Some of us only felt tiny hands and feet pressing against the inside of our body.
Some of us saw first steps or first grade.
Some of us watched our child drive away to college certain it was the beginning of an adventure, not the beginning of the end.
Read the rest here: I’d Still Choose You
Every family is different. Every loss experience is unique.
Some of us have busy households when one of our children leave for Heaven and some of us are long past full tables and messy teen bedrooms.
Wherever we find ourselves when the unthinkable overtakes us, it’s always hard to continue doing daily tasks bearing a burden of sorrow. So often we settle into a pattern of striving and straining through the deep mire of grief without making time for rest.
I know I did.
Goodness! I still experience seasons when grief waves steal what little breath is left from a breathless and busy life and I can barely function.
It’s then I remind my heart that self care isn’t selfish. It’s necessary.
Absolutely, positively necessary.
❤ Melanie
Looking back I’m shocked at how much I allowed societal norms and expectations to determine how I grieved Dominic’s death.
I withheld grace from myself that I would have gladly and freely given to another heart who just buried a child. Somehow I thought I had to soldier on in spite of the unbearable sorrow, pain, horror and worldview shattering loss I was enduring.
And the further I got from the date of his accident, the more I expected from myself.
Read the rest here: Self Care in Grief
The doctor I see every six months or so for my rheumatoid arthritis always fusses at me.
One of the routine questions is, “How’s your pain level?”
I usually say, “About a three.”
And then she looks at my hands and my feet-at the swollen joints and twisted toes-and shakes her head.
But here’s the deal: sure they hurt, sure I can’t do all the things I used to do, sure I have to do many things differently than I did them when my hands and feet were unaffected by this disease-but I’m STILL moving and doing what needs to be done.
I don’t really know how to do anything else.
And that’s how it is with this grief I lug around-it’s heavier some days than others-but I’m STILL moving and doing what needs to be done.
I make daily concessions to my arthritic joints and I make concessions to my grief when I need to.
Read the rest here: Accommodating Grief
It happens in all kinds of ways.
For one reason or another, the tiny life budding in a belly never gets to see the light of day. Never takes a first breath. Never cries. Never opens his or her eyes to the mama waiting to meet her precious one.
So many mamas have experienced the excitement of watching the pregnancy test show positive only to endure days, weeks or months later, the sadness of saying good-bye to a little one they never got to meet.
Statistics tell us that one in four women will become part of this group during their lifetime.
But what statistics can never tell you about anything is why so, so many of the women who survive pregnancy and infant loss don’t talk about it.
Read the rest here: International Infant and Pregnancy Loss Awareness Day
I totally get it–we are ALL so busy.
Calendars crammed weeks and months in advance and no white space left over to pencil in lunch with a friend even though we desperately NEED it.
It seems impossible to make that call, write that note or stop by and visit a few minutes.
How can I meet my obligations if I use precious time doing the optional?
But when the unexpected, unimaginable and awful happens, suddenly that calendar and all those appointments don’t matter. Balls drop everywhere and I don’t care.
Because when your family or best friend needs you, you come-no questions asked.
Read the rest here: Being There: No Substitute For Showing Up
Oh, sometimes I think I’m clever enough to do it.
I edit my words, costume my body and fix my face so I can act the part. But truth is, I never manage to fool anyone who looks closer than my plastic smile.
I can’t hide my heart.
And I don’t know why I try-I don’t get points for pretending.
There’s no prize at the end of this long road for the one who makes it with fewest tears.
Read the rest here: Zero Points for Pretending: You Can’t Hide Your Heart
At first everyone talked about him.
It’s what people do just after a person leaves this world and leaves behind only memories.
It comes natural before the unnatural fact of child loss settles in and begins to make everyone uncomfortable.
But at some point after the funeral and way before the tears dried up, people stopped feeling easy mentioning his name.
Read the rest here: Help! My Family Won’t Talk About My Missing Child.
It is scary to speak aloud what you hope will never happen to you. It’s unbelievably frightening to admit that we really have no control over whether, or when, we or the ones we love might leave this world.
But I am not going to keep silent.
Not because I want pity or special treatment, but because I want that parent who just buried his or her child to know that you. are. not. alone.
Read the rest here: Courage is a Heart Word
One of the things I learned quickly after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven was that other people were very uncomfortable around my brokenness.
For some, it was because they didn’t know what to say or do when tears leaked from my eyes.
Others found the presence of a bereaved mother simply too hard to take-if it happened to ME, it could happen to THEM.
A few were just too self-focused to allow anyone else’s pain to rain on their “perfect” parade.
But if I’ve learned anything from this life it is this: Christ loves the broken. It’s the broken and breathless who realize they need a Savior.
And when I make room for the brokenness of others in my life, I’m inviting His Holy Presence to dwell in our midst.
❤ Melanie
I used to position myself at the end of the pew, just in case someone I’m not too comfortable with might come along and try to sit down.
It saved us both that awkward conversation where they ask if they can join me and I say “yes” with my mouth but “no” with my body language.
Read the rest here: Move Over, Make Room for the Broken
Seven (!) years ago today I shared my first post in this space.
It was a timid foray into the wider world just a year and a half after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
I was truly frightened that once I began sharing my intimate thoughts, good (and not-so-good) experiences and things I was learning in this Valley of the Shadow of Death I would either: (1) find out no one really cared and/or; (2) offend friends and family.
But what motivated me to overcome that fear was a sense that for all the information out there on grief in general, I couldn’t find nearly enough first-person experience written in bite-sized chunks on child loss in particular.
After Dom ran ahead, it was difficult for me to sit down and read a whole book. I needed bits I could read on a single computer screen.
I also needed someone to be upfront and honest about what it meant to continue to cling to faith even when it was hard and even when it meant acknowledging doubts and living with unanswered questions.
It’s difficult to believe now with the plethora of popular books (both secular and religious) on “open broken” but seven years ago, there weren’t many around.
So I decided I’d just say what I had to say and let it fall on the ears that might need to hear it regardless of who didn’t like it or chose to ignore it.
And here we are seven years later.
I don’t know how long I’ll keep writing-probably as long as I feel like I have something to say, people are listening and my fingers can still tap-tap-tap the keyboard.
For now, writing is what I do.
Even when life interrupts almost everything else I will find a few moments to jot down thoughts and hit “publish”.
I know some posts are much thinner than others-maybe just a meme or two and an encouraging word. Some are just reworked posts from years gone by.
But I want to show up in case THIS morning someone’s having an especially rotten one.
I want you to know that there IS life after child loss.
A very different life.
A harder life.
A life you didn’t want and wouldn’t ever choose, but life nonetheless.
And I appreciate every. single. heart. who joins me here and cheers me (and others!) along.
thelifeididntchoose 