Category: child loss

Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service: December 12, 2021

I love candles-always have.

I especially love them as the days get shorter and we creep toward the longest night of the year.

I love them more since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Every time I light a candle, I remind my heart that even the smallest light can chase the darkness.

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When hundreds, thousands and even millions of candles are lighted together, it does more than chases darkness, it undoes it.

Sunday, December 12, 2021 is the Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service (WCL) sponsored by The Compassionate Friends (TCF).

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Millions of parents and others will light a candle at 7:00 PM local time for one hour to honor sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and grandchildren gone too soon.

As the earth turns, a wave of light will sweep across the globe one time zone after another.

It’s natural for parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers to mark the light and life of one they miss.

It’s less natural for friends and extended family members to do so.

One of the greatest fears of every bereaved parent is that his or her child will cease to be remembered or that the light and life of a son or daughter will simply fade as time goes on.

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Year-end holidays accentuate the place where our children should be but aren’t. Merry making and picture taking emphasize the gap between grieving hearts and those untouched by death of a close loved one.

That’s why TCF has chosen THIS week for the annual WCL.

If you want a simple way to bless someone you know who lost a child, grandchild or sibling, a single candle and a quick picture or post on social media will do it.

My heart is always encouraged and strengthened when others take time to remember Dominic.

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Buy a candle.

Set an alarm on your phone.

Light up the night with us.

Together we will remember. Together we will chase the darkness. Together we will declare that our children are out of reach but not forgotten.

Never, ever forgotten. ❤



Frail and Feeble: Surviving Christmas

February, 1992 I came home from the hospital with our fourth baby and woke up the next morning to a house full of children ages infant to six.  I thought that would be the most stressful and challenging season of my life.

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I was wrong.

This season of grief has required more strength, more endurance and more faith than all the sleepless nights, harried days and craziness of homeschooling and nursing babies and changing diapers ever did.

Read the rest here: Surviving Christmas

Christmas 2021: 25 Ways to Give Holiday Hope to the Grieving


This is the eighth Christmas without Dominic. There really are no words to describe the intersection of holiday cheer and another milestone in this journey of child loss.

I’m not sad all the time-far from it. Often I am very, very happy.

But I will never stop missing him, missing the family we used to be and missing our blissful ignorance of how quickly and utterly life can change in an instant.

And I will never outgrow the need to have others remember him as well, to encourage my heart and the hearts of my family members and to help us make it through another year, another Christmas. ❤

Here are some great ways to do it:  25 Ways to Give Holiday Hope to the Grieving

Empty Hearts Can Be Filled

There is no shame in being hopeless and broken.

God loves the broken.  Christ came for the broken.  It’s the broken and breathless who long for the Spirit to blow life across their wounded hearts.

It’s the hopeless and fearful that run faster to the safety of their Shepherd.

It’s the worried and weary who are thankful for a Burden-bearer.

Christmas is the story of Hope entering the world, of Light shining forth in darkness, of Love overcoming death.

A heart has to be looking to find it.

A heart has to be desperate to believe it.

A heart has to be hungry to come to the table of everlasting bread.

Read the rest here: Qualified by Hopelessness: An Empty Heart Can Be Filled

Christmas 2021: What The Bereaved Need From Family and Friends

Dominic left us in April, 2014.

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 remains (I think) my most useful post: Grief and Holidays: What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

My Story is Not Tidy, But Neither is Christmas

It’s tempting to line up our friends and acquaintances in columns under headings of “perfect family”, “good christian”, “struggling addict” or “hopeless case”.  

When I label someone I justify my response-good or bad-and let myself off the hook for sharing the extravagant, unrestrained love God has shown to me.

The longer I live, the more people I meet, the more certain I am that the neat little categories we like to use are not very helpful.

If I decide they are “doing well” then they don’t need my help.

And if I decide they are “beyond hope” then why waste my time or effort?

Either way, I’m wrong.

Christmas is the story of God come down-Emmanuel-of Love reaching down into a dark and lonely world. It was hardly tidy, it was a Messy Christmas

Surviving December With a Broken Heart

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.

Read the rest here: How To Survive December With a Broken Heart

We Were Made For Life, Not Death

My children grew up surrounded by life and by death.

On our small farm they got to see puppies, kittens, goats, sheep and horses take their first breath. We watched turkeys and chickens hatch-struggling in that last great effort to throw off the shell.

And we also witnessed life’s end.

Every. time. it feels wrong.  Every. time.  it feels like defeat.

And it is–we were not made to die.

Read the rest here: We Were Not Made to Die

Christmas 2021: Why I Still Put Up a Christmas Tree

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?

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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.

So I didn’t.

Read the rest here: Why I Still Put Up a Christmas Tree

Christmas 2021: I Already Need a Break

I’m writing this on the first of December although it won’t be published until tomorrow, the second. I’m already tired and I haven’t even taken down Thanksgiving much less put up Christmas.

This past week has been full of unexpected twists, turns and surprises. I’m just not very good at navigating those curves like I used to be. I can white knuckle through them but it takes a lot out of me.

Thankfully, none of the worst case scenarios played out and my family enjoyed some sweet times of fellowship and celebration.

But I’m pooped.

I’m often caught between what I wish I could be and what I actually am.

I want so much to be the mom that makes sparkling memories instead of the mom who muddles through. But I can’t quite bridge the gap.

I honestly don’t think it matters how long it’s been since your child has left this earth, it’s always hard and each year presents unique challenges. The one thing that remains the same is my need for grace-to extend it to others and to have them extend it to me.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.

So for the next several days I’m going to repost some of what I’ve written in the past few years about surviving the holidays.

Here’s the first one: Grief and Post-Holiday Exhaustion