One of the reasons I write is to share my grief experience with others.
I realized when tossed into the ocean of sorrow that of all the things I had heard about or read about, surviving child loss was never mentioned.
Read the rest here: Silence Doesn’t Serve Anyone Well
In a family full of young adults on the brink of life, of love, of making dreams come true, you never expect to hear these words, “It is what it is.”
But in a home where loss has taken its toll, I do.
Oh, how I long to restore the unmarred joy we used to know-when everything was possible, positive attitudes could overcome any challenge and the horizon beckoned with welcome instead of warning.
Our watchword used to be “Failure is not an option”.
I even had a cute little magnet on the fridge that proclaimed, “Another day, another disaster”.
That was BEFORE.
Before the dawning sun brought real disaster to our doorstep. Before the thing we had to face could not be overcome by more elbow grease, greater resolve or stronger faith.
Before death became very, very real to us.
We are not struck down in despair.
We are not fatalists.
But we do acknowledge the fact that this life is filled with things we cannot change. We understand by experience that some things must simply be endured. We embrace the truth that we depend on the mercy of God in every way.
So now we live this motto: It is what it is.
And we take one another’s hand and walk on, through whatever it is. We call courage to our hearts that no matter what happens, we will survive together.
We keep loving and living and leaning.
Because that’s what we do.
Although I have observed Lent off and on for many, many years, it’s different for me now in a profound way.
Some of you may know that Dominic was killed the Saturday before Palm Sunday and buried the Monday after Resurrection Sunday, 2014.
Each year since then I’ve felt like I had to endure two sets of “anniversaries” because his death date and burial date are not only days of the month but also marked by moveable church celebrations.
It has been very, very hard.
As the sun rises earlier each morning in spring, the weather turns brighter and the flowers bloom, my heart grows heavier and heavier. I want to crawl in a hole and wait for the time to slide by-as if not noticing will make a difference.
But I can’t.
Life must be lived, not only endured.
So I am choosing this year to try to guide my heart gently through this hard season with purposeful action that forces me to engage with God’s Word, with God’s people and with God Himself.
I think that leaning into Lent-giving up some things, grabbing onto others-is a good way to do that.
I’m not certain what I’ll give up-as one gal commented on my wall, “I’ve already given up a child, I don’t have anything else to give”. I will probably try to find a less-than-profitable habit to lay aside for these 40 days.
I do know what I am grabbing onto. I am going to write 40 notes in 40 days (the idea came from this link: Love Notes)
I am also going to be more faithful to write in my paper journal instead of only on my blog.
My goal is that I will emerge from these days free of some bad habits and bound my some new, better ones.
Will you join me?
One of the hardest parts of blogging for me is that I am committed to authenticity. As best as I am able, I try to be honest and transparent.
This entry was tricky.
I never, ever want to minimize ANYONE’S pain-in my mind there is no hierachy of misery. But I also want to let those outside the child loss community see how much it hurts to have our loss compared by others to their very different losses. We would much rather you simply take our hand or hug us or sit silently with us on the mourning bench.
So, here it is. I hope you receive it in the spirit in which it is intended.
It is just so hard to accept that remaining silent is often better than saying the wrong thing.
It seems like every quiet space MUST be filled with chatter-especially in our overstimulated world of screens and noise boxes.
But, I promise-if you and I are speaking, and I choose to expose my heart-I would rather you take my hand or hug my neck and say nothing than tell me, “I understand exactly how you feel.”
Unless, of course, you do.
If you have buried a child, then please, please, please tell me that! We will cry together.
But there is no comparison between losing an aged aunt, full of years, and losing a child, full of promise.
There is no comparison between losing a job, a house or a dream-any of which have the potential for restoration in this life– and losing a child–whom I will not see until I reach heaven.
There is no comparison between losing a pet and losing my son.
It’s the difference between being hungry because you skipped lunch and starving to death because you don’t have access to food or water.
One is uncomfortable and the other is excruciating.
So, while I deeply appreciate your desire to empathize with me, please don’t try to stretch your limited experience with loss to include my own.
It hurts my heart and minimizes my pain.
There’s just no comparison.
I have friends who have not only buried a child (some have buried more than one) but have also buried parents, siblings, in-laws and other people close to their hearts in a very short span of time.
And I am appalled when they recite the trite comments doled out by others meant to patch broken hearts and sweep the leftover pieces under the rug of social propriety.
Let me just say this: Death. Is. Awful.
Full stop. No easy change of subject or laughter allowed to make the hearing of it softer.
It should be hard.
It should make us pause.
We should stop in our tracks to acknowledge the passing of the breath of God from a person’s body.
Death is an unavoidable reminder that the world is not as God intended it to be. It’s a reminder of the cost of sin. It’s a reminder that our time is short. And it’s a reminder that we are NOT in control.
Those are very uncomfortable truths.
My hope in Christ makes those truths bearable but it does not make facing the death of those I love hurt less.
A broken heart is a perfectly natural and reasonable response to the awfulness of death and to the absence of the presence of one I love. Great grief is the price of great love.
There’s a scene in The Magician’s Nephew where a little boy named Digory meets Aslan. His mother is sick, and he wants to ask for Aslan’s help, but he’s afraid. Lewis writes:
Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself. “My son, my son,” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another.”
For those outside this great grief, it seems helpful to toss words like bandaids but it’s not.
I’m sure you mean well when you try to circumscribe my grief-to give limits to its expression and duration.
But unrealistic expectations make it more difficult to bear the burden I’m already carrying. Your words add to this weight of sorrow and pain that I cannot untie from my bent back.
Presence-often SILENT presence-is the balm for my wounded soul.
But please: Don’t say it’s not really so bad. Because it is. Death is awful, demonic. If you think your task as comforter is to tell me that really, all things considered, it’s not so bad, you do not sit with me in my grief but place yourself off in the distance away from me. Over there, you are of no help. What I need to hear from you is that you recognize how painful it is. I need to hear from you that you are with me in my desperation. To comfort me, you have to come close. Come sit beside me on my mourning bench.
~Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
I talk about Dominic “running ahead” but it feels like I‘m leaving him behind.
I know he’s the first to Heaven and I know I’ll join him, but my daily experience is that I am the one moving forward and he is the one stuck somewhere, unable to catch up.
I absolutely HATE that his footprint on my life grows smaller with each passing day, each new memory made without him, each event at which his smiling face makes no entrance.
I can’t stop the accumulation of bits and pieces that make it harder to spot his unique contribution to the collage of my life.
I am in no danger of forgetting him.
That’s not what I fear.
But bringing what he still is to me into a conversation, into view for others to see and appreciate is getting more difficult.
When I mention him, people don’t know whether to be sad or happy, question my sanity or rush past hoping I’ll change the subject.
There’s just no natural seque between the living and the dead.
And it hurts my heart to watch the gap grow wider.
I have never subscribed to the theory that the Christian life is free of pain and suffering.
But there are some who do.
Christian bookstores are filled with titles touting the path to joy and happiness, the way to wealth and material success.
Read the rest here: Sparrows DO Fall
On the other side of child loss, many things that used to be easy just aren’t anymore.
It takes so much energy to get through a day and navigate the minefields of conversation.
I wrote this a few months ago as I was pondering this aspect of my new life:
“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.”
Read the rest here: It’s Complicated
There’s a common bit of advice in grief circles: Fake it until you make it.
It’s not bad as far as it goes and can be pretty useful-especially just after the initial loss and activity surrounding it.
Like when I met the acquaintance in the grocery store a month after burying Dominic and she grabbed me with a giant smile on her face, “How ARE you?!!! It’s SO good to see you out!!!”
I just smiled and stood there as if I appreciated her interest, a deer caught in headlights, silently praying she’d live up to her talkative past and soon move on to another target.
Faked it.
Boom!
BUT there comes a time when faking it is not helpful. In fact, it’s downright dangerous.
Because if I fake it long enough and get good enough at it, I can convince myself that I have done the work grief requires.
Grief will not be ignored forever.
It bubbles up in physical symptoms and sleepless nights. It boils over in anger and impatience and anxiety and nervous habits.
There is no way through but through. It has to be faced head on.
Life circumstances kept me distracted and busy for the first four or five months after Dominic ran ahead to heaven.
I cried, screamed and was heartbroken-I definitely had my moments. But for the most part I functioned at a pretty high level.
It wasn’t until things slowed down that I had my come apart. And it caught me by surprise.
I was forced to sit in silence and face the feelings. I was compelled to hear my heart shatter-over and over again.
I’ve now had 33 months of this burden of sorrow. Almost three years to think about, work on and pray through the pain.
I’m learning to pay attention to my own heartbeat, to my body, to my triggers, to my joy-bringers, my joy-stealers and my limitations. I’m beginning to accept the bellycrawl progress through this tunnel of darkness by focusing on the bright light at the end.
I still fake it sometimes-it’s not worth it to me to get into a long conversation with that person I only see every year or so. Too much time, too much energy and too little reward.
But I’m learning to be more genuine with the people that matter most. I’m learning to be honest about how I feel, what I need and how much I can do.
And I refuse to allow busyness to creep up on me so that I don’t have the time and energy to continue doing the work grief requires.
Every time the headlines scream death and destruction, my heart stops.
When it’s YOUR child, husband, mother, cousin you can’t change the channel or route the conversation to lighter topics.
You just have to bear it.
Read the rest here: Not What I Had Planned
