You can’t hold your breath forever.
But when you first learn your child is dead you want to–oh, how you want to.
I don’t know if it was defiance or hope that made me certain that if I could just stop breathing, I could freeze time.
Read the rest here: Hallelujah is an Exhale
I was absolutely overwhelmed in those first days.
Cars, cars, cars filled my long driveway and front yard.
People spilling out like ants scrambling after the hill is disturbed.
Oh, our hill was disturbed-knocked wide open by that deputy’s visit. Phone calls to let others know. Phone calls from people who couldn’t get in touch with him and were just checking “in case something had happened”.
It had happened.
It. HAD. happened.
After the customary ceremony and handshaking and food, the cards flooded in. Some with hand-written heartfelt messages of, “praying for you”, “we are so very sorry”, “we love you”. Some with pre-printed poems that absolve the sender of the need to find words for things for which there are no words.
My son is dead. What can you say to that?
And then the silence. The morning that I woke up to realize I had done all I ever could do for Dominic. My last act was to find his body a resting place and pray his soul to heaven.
He was home.
I was left in a strange country filled with landmarks I no longer recognized and a language I no longer understood.
Who comes into that?
Not many. Only a few brave souls stick around for the after-only a few true friends keep calling and coming and caring for the long haul.
Because sitting with me in my grief, listening to me question my faith, keeping company with uncertainty and loss of control is frightening. It takes great self-control to simply be present and not try to say something or do something to try to fix the unfixable.
If it could happen to MY family, it could happen to theirs. And no one wants to think of that unless they have to.
So many leave.
Not immediately and not flamboyantly. They just drift away like unmoored sailboats caught in the rising winds of life and busyness and school plays and church socials.
My personal tragedy is a footnote to their life journal-and who reads footnotes?
But there are a few who purpose to make my burden their burden.
A few who call and write and text and message on the important dates like when he died, his birthday, Christmas, Easter. Even fewer who call and write and text and message just because-just because they heard a song or saw a sunset or remembered for a moment that there is a mama out there who carries this grief 24/7.
I have no idea how Jesus will reward His followers when they make it Home. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the ones who choose to run in when others run away will receive a crown. Because their faithful love in the dark places brings life and light to hurting hearts.
And isn’t that the essence of the gospel message?
You are not alone.
You are loved.
There is a way forward.
When you have exhausted all your own resources, God has made a way where there was no way. Even when you can’t take a step on your own-especially when you can’t take a step on your own-Jesus will carry you.
The ones who stay sing the gospel song to my heart.
They remind me that Jesus hasn’t forgotten.
Our family has never been the “go somewhere for the holidays” sort. We tend to stick close to home, to what’s familiar, to routine and regular bedtimes.
But lately life has thrown us a number of curveballs. And we are learning to swing at them instead of just letting them lob past us.
So just after Christmas, the four of us that were together in Alabama took a drive down to Florida to spend time with our oldest son and his wife in their new home.
We spent New Year’s Eve on a windy dog beach enjoying waves and walks and friendly strangers whose mutts came over to sniff ours.
Seafood and people watching at a nearby restaurant sitting outside in the breezy cool topped off a lovely day.
I’m learning to live with Dominic’s absence.
I’m (almost) used to photographs of my three surviving children documenting adventures that don’t include his smiling face and raucous antics. I’m trying to recapture the joy of his life and not dwell as much on the fact and circumstances of his death.
I can look forward a little further on a calendar. I can plan a bit more. My heart finds some satisfaction again in hosting friends and family for special occasions or no occasion at all.
In a word, I’m “better”.
Not healed-never healed (past tense)-until heaven.
But oh, so thankful for the days I have to spend with the family I have left.
I don’t know if Dominic can see us from where he is, but if he can’t, we’ll have lots to tell him when we get there.
One day closer.
The funny thing about New Year’s resolutions is that they are pretty much the same, year after year. We all have particular struggles and the turning of the calendar seems like the perfect moment to commit to action to try to overcome them.
But most of us fail miserably and find ourselves back at precisely the point from which we started, regardless of our best efforts to change.
Read the rest here: New Year’s Resolutions
The world is stunned by the deaths of Carrie Fisher at 60 and her mother Debbie Reynolds just one day later.
And it should be.
Carrie’s death was undoubtedly hastened by a combination of mental illness that led to addictive behavior that led to physical damage that made her a likely candidate for the early heart attack that took her life.
Each of those contributory factors run amok in our society-often undiagnosed or untreated because of the stigma attached to them. She was rich, famous and had lots of resources available to her yet was still unable to escape the clutches of addiction until late in life.
Debbie Reynolds died of a broken heart. The cause of death may be declared “stroke” but any mama who has buried a child knows full well that the moment they told her about Carrie, her heart gave up.
Mine did when I received the news of Dominic. I wanted nothing more than to lie down and die and make this awful, unbearable pain disappear.
But I didn’t. And neither do so very many other mothers and fathers-they keep going.
They sweep together the broken shards and bundle them up and choose to fight.
It’s hard. It’s tiresome. It’s discouraging and it takes every once of energy they can muster.
It saps the strength of the strongest among us.
I don’t wish child loss on anyone.
But I do wish that the shock and sorrow the world feels over the deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds might raise awareness of how child loss affects parents and siblings left behind.
Look around.
There are people in your own life living this horror. People who are still striving to carry on when they want to give up.
Take their hands,
encourage their hearts,
help them hold on.
Moving into December on the heels of a late Thanksgiving has taken me by surprise.
I thought I was better prepared for this third year without Dominic’s warm smile and quirky sense of humor to nudge me past treacly sweet Christmas songs into a more authentic celebration of the birth of Christ.
I was wrong.
While our weeks-long drought was broken by a wonderful and much-needed rain, the clouds also serve to emphasize the darkness of this time of year. They hide even the fainter light of an early setting sun and rush me straight into night.
One moment I can see clearly and the next I’m fumbling about for the light switch.
It’s been a rough week.
I dragged the small tree I’ve used these past two years from the attic full of hopes of a brighter and fuller season. I even got out some boxes of ornaments that we had tucked away since the children were small thinking I’d try to open a treasure box of memories that might dull the pain of missing.
It ended badly.
I’m boxing them back up today.
I Just. Can’t. Do. It.
I can’t even hang the newly purchased ornaments I’ve used the last couple years because now, they too, are reminders of how my heart is hurting, how my life is different, how my love for one of my children can no longer be expressed through special gifts and favorite cookies.
I think I’ll leave the tree empty this year. Lights only or maybe some handmade ornaments with the Names of Jesus.
Because that is really all I can hold onto right now.
The hem of His garment.
The hope of His promise.
The light of His love.
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; those that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined.
Isaiah 9:2 JUB
There is so. much. pressure. on grieving parents during the holidays!
A constant tension between the world celebrating the “season of joy” and a heart that carries great sorrow.
Perhaps more than any other time of the year we may ask the question:
Today I am 53–born one day after the assasination of JFK.
I always thought that would be the most signifcant marker of my otherwise quiet life.
But it isn’t.
I wrote this post last year and it still speaks for my heart: Jubilee
Something you hear early on in this grief journey is that one day you will find a “new normal”.
I hate that phrase.
Because while I have certainly developed new routines, new ways of dealing with life, new methods for quelling the tears and the longing and the sorrow and the pain-it is NOT normal.
It will never be “normal” for my son to be missing.
It will never be normal that he died out of order-at 23-in perfect health, full of promise, vibrant and strong. It is not normal that I now visit his body in a cemetery instead of his living presence in his own home. It is not normal that one chair at my table is always empty, his drums lie stacked and silent in my upstairs bedroom and the only image of his smiling face is on my wall instead of waving at me going down the driveway.
No. This is not normal.
Does life continue? Absolutely!
Are there moments of joy? Definitely!
I have three surviving children and they are full of life. I am proud of them not only for doing the things that grown-ups do but for doing them well while carrying this burden of grief.
But that’s not normal either.
They have lost a lifetime companion, a piece of themselves as well as their brother. Their circle is broken, undone and can never be made whole again this side of eternity.
The parents they knew are gone.
We are learning to live this way.
But it is NOT normal.
We’ve all been there-we ask a routine question and someone refuses to play the social game.
We say, “How are you?” and they answer honestly instead of with the obligatory, “I’m fine. You?”
Suddenly the encounter has taken an unexpected turn.
“Oh, no! I don’t know what to say,” you think.
It can end badly-both of you walking away uncomfortable and wary.
But it doesn‘t have to. There are ways to express compassion and empathy, words that can comfort and encourage.
What should you say when I, or anyone, shares their heart-their pain?
Brene Brown has done some amazing work in the area of shame, hurt, compassion and empathy. I’ve found it valuable in my own valley and also instructive in serving others in theirs.
This short video based on her work is incredibly helpful. Please take a moment to watch it: Brene Brown on Empathy
thelifeididntchoose 