Category: children

Life’s Blows

Child loss is often sibling loss.

It reshapes a life, a marriage and a family.

It makes it harder to absorb the blows life continues to throw.

My husband, myself and our earthbound children have learned to expect the worse and be delightfully surprised when it doesn’t come to pass.

❤ Melanie

2016: The Forgotten Ones: Grieving Siblings

The Forgotten Ones: Grieving Siblings

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.

Read the rest here: The Forgotten Ones: Grieving Siblings

2017: Gold Medal in Wrestling [Thoughts]

Gold Medal in Wrestling [Thoughts]

I’m driving down the highway listening to the morning news brief.  A quick mention that Paris is likely to get the bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics draws my attention.

I begin to do the math-when are the next Olympics? Oh, yes-2020.  Three years away.

Double the time I’ve been without Dominic.

Read the rest here: Gold Medal in Wrestling [Thoughts]

2018: Here’s the Post I’ve Wanted to Write…

My husband was sued for discrimination by a disgruntled employee. The whole thing started heating up just after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven in 2014.  The suit was filed just before Christmas 2015.

We’ve been living with this awful thing hanging over our heads for nearly 3 years.  Thankfully, the truth prevailed and my husband was exonerated.

But it took a huge toll on both of us and on our whole family.

I sat in a courtroom a few days ago feeling nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

I was waiting for a verdict that had the potential to change the rest of my life but I could not muster a single feeling.

Because when you’ve watched your child’s body lowered beneath the ground, there’s really not much else the world can do to you.

Read the rest here: Here’s The Post I’ve Wanted To Write But Couldn’t Before Today

2019: Your Word Revives Me

Scripture Journal Challenge: Your Word Revives Me

I realize not every parent enters child loss with the same reverence for Scripture and trust in the promises of God that I had when Dominic left us.

So it may be hard for your heart to believe the words we’ve been reading and studying this month. It may be near impossible for you to feel that God is a good Father, that He has not abandoned you and that He has a purpose and plan for your life, even here in this awful Valley.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that while I still have faith, it’s a tested faith. I have dragged every single thing I believed before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven, held it up and scrutinized it in the cold light of loss.

Read the rest here: Scripture Journal Challenge: Your Word Revives Me

Bereaved Parents Month 2023: Life Grows Around Grief

When days become months and months become years it’s hard to explain to others how grief is both always present but not always in focus.

I’ve struggled to help those outside the loss community understand that the absolute weight of the burden is precisely the same as when it fell on me without warning that dark morning.

Dominic’s absence, if anything, has seeped into more places, changed more relationships and influences more choices than it did seven years ago when I was only just beginning to comprehend what a world without him would look like.

Read the rest here: Life Grows Around Grief

Bereaved Parents Month 2023: Surviving Siblings

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.

Read the rest here: Sibling Grief Reactions By Age Group

Child Loss: Fear Sits Close to the Door of My Heart

I was reminded today how close fear sits to the door of my heart and to the door of the hearts of many bereaved parents.

Once again a mom shared an experience of not being able to get in touch with a surviving child and how that quickly spiraled downward to a frenzy of fear.

To some it may seem like an overreaction. But to those of us for whom the one thing you think won’t happen, HAS happened, it made perfect sense.

Read the rest here: If It Happened Once, It Could Happen Again

Still Minding the Gap: Always Missing One

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.

Read the rest here: Mind the Gap

Family Grief: Child Loss and Sibling Loss

Child loss is also often sibling loss.  

In addition to their own heartache, bereaved parents carry the heartache of their surviving children.  

The family everyone once knew is now a family no one recognizes.  Hurting hearts huddle together-or run and hide-and it is so, so hard to find a way to talk about that pain. 

Read the rest here: Grief is a Family Affair

My Tenth Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother

When it first happened all I could think about was getting through a minute, then a day and then all the decisions and days leading up to a funeral or memorial service.  

There’s no road map.  

Even when others come alongside (and many, many did!) there’s just no easy way to navigate that part of the journey.

And then I realized that in addition to all the “regular” days that absolutely, positively  break your heart, I had to forge a path through “special” days.

It was overwhelming!

Mother’s Day was especially challenging that first year.  Our loss was fresh and we’d had to acknowledge and celebrate two graduations and a wedding was about a month away.  How in the world could I honor my living children and also safeguard my broken heart?

We muddled through by having Mother’s Day at my daughter’s apartment co-hosted by some of her sweetest and most compassionate friends.  Not a lot of fanfare, but good food, good company and a quiet acknowledgment of Dom’s absence but also my living children’s presence.

It was a gift. 

This is my tenth Mother’s Day.  Every year is different.  Every year presents new challenges and every year things change.  

Since discovering there is an International Bereaved Mother’s Day my heart has taken advantage of having a day to think about and honor Dominic and then another day to think about and honor my living children.

That helps.  

I wrote this post six years ago but can’t really improve on it so I’ll share it again.  I pray that each heart who finds Mother’s Day hard will lean in and take hold of the hem of His garment. 

It’s really the only way.  

Read the rest here:  Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother

Mother’s Day 2023: From The Child Not Here on Mother’s Day

I post this around Mother’s Day every year since my daughter, Fiona, wrote it in the voice of her brother who is in Heaven.

It helps my heart sort the mixed emotions that this day stirs up.

I’m not ONLY a bereaved mother. I’m a mother and grandmother of earthbound children too.

I’m grateful for all of them. So very, very grateful.

❤

Melanie

My daughter, Fiona, wrote this several years ago, in the voice of her brother who ran ahead to heaven.    

I am so thankful for her and so sorry that she has gained this wisdom at great cost.

Some of the bravest, most loving women I know are those who have suffered one of life’s greatest losses. I hope you know how truly beautiful you are. 

“Dear Mom,

Read the rest here: From The Child Not Here on Mother’s Day.

Holidays Are Often Hard-What To Do About Mother’s Day?

This will be the tenth Mother’s Day since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Every year has been different because families continue to grow and change and the world turns and life marches on.

Every year presents unique challenges and particular paths that must be navigated anew. It’s always an emotional roller coaster.

Read the rest here: Holidays Can Be Hard-What To Do About Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day 2023: A Letter to My Living Children

I shared this for the first time six years ago.

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.

Read the rest here:  A Letter To My Living Children*