Category: child loss

Pickles, Jelly Jars and Tears

I first shared this five years ago so it may shock some folks that while I have finally tossed most of the things in my fridge that once belonged to Dominic, I’ve got a giant bottle of hot sauce I’m still using.

Every time I add spicy flavor to chili I think of him.

I’m not looking forward to the day it runs out because it will be one more link dissolved between the living son I knew in the flesh and the memories I have to settle for now.

❤

My parents live in another state so I call each morning just to check in and say hello.

We usually chat about what we have planned for the day, what we did the day before and share any important family updates.

Yesterday my dad mentioned that he had been to the grocery store, came home and when putting away the food he bought decided to clean out his refrigerator.  He joked that he found some things from years ago tucked in the back where they’d been forgotten.

I laughed and said, “Yeah-I did that sometime last summer.”

And then my heart froze as I remembered another fridge I cleaned out three years ago.

I went on to say, “I threw out all the old stuff except what I took out of Dom’s fridge when we cleaned his apartment.”

And then the tears broke loose.

Read the rest here: Jelly Jars, Pickles and Tears

Inside One Grieving Mama’s Thoughts

Ninety miles an hour-that’s how fast my mind can go from here to there.

From what’s in front of me to what’s behind me.

From laughter to swallowing sobs.

We sit in a living room surrounded by toys and playing with children, talking about life and love and plans and people.  The little brown face that turns his eyes to mine looks so much like Dominic I have to suck in my breath.

Giggles.  Squeals.  Cars running up and down my arm and around my feet.

I will never see Dominic’s children. 

Read the rest here: A Peek Inside a Grieving Mother’s Thoughts

Mourning A Lost Future

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: Wisdom From C.S. Lewis

International Bereaved Mother’s Day-Open Letter to My Fellow Bereaved Moms

Dear Mama,

I know that you never-in your wildest imagination-thought you would need a day set aside for your broken heart and your empty arms.  

Who thinks when they learn a new life is growing inside that this same life might be cut short?  What heart is brave enough to consider the possibility? 

Yet here you are.  

I’m so, so sorry.  

But there are a few things I want you to know. 

Read the rest here: International Bereaved Mother’s Day: An Open Letter to my Fellow Sisters in Loss

International Bereaved Mother’s Day 2022

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.

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

Read the rest here: International Bereaved Mother’s Day

How My Heart Marks the Days

It’s different for every heart.

But each of us who know child loss have a season of grief.

It’s so much more than “just” the day our child left for Heaven.

For me, it starts in November and runs through the end of May-fully half of

every.

single.

year.   

Read the rest here: Season of Grief: How a Heart Marks the Days

You Are Absolutely, Positively Normal!

Do you want to know one of the most repeated questions in grief support groups?  

It is, “Am I normal?”

In the midst of great loss,

in the middle of reconstructing a life that includes a giant hole,

while struggling to place one foot in front of the other,

parents who have buried a child are often worried about whether what they feel and how they act is “normal”.

Grieving a child is a complex and life-long process as I wrote about here: Am I Normal?

I KNOW He’s Really Gone. But Still…


Even therapists get it wrong sometimes.

Especially therapists that only know what child loss is supposed to look like from books and lectures.

I understand how logical it seems that a parent should be able to accept his or her child is no longer alive. After all, most of us saw our child’s lifeless body and performed whatever rituals our hearts find most comforting.

We haven’t received a phone call, text, message or new photograph. Weeks, months and years pass and no word.

Of course this child is gone.

But a mama’s heart still hopes. Somewhere deep down there is a part of me that longs for connection to this child I carried, nurtured and loved.

So sometimes my heart will play tricks on me.

Read the rest here: Am I Refusing To Accept My Child Is Gone?

Yep. It’s STILL Complicated.

I first shared this post six years ago after a group of bereaved parents and I were talking about how things that used to be simple and straightforward simply weren’t anymore.

Things like the question, “How many kids do you have?”

Things like going to a movie or picking a place to eat out.

So. Many. Things.

Honestly, I thought it’d be less of a minefield by now-I mean it’s been eight years already! And while there ARE some things that I find easier, most of the things I talk about in this post are still hard.

❤

One of the things I’ve been forced to embrace in the wake of child loss is that 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.

Read the rest here: It’s Complicated

Walking With My Surviving Children Through Grief

One of the most challenging things I’ve had to do is walk alongside my surviving children in this Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Not only have they been forced to face and deal with death earlier than many people, they’ve also been forced to face and deal with the fallout for themselves and their family.

Sometimes I feel like an ineffectual first aid worker just trying to minimize damage and hopefully pass them off to a professional who can actually work on repairs and healing.

Other times I’m a young mama once again kissing boo-boos, applying bandages and invoking magical thinking to distract them from their oh, so very real wounds.

I’ve not done it perfectly or even adequately sometimes. But I’m trying.

❤

Bereaved parents often have several tasks before them in the days and months and years following the death of a child.

One of them is to help their surviving children navigate loss.

I have three earthbound children.  And they are grieving.

Their world changed in the same instant mine did.  Their hearts are broken too.

I found it hard to watch the pain I saw written on the faces of my kids.

Read the rest here: Helping My Children Walk Through Grief