Each day I am reminded by sights, smells, sounds and memories that Dominic is in Heaven and not here.
But there are moments and seasons when his absence is particularly strong-when I can’t breathe in without also breathing a prayer, “Father, let me make it through this minute, this hour, this day.”
And that’s when I need grace-from family, friends and strangers.
Read the rest here: A Little Extra Grace
It is kind of a catchy saying to plaster across a Christian school’s gymnasium wall.
I know the one who decided to put it there meant well. But “I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength” is absolutely NOT about lifting weights, running an extra lap or hitting a ball out of the park.
No. No. NO.
Can we just look at it in context, please?
I’m glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—happy that you’re again showing such strong concern for me. Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me. You just had no chance to show it. Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. I don’t mean that your help didn’t mean a lot to me—it did. It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles.
Phillipians 4::12-14 MSG
Paul was thanking friends for their concern and aid. But he didn’t want them to think he was desperately needy. He was assuring them that because he had found utter fulfillment in Christ and through Christ he could be content no matter his outward circumstances.
But there is something else here too-another tidbit overlooked in our desire to lift verses out of context.
While Paul was content in his circumstances, while he was at peace and settled in his soul, he was also deeply grateful that his friends had remembered him. He was encouraged that they had sent aid and lifted prayers and inquired as to his well-being.
Being content does not preclude discouragement.
I can feel both deep peace and experience confusion over my present circumstances.
It’s just then that I need faithful friends to remind me that I’m not alone and I’m not abandoned. That is precisely the moment my spirit cries out for compassionate companionship.
This life is not meant to be lived alone-even in a prison cell.
It’s meant to be lived in community with others who come alongside and call courage to our hearts.
If you are a bereaved parent and can fly,
drive
or walk to Hot Springs, Arkansas October 6-7
you will want to make the journey.
April Wendland, a bereaved mama with a heart to reach others with hope and love has organized a conference just for us.
And it’s *FREE* to bereaved parents.
From the website:
“THROUGH THIS VALLEY is a faith based conference designed BY bereaved parents, FOR bereaved parents.
We know the deep pain. We know the longing.
We know the questions. We know the heartache.
But we’ve also found some healing. We’ve found some peace for our hearts.
We’ve found some answers.
And we understand the Healer in new & grateful ways.
It is our desire to share what we’ve learned with other bereaved parents who are searching for answers. And being together with others who have gone through similar experiences somehow gives us all a little more strength & comfort too. You are not alone. There is hope. This conference will change the lives of those who have open hearts & ears to hear.
There is no charge to the bereaved parents for the THROUGH THIS VALLEY conference.
All speakers, attendees & most staff are bereaved parents.”
I’m going.
Wanna join me there?
Click here for more information or to register: Through This Valley
I know I’m not the only one who carries a calendar in my head that threatens to explode like a ticking timebomb. Days that mean nothing to anyone else loom large as they approach.
The date of his death.
The date of his funeral.
His birthday.
My birthday.
The day he should have graduated from law school
On and on and on.
How can I survive these oppressive reminders of what I thought my life would look like? How can I grab hold of something, anything that will keep my heart and mind from falling down the rabbit hole of grief into a topsy-turvy land where nothing makes sense and it’s full of unfriendly creatures that threaten to gobble me whole?
Every family,
every child that has run ahead and
every situation is unique.
What works for one person (even in the same family) won’t necessarily work for another. But there are some ways to make these days a little easier.
Here’s a list of what has helped my heart and the hearts of others walking this journey. Take what may help and toss the rest:
Most importantly, no matter what you do or don’t do, be prepared to give yourself grace whatever the day holds.
Don’t do what you don’t feel like you can do-even if you made plans ahead of time.
Do whatever helps your heart.
Hug anyone who chooses to come alongside and bear witness to this awful anniversary.
And hold tight to the fact that even the worst day only lasts 24 hours.
I’m no tech expert. I kind of blunder about like a blind mouse searching for cheese most of the time. So I feel you if you haven’t figured out how to make sure you get each day’s blog post.
For those that do want it each morning here are several ways to get it:
Sign up to receive the post via email. You will get the whole post (minus the featured image at the top) unless it’s a repost and then you’ll have to click through to “read the rest.”
Sign up to receive posts via a WordPress account. You don’t have to actually start a blog to have a free WordPress account. Daily posts show up in your reader list when you log onto the site.
Follow my public Facebook page: Heartache and Hope: Life After Losing a Child. I generally post early in the morning and the post can be shared easily from here to your own FB page if you like.
Go to my personal Facebook page (Melanie DeSimone) where I set those posts on “public” for easy access/sharing.
Follow me on Pinterest: Melanie DeSimone Pinterest-I post the blog on a board called “The Life I Didn’t Choose” and also in “Grief”.
Follow me on Twitter: @DesimoneMelanie. I’m not a big Twitter user but for those that are, this is an easy way to view/share the blog posts.
Some of you are part of closed bereaved parents groups and I post there as well.
But if you want to share the post, you will need to access it another way. If you share from the closed groups it shows as “attachment unavailable” except to other group members even if you set it on “public”.
The social media icons on the right hand side of a post will take you to my Facebook page, Twitter account and Pinterest page. For some reason the Google+ link won’t work but I’ll keep trying (told you I was no tech genious!)
I appreciate each and every person who takes the time to read what I write-it makes me feel that this pain is being redeemed, just a little. And I am so thankful and blessed by feedback on the blog and via social media posts-let me hear from you!
It gives my heart courage to keeep sharing.
I write a lot about what bereaved parents (me!) wish others knew or understood about child loss and this Valley we are walking. And I am thankful for every person outside the child loss community who chooses to read and heed what I write.
But I want to take a minute to tell those of you who are not part of this awful “club” that I get it-I really do get it–when you need to put distance between yourself and me or other people walking a broken road.
We all love to think that life is a never-ending ascent toward bigger, better and more enjoyable moments.
Our children are born and we think only of their future, not their future deaths. We plan for retirement never imagining that some dreadful disease may keep us from enjoying that nest egg we so carefully set aside.
So when my son died-or your friend’s daughter died-it was an affront to the way you want to think about how the world works. It’s an unavoidable reminder that we are not in control, no matter how many plans we make.
Trust me, if I could, I’d run away from it too.
I’d turn down the other aisle in the grocery store to avoid coming face-to-face with tears. I’d take me out of my own Facebook newsfeed so that the sad posts of recycled photos didn’t upset my morning coffee. I’d change my pew or enter the sanctuary from another door to make sure I didn’t run into me and have to say something when I had no idea what to say.
I’d let days, weeks, months slip by between phone calls and then convince myself that really, I wasn’t ignoring my friend, I was “giving her space”.
I really, really do get it.
I am a reminder that no one is immune to tragedy. I am a walking, talking advertisement for the unpredictability of life.
My life is your worst nightmare.
And who wants to face that?
*If you would like to join with me in ministry to bereaved parents and their families, you can make a tax-deductible donation using this link:
One of the things I’ve been forced to embrace in the wake of child loss is that there are very few questions, experiences or feelings that are simple anymore.
“How many children do you have?”
A common, get-to-know-you question lobbed across tables, down pews and in the check-out line at the grocery store. But for many bereaved parents, it can be a complex question that gets a different answer depending on who is asking and where we are.
Read the rest here: It’s Complicated
This list is adapted from a friend’s Facebook post (with permission) and a list published by Children’s Hospital of Colorado.
BEREAVED PARENT’S WISH LIST:
1. I wish my child hadn’t died. I wish I had my child back.
2. I wish you wouldn’t be afraid to speak my child’s name. My child lived and was very important to me. I need to hear that my child was important to you also.
Read the rest here: Bereaved Parent’s Wish List
Oh, how I need to learn to practice the pause!
I’m getting better, but still react when I should reflect.
I need to do this EVERY time.
Lord, help my stubborn heart slow down and give me grace to yield and allow You to melt it, mold it and make it more like Your own! ~ ❤
There’s a saying in the South, “You’re making a mountain out of a mole hill”.
It’s supposed knock sense into someone who is overreacting to a small and easily resolved problem. Most of the time it works-stepping back and gaining perspective is a good thing.
But I find that this side of Dominic’s leaving, many, many things that were mole hills before are MOUNTAINS now. Because my faith in my own ability to handle things has become so very small, nearly any challenge feels like a never-ending ascent up the mountain.
I used to be the person who crossed “t’s” and dotted “i’s”.
Shoot-my whole wedding was organized on 3×5 index cards kept in a tiny filing cabinet (long before online wedding sites!). I still have that little metal box and can recite who received an invitation, who responded, who attended, what gift they gave us and when I wrote the “thank you” note.
Not anymore.
If I don’t put my truck keys in exactly the same spot, I will never find them. And panic sets in about 60 seconds after I realize I don’t know where they are.
Everyday hiccups are absolutely exhausting and larger issues are downright debilitating.
It reminds me of a move my family made from Atlanta, Georgia to Denver, Colorado when I was twelve.
Denver is known as the “Mile High City” because on the first step of the capital building it is 5,280 feet above sea level. My sea-level body had to work hard to live that much closer to the sun.
The first year was a real challenge because the red blood cells that had been sufficient to carry oxygen to my brain, vital organs and tissues at near sea-level, were woefully insufficient to carry enough oxygen to my extremities a mile closer to the sun. Eventually my body caught up to the new reality and made more corpuscles.
I’m afraid my mind, heart and spirit have yet to catch up to THIS new reality of life after child loss.
I am quickly struck down and discouraged when what SHOULD be a mole hill rapidly turns into a MOUNTAIN.
Regardless of what it looks like or feels like to anyone else, it IS a mountain to ME.
And that takes so much energy to scale. It requires so much discipline to face. It wears me out and uses up my resources so that I’m left depleted, panting and oh, so tired from the effort.
I wish I could help those outside the child loss community understand just how much it takes for me and everyone like me to do what has to be done.
We aren’t being lazy or overly emotional or “making too much of nothing”.
We live in a different world than the rest of you.
Our air has less oxygen.
Our bodies have to work harder to do what comes easily to the rest of you.
I promise we are trying. But willpower can’t make up for the resources we just don’t have.
thelifeididntchoose 