It’s hard to watch since winning a medal is off the table. They lost their place in front when they took that awful tumble.
But we cheer them on-the limping athletes that manage to cross the finish line.
And we should.
Read the rest here: Not Giving Up-A Victory Worth Cheering
I can’t tell you how many people try to tell me what Dominic’s “legacy” is. They extol his positive virtues and comment on how many lives he touched in his short 23 years.
They want me to be consoled with the intangible, relational, immeasurable impact of his life on the lives of others.
Yet they continue to live as if their OWN legacy will be determined by the amount of stuff they acquire or the size of their retirement accounts or the money they leave behind for others to spend.
It can’t be both.
If my son’s life is worth remembering just because of who he was, the people he loved and how he lived, then EVERYONE’S life is worth remembering for the very same things.
Christmas is the one time a year when far-flung family members are often gathered around the same table. It’s an opportunity to make connections and build relationships.
So I ask myself, “Am I going to spend it talking about the weather and the news and other sundry things that won’t matter in a day, much less a year?”
OR, maybe I can choose to reach out, to ask deep questions, to make space for honest conversation and real sharing.
Maybe I can mend a broken relationship by offering a long-hoped-for apology, speaking aloud the offense and taking responsibility for the pain I’ve caused in the past.
Perhaps I can proclaim a REAL blessing-not just the one we memorized from grade school-over the food and over the heads of the people gathering to eat it.
Why am I glad they are there? TELL THEM!
Most of the presents under the tree will be consumed, broken, outgrown and tossed away one day. But meaningful words spoken in love and kindness will live forever in a person’s heart.
We all leave something behind.
We are all building a legacy.
This Christmas I’m asking myself, “What’s mine?”
I wrote this post almost a year ago after a discussion in online grief groups about our common experience of forgetting things, having trouble concentrating and losing words.
“Grief brain” is a real thing!
Stress of any kind makes it worse.
I used to be caught off guard when I’d go to special events as I’d stand there, dumbfounded, when trying to recall the name of the person who just walked into the room-especially if I needed to introduce them! Now I just ‘fess up and say, “I’m so sorry, my brain is on overload right now, could you tell me your name again?”
So for those among us who are wondering if they are going crazy, I’m posting this entry again.
I’m looking right at her.
I know her. In fact, I’ve known her for years. But please don’t ask me her name.
I have no idea.
Read the rest here: Grief Brain: It’s a Real Thing!
So many ways to be reminded of how hard it is to hold on in these days and weeks around Christmas.
If your heart is barely able to beat, the pressure to be “hap-hap-happy” can send you over the edge.
If your home is empty of cheerful voices, the constant barrage of commercials touting family togetherness can leave you feeling oh, so lonely.
Early sunsets and darker nights send feel-good hormones flying and leave a body aching for just a little relief from anxious and depressing thoughts.
When you think you can’t hold on, let go.
Let go of expectations-yours and other people’s.
Let go of traditions that no longer serve your heart or draw you closer to the Babe in the manger.
Let go of tons of baking or cooking or entertaining with perfect centerpieces and fragile china.
Let go of blasting Christmas music through the house.
Let go of shopping for the perfect gift or mailing all those cards.
Be still.
Light a candle in the darkness.
Sit quietly and see how even the faintest light can chase away the black of night.
And then hold your empty hands out to the God Who made you, the God Who loves you, the God Who longs to draw you to His heart and let Him fill you with hope.
There IS hope.
He came in the form of a Baby-weak and vulnerable just like us.
He KNOWS our pain.
He is not impressed with our busyness or our decorations or our presents piled high beneath the tree.
He sees the heart. He looks with mercy on a broken heart. He is the Healer of hearts.
He longs to heal yours.
As another 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.
Changing schedules and extra commitments mean that some nights I stay up later than usual and can’t manage to get out of bed in time to have those hours. Extra people in the house mean that they may get up and join me in the living room. While I love the company, I have to be honest and say I would love it more a little later in the day 🙂 ,
Another reason I struggle at Christmas is because all (almost all!) the family is together in one place. This may sound odd to anyone who hasn’t buried a child, but when every single person I care most deeply for is together, it highlights the space where Dominic SHOULD be but ISN’T.
Other times of the year we are more or less a full circle-as long as one or two others are missing, it kind of feels like maybe, just maybe, Dominic is away for awhile instead of away for the rest of my life. But when we are all gathered round the table or the tree or the fireplace, it is oh, so obvious that he isn’t here.
Buying presents and filling stockings I go down the list. I have to skip Dom because he won’t be here to open gifts or pull out his favorite candy from a Christmas sock. I can’t even mail him a package where he is. So I try to focus on the fact that his Christmas is the best one, because he is with the One Who IS Christmas.
But my heart still hurts, still yearns for one more hilarious morning when the camcorder won’t work or one of our sleepy young adults refuses to roll out of bed while the rest of us are waiting.
We are waiting now for a different kind of morning-one where the light dawns and never dims.
While I am in no way ashamed of the grief I carry-great love means great grief- I do try not to burden others with my tears at events or in places where smiles should rule. The Christmas season multiplies those occasions and calls for so. much. energy. just to maintain my “happy face” for the masses. It’s exhausting in a way only other grievers can truly understand.
And, of course, we celebrate Christmas in the US during what my grandmother used to call “the dark of the year”. Shorter days, longer nights means less time outside, less sunshine to generate the feel-good hormones I depend on to get me through each moment. When the nights come early and linger long, my mind has more time to ruminate on what was and what will never be again.
Finally, because Christmas is stressful for everyone for different reasons, people can just be a little harder to deal with-less flexible, more impatient, quicker to take offense or give it. All that emotional drama can overwhelm my heart in a flash-leaving me speechless, crying and anxious. It’s no one’s fault. It just is what it is.
For all these reasons-and dozens more-Christmas is an especially difficult time of year for this hurting heart.
So I try to be gentle to myself and to extend the same grace to ME that I extend to others.
I remind my heart that it is perfectly OK to turn down invitations when I just. can’t. go.
I lean into the Promise born in the manger-Emmanuel, God with us-and hold on with both hands.
Christmas is fast approaching so I’m posting this one last time. I hope it helps someone who is struggling to share how hard it can be to “make merry” when a heart is broken. ❤
I know it is hard. I know you don’t truly understand how I feel. You can’t. It wasn’t your child.
I know I may look and act like I’m “better”. I know that you would love for things to be like they were: BEFORE. But they aren’t.
I know my grief interferes with your plans. I know it is uncomfortable to make changes in traditions we have observed for years. But I can’t help it. I didn’t ask for this to be my life.
Read the rest here: Grief and Holidays:What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End [the Eternal One].” Revelation 22:13 AMP
Jesus, the eternal Son of the eternal Father, bookends all history.
Even though there are things that surprise me, there is nothing that surprises Him.
Read the rest here: Jesus: The Alpha & Omega
When the angel came to Mary and told her she was to be the mother of God’s Son, she was (rightly) confused.
Her first thoughts ran to what she knew and understood: children are conceived by the joining of man and woman, she was a virgin.
“How can this be?”
The angel Gabriel explained (sort of): “Your child will be conceived by the Holy Spirit. And as proof of God’s miraculous ability to do what He says He will do-your old relative, Elizabeth, is six months pregnant!” [loose personal paraphrase]
So Mary graciously bowed her heart to this strange thing God was doing in her and asking of her.
“I belong to the Lord, body and soul,” replied Mary, “let it happen as you say.” And at this the angel left her. (Luke 1:38 PHILLIPS)
She was willing, even though she could not possibly have understood all that would be asked of her in the end.
God did not give me any warning that He was about to take my life in another, very hard, very painful, horribly sad direction.
No angel explained to me what God was doing.
I didn’t have a chance to ask questions or beg for a different path.
I cannot change what HAS happened-Dominic is dead. But my heart attitude determines how I will REACT to what has happened.
I am faced with precisely the same decision Mary had to make: Will I trust God-Who cannot lie and Who will fulfill every promise-or do I turn my heart from Him and seek my own will and way?
I am not nearly as gracious as Mary. I have kicked against the goads and screamed, “Why???” at the sky.
I will still tell anyone who asks that I do not like this plan at all.
But I am learning to rest in the same truth that guided Mary’s heart.
I am God’s servant-His bondslave-and He is in control.
He may do with me as He pleases.
I remember the first year cell phones became common among my children’s friends.
We hosted an event at our home and I watched, amused, as the guests realized, one by one, that there was NO cell service out here in the country.
Cut off from their electronic connection to everyone not in attendance, they were forced to be fully present with those that were.
Some of them embraced the opportunity while others bemoaned the fact they had to carry on face-to-face conversations.
And when they found out we didn’t have cable TV, well, THAT was a whole other disappointment!
What seemed natural to me and my family was unusual and uncomfortable for most of them.
Being present takes effort.
It’s so much easier to listen with one ear while pointing the other toward Facebook, YouTube, music or some other distraction.
It’s a lot harder to sit quietly through the same story you’ve heard every Christmas. It requires self-discipline to lean in and love on that difficult aunt or uncle who can be so critical but is really so desperate for compassionate companionship. It is unnatural to lay aside our own desire to be the center of attention and make room for someone else instead.
But being present is the present only YOU can give.
And it is the present that others will remember long after the trinket you bought them has been lost or broken.
So put down the phone. Turn off the TV. Hide the remote and close the apps.
BE with your people. They, and you, are a gift.
Today is a treasure that will never be repeated.
Treat it that way.
I remember playing Monopoly as a kid and how much I treasured that “Get Out of Jail Free” card when I was lucky enough to draw it from the pile.
Because it meant that even if I landed in jail, I didn’t have to stay there.
As I walk this Valley of the Shadow of Death, I often wish there were cards like that for all sorts of seasons, places and situations. I can’t help them coming around, but I would love to be able to skip right over and move to the next thing.
Christmas feels like that this year.
Christmas is hard for all kinds of hearts for all kind of reasons. And unlike most other holidays that are only a DAY, the Christmas season drags on for weeks which makes it even harder.
Now, you know I’ve posted here about why I still put up a Christmas tree-because the lights remind me there is a limit to the darkness.
But, that said, I want to offer a “Get Out of Christmas Free” card to other hurting hearts who just can’t manage even a lighted tree this time of year.
Shake off the guilt. Wash off the worry. Step free of others’ expectations.
There is no biblical imperative to celebrate the birth of Christ. None.
And there is certainly no biblical imperative to dress up the celebration with all the cultural trappings we’ve added over centuries.
Furthermore, if you get right down to it, there is strong evidence that Jesus wasn’t born anywhere near December 25th.
So if your heart cannot bear the thought of one more holly, jolly song, one more hap-hap-happy get together, one more frenzied rush to the store for a forgotten present or pantry item-just choose to sit this one out.
It is possible to go through the month of December without caving in to consumerism or being guilted into celebrating when your heart’s not in it.
Close the blinds. Let the telephone go to voicemail. Fast from social media and turn off the TV.
The days will pass with or without your permission and January promises a fresh start.
It’s OK. I promise.
thelifeididntchoose 