Here in the last days before Christmas, the darkest days of the year, my grieving heart longs for light.
In some ways the busy-ness of the holiday season pushes the pain of missing my son to the background–a mind can only entertain so many ideas at one time.
But the activity and constant barrage of demands and conversations exhausts me and makes me more vulnerable to the moments when grief rolls full force over my soul like an ocean wave.
I am more sensitive to the chasm between me and those who have not buried a child.
It’s been five plus years since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
And while I’ve grown stronger and better able to carry the load of grief, the missing never ends.
I cannot become accustomed to photos that don’t include one of my children. I can’t set aside the sense that someone is absent from the table. It still seems unreal and unnatural for there not to be presents under the tree with Dom’s name on them. It is absolutely impossible for me to tick off the current ages of my kids without a pause for the age Dominic should be, but isn’t.
Now missing Dominic on one side of life is bookended by missing my mama on the other.
Sure, it’s perfectly natural and orderly for our parents to leave this life before us.
But it isn’t painless.
As a matter of fact, it is very, very painful.
I miss the generational space between me and eternity. I miss Mama’s voice, her silly stories, her peculiar habits and stubborn nature. I miss seeing her in the chair that was her daily perch these past two years. I miss the way she piddled with her food always declaring, “I eat everything on my plate” when she knew good and well she didn’t.
My mama, Patty Hart, and me as a baby.
Our circle is smaller this year.
When we gather for opening presents and enjoying the Christmas feast there will be two people absent.
My heart will always mark the space where Mama and Dominic SHOULD be.
My empty nest means I’m rarely crazy busy even around the holidays.
I no longer have to fit in shopping whenever I can manage it because little eyes might be watching or Christmas choir performances and church programs fill the calendar.
No.
Most of my shopping is online and I don’t even have to worry about whisking gifts off the porch before anyone sees them.
It would be helpful if the world could just stop for a day or a week (or a year!) when your heart is shattered by the news that one of the children you birthed into this world has suddenly left it.
But it doesn’t.
And immediately all the roles I have played for decades are overlaid by a new role: bereaved mother. Except instead of being definitive or even descriptive, this role is more like a foggy blanket that obscures and disorients me as I struggle to fulfill all the roles to which I’ve become accustomed.
One of the things I struggle with since Dominic ran ahead to heaven is this: is every detail of history planned by God? Or are there general outlines filled in by human choices (good and bad) and leading ultimately to God’s working out HIS story within OUR stories?
How do I reconcile God’s sovereignty and my free will?
Even in the absence of all out war (emotional, physical or spiritual) most of us dwell in a kind of no-man’s-land where we might not fear for our lives, but we are not exactly content and satisfied.
And in the world of afterloss, peace seems like a fairy tale promise best relegated to children’s stories and Hallmark movies.
But God knows my heart. He knows my pain. He has made a way for me to experience peace even here, even now.
It’s not the “and they lived happily ever after” peace where every little thing is tied up in a neat package with a perfect bow.
As the [sixth] Christmas without Dominic rapidly approaches, I am pondering the question: “Why, oh why, is Christmas so hard?”
I think I’ve figured out at least a few reasons why.
For me, probably THE biggest reason Christmas is hard is because it throws off the routine I depend on to shepherd my heart through a day. It’s easiest for me to manage when I have at least a couple of hours of quiet time each morning. I need those silent moments to let my heart feel what it needs to feel, to cry if I must and to orient my thoughts after, once again, “remembering” that Dominic isn’t here.
It’s not a grief anniversary or a holiday or a birthday or any other identifiable grief trigger.
But I have cried. A lot.
Life refuses to pause, to take a break, to stop plowing forward even though I’m worn out and begging for a moment to catch up, catch my breath, figure out how to keep going.
No matter how well I plead my case it seems there’s no reprieve.
The gap between how I wish things would go and how they actually proceed grows wider each day.
I’m not angry.
I’m defeated.
Tomorrow is another day and I look forward to new mercies with the sunrise.
More than five years after Dominic’s departure for Heaven, I’m having to regather my thoughts and relearn my lessons this December.
Mama’s death, along with a multitude of other stressors has plunged me deep into despondency and despair.
My heart is nearly as fragile in this, my sixth season of holidays, as it was in the first. So I’m trying hard to remind myself of how to make it through.
Maybe this is your first Christmas or maybe it’s your tenth or twentieth. However many years you’ve faced and survived, I pray this post might fortify your spirit one more time.
With love, Melanie ❤
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:
thelifeididntchoose 