarantee you’ll be spared from death, destruction or devastation.
It’s true that several generations ago folks grew up knowing all these things as a matter of course. But we’ve forgotten so much of this with antibiotics, life extending interventions, emergency medicine and abundant food, water and other resources.
I never interact with my earthbound kids without thinking about all the ways we are changed because death has invaded our home and our lives.
❤ Melanie
My youngest son worked hard to retrieve some precious digital photos from an old laptop.
Being very kind, he didn’t tell me that we might have lost them until he was certain he had figured out a way to get them back.
So he and I had a trip down memory lane the other evening.
It was a bumpy ride.
Because for every sweet remembrance there was an equally painful realization that Dominic would never again be lined up alongside the rest of us in family pictures.
The British have a saying, “mind the gap” used to warn rail passengers to pay attention to the space between the train door and the platform. It’s a dangerous opening that one must step over to avoid tripping, or worse.
I was reminded of that when I looked at those old pictures-my children are stair steps-averaging two years apart in age.
But now there will always be a gap between my second and fourth child-a space that threatens to undo me every time we line up for a picture.
I cannot forget that Dominic SHOULD be there. I will never, ever be OK with the fact that he is missing.
To be honest, I miss him most when the rest of us are all together. The space where he should be is highlighted because all the others are filled in.
No one else may notice, but I have to step carefully to keep from falling into a dark hole.
I jumped from the high dive at three years old-that belly flop hurt but I survived and it fueled my adventurous spirit.
I rode horses other people didn’t like-was bucked off a time or two but no broken bones so that didn’t slow me down.
My dad had an open cockpit biplane and we flew aerobatics over Colorado Springs-fanny pack parachute strapped to my butt “just in case”-upside down and round and round. We never needed to jump and landed safely every time.
Never been afraid of speaking in public.
Never been afraid of strangers.
Never been afraid of heights.
UNTIL.
Until I had children and then I was afraid of nearly EVERYTHING for them.
I didn’t want any harm to befall these tiny humans carrying my heart outside my body. I wanted to protect them, to cushion them, to wrap them in a bubble so that nothing bad ever happened to them.
As they grew, I learned to let go- alittle at a time. I learned you can’t prevent the scrapes and bruises and heartaches and disappointments of life. And I learned that a little “harm” made them stronger.
I forgot most of my fears and was again unafraid.
UNTIL Dominic was killed.
And all the old fears came rushing back.I wanted to lock my surviving children in a room and slip food under the door. I HAD to keep them safe.
Only I can’t. It is not possible for me to keep. them. safe.
All I could possibly do is make them afraid.I could make them afraid of choosing their hearts’ desires in an attempt to prevent more pain for mine.
I won’t do that.
I will not allow part of Dominic’s legacy to be that our family lives afraid.
NO.
I choose to release my children and grandchildren to make the best choices they can and to live boldly and unafraid.
Before my mother’s illness and death, before the frighteningly early arrival of our little Captain and the less-frightening and less early arrival of his brother, LT, before an overseas deployment, a destructive hurricane, Covid19, and too many other stressful events to list.
I have watched my kids meet every challenge-sometimes with grace, sometimes with grit, sometimes with both.
They are different people than they would have been if Dominic still walked beside us. They know things their peers can’t even guess.
We all lost so much when we lost Dom. But we still have each other.
And that’s a treasure.❤
I never thought it possible to love you more than I already did.
But I do.
Your brother’s untimely departure has opened my heart in a whole new way to the glory that is your presence. It has made me drink you in like water in the desert.
Today is National Siblings Day. It’s fun for those of us who haven’t had to bury a brother or sister to post silly photos and memories.
But for those who have lost a sibling today is bittersweet.
Want to know how to love someone who is missing a brother or sister?
Ask them for a favorite memory. Tell them you recognize it hurts. Don’t dismiss their grief and rush to ask about a surviving mother or father.
Love them. Be there.
❤ Melanie
I am always afraid that Dominic will be forgotten.
I’m afraid that as time passes, things change and lives move forward, his place in hearts will be squeezed smaller and smaller until only a speck remains.
Not in my heart, of course.
Or in the hearts of those closest to him, but in general-he will become less relevant.
But he is not the only one who can be forgotten. I am just as fearful that my living children will be forgotten.
I remember as a young mother of four working hard to keep my kids safe.
Next to fed and dry (two still in diapers!) that was each day’s goal: No one got hurt.
It never occurred to me THEN to add: No one got killed.
Because the most outlandish thing I could imagine was one of them falling or touching a hot stove and us having to rush to the emergency room.
Then I became a mother of teens and one by one they acquired a driver’s license and motored away from our home.
That’s when I began to beg God to spare their lives.
One particularly frightening test was when all four went to Louisiana-my eldest driving and the rest in the van with her. I made them call me every hour and tell me they were OK. It was the first time I realized that I could lose every one of them in a single instant should they crash-all my eggs in one basket.
I was glad when that day was over. Although the irony is they were no “safer” at the end of those 24 hours than they were at the beginning.
Because what I know now, but didn’t know then is this: There is no such thing as“safe”.
Not the way we like to think of it-not the way we add labels to devices, seat belts to cars, helmets to everything from bicycles to skateboards. Of course we should absolutely take precautions!Many lives are saved by them every single day.
But. BUT…
Life is more random than we want to admit.And there is no defense against random.
There is no way to screen for every underlying physical abnormality, no way to drive so well you can stop the drunk or inattentive driver from plowing through a stop sign, no way to anticipate every foolish choice a young person might make that ends in disaster instead of a funny story.
My first response when Dominic died driving his motorcycle was that I wanted my surviving sons to sell theirs. They did so out of respect for me. Neither of them wanted their mama to have to endure a second knock on the door and the same message delivered twice.
I receive it as a sacrifice offered in love from them.
Because it was.
Since Dominic left us almost [eleven] years ago, I have had to deal with my desperate need to keep my living children safe.
And it is a real struggle.
Each child is involved in a career that includes inherent risk. None of them are foolhardy, but they are exposed-perhaps more than many-to potential bad actors and dangerous circumstances.
This branch fell just minutes after my son was standing in that spot splitting logs.
How I long for those days when I could tuck everyone in, turn out the lights and sleep soundly because all my chicks were safe inside my own little coop! How I wish the only danger I thought about or knew about was a bump on the head from hitting a coffee table!
How my heart aches for one more moment of blissful ignorance!
But I can’t live in some imagined water color past. I have to live in the world as it is.
So I remind my heart that safe is an illusion-no matter where we are. Life is not living if it’s only about preserving breath and not about making a difference.
I first shared this post in 2016 when we had muddled through the first two holiday seasons after Dominic left us and were headed for a third.
Now facing our eleventh, there are some things that have changed a lot (adding grandchildren and losing my mama) and some things that remain the same (the ongoing struggle to balance everyone’s needs and expectations with the reality of sorrow).
I still find the principles I outlined years ago to be the best way to approach the season. We certainly don’t always get it right but we continue to strive to honor one another, to honor the true meaning of Christmas and to honor Dominic.
❤ Melanie
How do I honor the child for whom memories are all I have and love well the children with whom I am still making memories?
That’s a question I ask myself often.
And it is especially difficult to answer for celebrations and holidays, special events and birthdays.
I’m thankful a day is set aside to focus on children’s grief because it’s so easy for their grief to be overlooked, underrated and even dismissed.
Grown ups often tout the line, “Kids are resilient. They will adapt.”
And while it’s true that from theOUTSIDEit might look like a child is OK or even thriving, on the INSIDE she may be curled up into a ball or he may be angry and resentful.
thelifeididntchoose 