Category: coping strategies

Grief Work Video Notes and Outline

Here is a post that accompanies the video presentation on GRIEF WORK I shared yesterday.

If you missed that post, you can find it here: Grief Work: A Video.

If you haven’t watched the video and plan to, this outline can help you make the most of your time.

If you’ve already watched it and were overwhelmed with the amount of information shared, you can use the outline to organize your own thoughts as you reflect on the content.

❤ Melanie

Child loss is not simply an event that happens at a moment in time. 

It is an ongoing, devastating experience that shatters our hearts, our relationships and our worldview.  It impacts the remotest corners of life in ways we certainly don’t understand nor anticipate in the first hours, days and weeks.  Processing child loss demands time, energy just when we have the least of those resources to expend on anything. 

That’s why I call it “work”. 

How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand… there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.

Frodo, Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

I use “grief work” to mean all the ways I (and others) must actively seek to identify, face, process, and ultimately incorporate the feelings, trauma and changes loss force upon us.  ways. 

It is exhausting. 

It DOES get better though.  I promise. 

It gets manageable faster when broken hearts don’t try to run away, numb or distract themselves from the challenge.  Grief will not be ignored or stuffed forever. It leaks out somewhere. 

When we refuse to do the work grief requires, we delay healing. 

Grief Work can be understood best when we consider it within the context of relationship: 

  • Relationship with ourselves;
  • Relationship with others (including our missing child);
  • and Relationship with God. 

And I believe the work is best done when we set aside time, designate space and give ourselves and others grace in the process.

RELATIONSHIP WITH SELF

Nonbereaved parents (maybe us in the BEFORE) sometimes joke that their only job is to keep their kid alive.  Even if we’ve never said so aloud, many of us had days when we counted it joy that we came to bedtime and had successfully navigated potentially harmful obstacles with our children. 

It’s a horrifying shock to our core identity as a parent when one day that’s no longer true.  We begin to doubt all kinds of things about who we thought we were.  It takes great effort, courage, energy and lots and lots of time to examine and ultimately integrate these changes. 

I find it useful to think about the process in several stages that often occur simultaneously and repeatedly:

  • Identify the Feelings
  • Acknowledge the Losses
  • Admit the Trauma
  • Face and Integrate the Changes

RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS

So much of life revolves around our relationships with other people-family, friends, coworkers, people we go to church with and even the cashier in the grocery store.  A day can be made better or made awful because of stray words, intentional or unintentional conflict, smiles, frowns and kind gestures or funny stories. 

There are so many ways child loss affects how we walk in the world and it absolutely impacts our relationships to those we love as well as those we simply bump into.

Perhaps most dramatically, it challenges and changes how we relate to our child in Heaven. 

What kind of work is required to move forward in this new reality as a spouse, parent, child, employee and member of the community?

  • Family-Including Our Missing Child(ren)
  • Friends
  • Community
  • The Greater World

RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

It is common for Jesus following bereaved parents to identify with Christ’s words on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!”.  Or David’s cry, “How long, O LORD?  Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?”.

Some describe their feelings (especially early into this journey) as anger.  Others say they felt deserted.  I say I was disappointed. 

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

~C.S. Lewis, A GRIEF OBSERVED

Learning to hold the truth that this life is painful and the truth that God is sovereign and loving in the same heart is probably the most difficult work I’ve done in this journey. 

It required me to do four things:

  • Admit the Pain
  • Acknowledge Doubt and Ask Questions
  • Access the Truth
  • Appropriate God’s Strength

CONCLUSION

Much of this process is organic and different tasks, challenges and seasons present themselves as a natural outgrowth of time and experience. 

It’s definitely not something you can rush. 

I’ve always said that time does NOT heal all wounds.  But there is no substitute for TIME. 

That’s why you must set aside time to do this work. 

It may be stolen moments for those of you with busy households and demanding jobs.  It may be quiet mornings or silent evenings for those who have more margin in daily life.  It might be a weekly getaway if you live with lots of people and have a difficult time turning down the noise of electronics or incessant “to do” lists in your head.  But you MUST find time to sit with yourself, to listen to your heart and to hear from God. 



You will have to carve out or find safe spaces and find safe people. 

Sometimes it means seeking professional help from a counselor or therapist.

Sometimes it’s a friend or two who choose to walk compassionately alongside and who withhold comment and judgement about things they don’t really understand.  They are a valuable sounding board for the stories we need to tell over and over and over as we strive mightily to make sense again of a world turned upside down. 

Online and in person bereaved parent support groups are wonderful!  That is where I learned the language of loss.  It’s where my experience was validated and I was assured that everything I was feeling was absolutely, positively NORMAL! 

Seek them out. 



Finally, this journey requires SO. MUCH. GRACE! For yourself and for others. 

I call grace the grease for the wheels of relationship.  You are definitely going to disappoint and frustrate yourself and folks you come in contact with.  They, in turn, are going to step on your toes and on your feelings. 

This is uncharted territory for all but the previously initiated and it’s rough going, my friend. 

Try to always assume the best and practice compassion. 

If you can’t muster it, then choose retreat until you are stronger and more equipped to have that difficult conversation or encounter.  But don’t stop communicating.  At least say, “Hey, I am not in a place to talk about this right now.  I’ll let you know when I’m able.” 

No one knows what’s in your heart and mind but you and Jesus.  Give the folks around you a break. 

I am more whole, more at peace and more capable of participating in the life I have while acknowledging and integrating the life I didn’t choose than I was even two years ago.  

My faith is intact. 

My family is learning, loving and living together. 

I don’t fall so deeply into the well of despair as I once did and when I do I can scramble back out again. 

I am not unique or special.  God loves you too.  He will, if you allow Him, bring hope and healing to your heart as well. 

When we dream with God, our dreams-even in burial-are not lost; they are planted. God never forgets the ‘kernel of wheat [that] falls to the ground and dies’ (John 12:24).

What grows from that painful planting is God’s business. But sowing in faith is ours and, like the early disciples, our faithfulness is never sown in vain.

~Alicia Britt Chole, 40 DAYS OF DECREASE


STILL Dismantling the Past

It must be something about this time of year that prompts me to clean out corners and long neglected spaces in our home of more than a quarter century.

The extreme heat makes even the unsavory certainty I’ll run across painful memories more tolerable.

So here I am again-digging through boxes, papers and bits and pieces of “before”. Reminded that life requires work and grief makes it both more unavoidable and more difficult.

❤

I’ve spent the last two days rearranging our family room.

Since my husband has retired, we no longer use it as we once did and I realized a few weeks ago that it was ridiculous to have it set up the way it’s been for decades when our needs have drastically changed.

So we decided to tackle the job of sorting/moving/dismantling books, videos (yes, we still have a few!), DVDs, CDs and random other bits and pieces of a life long lived in the same place.

Read the rest here: Dismantling The Past

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: How Do You Breathe?

I’m ending Bereaved Parents Month by sharing this post because I still have moments when I marvel that I’ve survived.

❤

It was the question I asked the bereaved mother that came to my son’s funeral.

It was the question a mother asked me as we stood by her granddaughter’s casket, surrounded by family and flowers.

And it is the right question.

Because when the breath leaves the body of your child, and you look down at the shell that used to be the home of a vibrant, living soul, you simply can. not. breathe.

Read the rest here: How Do You Breathe?

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: Ten Ways to Survive Hard Grief Days

My hardest grief season begins in November and runs to the end of May.  Thanksgiving through Dominic’s birthday on (or near) Memorial Day are days full of triggers, memories and stark reminders that one of us is missing.

If I could fall asleep November first and wake up in June I’d do it.

But I can’t so I have to employ all the tricks I’ve learned in the over eight years since Dominic ran ahead to heaven to survive those particularly challenging months.

Here are ten ways I survive hard grief days:

Read the rest here: Taking Care: Ten Ways to Survive Hard Grief Days

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: Child Loss and Secondary Loss

While I certainly had no real idea in the first hours or even weeks what losing a child entailed, I understood plainly that it meant I would not have Dominic to see, hold or talk to.

I wouldn’t be able to hug his neck or telephone him.  

He wouldn’t be sitting at my table any more.

But the death of a child or other loved one has a ripple effect.  It impacts parts of life you might not expect.  As time went on, I was introduced to a whole list of losses commonly called “secondary losses”.

Read the rest here: Child Loss and Secondary Losses

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: Physical Manifestations of Grief

Grief is not *just* feelings. It is so much more.

I shared this last year around this time in response to many, many comments and questions from bereaved parents about what felt like random or unusual physical manifestations of their own grief.

I hope it helps another heart navigate this life none of us would choose. 

❤ Melanie

It’s a well known fact that stress plays a role in many health conditions.  

And I think most of us would agree that child loss is one of (if not THE) most stressful events a heart might endure.  

So it’s unsurprising that bereaved parents find themselves battling a variety of physical problems in the wake of burying a child.  

Read the rest here: Physical Manifestations of Grief

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: Surviving Grief Anniversaries

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?

Read the rest here: Surviving Grief Anniversaries

Grief Journey: Picking My Path Through Sun and Shade

We are only officially a few days into summer here in Alabama but we’ve already suffered weeks of extra hot weather.

And while I can’t do a thing about the absolute temperature outside, I can make choices that help me tolerate it.

It’s the same in my grief journey.

Everyday decisions make a difference in how well I cope.❤

I walk the half-mile stretch down and back on my driveway at least four or five times a day.

In the winter I follow the sun.

In the summer I follow the shade.

The path I choose to take either adds to or subtracts from my ability to make the trek in relative comfort.

Read the rest here: Sun & Shade: Picking My Path

Grief Journey: How Stress Impacts Grief

It would be so helpful if there was an app to track stress like there is to track spending.

Wouldn’t it be marvelous to get an alert that said, “Low Balance”, for mental, physical and psychological reserves like the one you can get for your bank account right before you are heading to overdraft territory?

But there isn’t.

And few of us are very good at gauging just how much is left in our mental wellness accounts which means we often keep giving when the well is more than dry.

I’d be lying if I said I spend the same amount of time crying, lamenting and bent over in agonizing pain that I did in the early days of mourning Dominic. I’ve found a way to keep him close, to trust his soul to Jesus and to (largely) live in the present instead of always longing for the past.

There are days, though…

Read the rest here: How Stress Impacts Grief

Grief Journey: Have You Tried Journaling?

Journaling has been and continues to be a very important part of my grief journey.

Putting thoughts on paper gets them out of my head.

Writing them down helps me understand them.

i-write-because-i-dont-know

Reading them back is an excellent reflective exercise.

It’s a way to track progress, recognize repeating patterns and see where I need to do more grief work.

Read the rest here: Grief Journaling Prompts