Category: Dominic

Love Poured Out: Tales of Friendship and Encouragement After Child Loss

I am well aware that not everyone is blessed by an outpouring of love and support in the wake of child loss. In fact, depending on the circumstances, some families are practically shunned.

It breaks my heart every time I hear of such an experience.

Because if there is one thing I’ve learned in this Valley, it’s this: when a heart is shattered, my ONLY job is to show up and do whatever is helpful-even if that means sitting silently and holding a hand.

❤

When I asked other bereaved parents to share the things people did that blessed them in the wake of losing a child, I didn’t expect so many stories of extravagant love–of acts surpassing anything I could have thought of or imagined.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.

When we lost Dominic, there were many who blessed us in ways that I can only describe as offerings poured into our lives from the bountiful love of Christ.

Read the rest here: Extravagant Love: Tales of Friendship and Encouragement After Losing a Child

A List of Practical Ways to Love Grieving Parents

When Dominic died, I didn’t get a manual on what to do.  I didn’t get an orientation into how to be a grieving parent.  So when some people asked how they could help me and my family, I really didn’t know.

A comment repeated often by bereaved parents is, “Please don’t use the phrase, ‘let me know if there is anything I can do’, people mean well, but this is unhelpful.”

Another mom put it this way, ” There are too many meanings to this phrase.  It can mean anywhere from, ‘I really want to help’ to ‘I don’t know what to say so I’ll say this but I don’t really want you to ask’.  Also it’s so hard to make any decisions–trying to figure out what you might want or be able to do is overwhelming.  Instead, offer specific things you can do and make plans to do them.”

For those that want to help, here ia a list of 31 ways you can provide practical and timely help to grieving parents:

Read the rest here: 31 Practical Ways to Love Grieving Parents in the First Few Days

How Can I Love a Grieving Parent Well in those First Days?

It will be eight (!) years on April 12th.

And yet those first hours and days are some of the most vivid in my memory. Who showed up, what they did, what they said (or graciously and wisely DIDN’T say), how fragile and lost I felt as precious friends guided me through so. many. decisions.

I will never, ever forget the kindnesses shown to our family during that time. I will never, ever stop thanking God for the brave souls that entered into our world of pain and simply refused to be shooed or frightened away.

❤ Melanie

The death of any loved one opens a door and forces you to pass through.

You cannot procrastinate, cannot refuse, cannot ignore or pretend it away.

Suddenly, you find yourself where you absolutely do not want to be.  

And there is no going back.

Many bereaved parents describe the first hours, the first days after losing a child as a fog–we feel both horrified (I can’t believe this is happening!) and numb (Is this real? Am I dreaming?).

Read the rest here: Loving Well in the First Days After Loss

Seems Like Yesterday and Forever…

The human heart is a funny thing-always working hard to protect itself from grievous injury yet prone to exactly what it tries to prevent.

I honestly believe that one of the gifts of early grief is disbelief.  Because if I could have understood at once what it meant that Dominic was really, truly GONE, I would have never lasted the first 24 hours.

Even now, going on eight years, my head plays games with my heart.

Read the rest here: Just Yesterday and Forever

Regrets

Every parent has regrets.

We were too busy or we were not busy enough. We spoke harshly when we should have withheld judgement. We insisted on “good behavior” when our child was simply being curious and doing what all active children do.

The difference between most parents and bereaved parents is this: As long as there is breath, there is hope for forgiveness, for mending fences, for saying, “Hey, remember when” followed by an apology and understanding.

When your child is out of reach there’s no chance of making amends or even having a conversation.

So I’m left alone to work through any regrets I have.

I am forced to play both roles and make assumptions about what Dominic may or may not have understood at the time. I have to hope without confirmation that he would forgive me for the moments when I was less than the mom I wish I had been.

Most days I rest in the truth that no matter what, Dominic knew he was loved.

In fact, I try hard to imagine that even in the last second of his life-before he met Jesus-he may have been focused on my mother love and that if I could have been there I would have been.

But there are cold days and cloudy days and days when I feel oh, so inadequate and all the regrets come knocking at the door of my heart.

Those are hard.

So although I rarely play the “if you only knew” card with friends and family I will say this: Tell the people you love what you need to tell them. Let them hear you say aloud how much they mean to you.

Savor ordinary moments because that’s what life is made of.

There’s no regret in that. ❤

God Will ABSOLUTELY Give You More Than You Can Handle

I’m passionate about getting Scripture right.

Because it’s not just unfortunate when we get it wrong, it can be downright dangerous.

The phrase “God will not give you more than you can handle” is simply not in the Bible and we need to stop tossing it at hurting hearts as if it is.

❤

You know, I don’t expect those outside the Body of Christ to have good theology-that’s like expecting me to be able to explain thermodynamics.  

Ain’t gonna happen-it’s outside my scope of understanding and practice.

I do expect those who have spent a lifetime reading Scripture, studying Sunday School lessons and listening to sermons to know better.

But many don’t.

Read the rest here:  Exploding the Myth: God Doesn’t Give You More Than You Can Handle

Sometimes Sadness is Sanity

Sometimes sadness is sanity. Tears are the reasonable response. Quickness to shush, shame or fix them, can reveal resistance to wisdom.

Zack Eswine

It wasn’t until I suffered the unbearable that I realized how very true this is: Sometimes sadness IS sanity.

Deep grief is the price we pay for great love.

But it’s easy to mosey through most of a life before you’re forced to come face to face with this truth.

Tears are an appropriate and proportional response to loss. Despair is a reasonable reaction to tragic and sudden death. Horror is perfectly understandable when disease ravages the body and steals the soul of someone you love.

So often those who haven’t experienced it want those of us who have to hold the knowledge close like a secret in hopes they won’t have to acknowledge it is true.

But sooner or later death visits all of us.

And when we choose to stand with those who have, through no fault of their own and without giving permission to the universe, been thrust head first into the unrelenting reality of loss, we not only encourage them, we enrich ourselves.

Life is a tenuous and fragile gift.

The quicker we understand and embrace that the wiser and more compassionate we will be.

I’m Still Learning

It may seem odd to catalog things I’ve learned and am still learning as a result of child loss.

But it’s one way to take stock of where I started and how far I’ve come.

It’s also a reminder that some things are only learned through lived experience no matter how well another heart may describe the or yearn to share them.

❤ Melanie

The way things are supposed to be isn’t always the way things are.

I can experience joy and sorrow in the same breath.

The capacity to love and extend grace is enlarged by suffering if I submit to it and don’t fight it.

Never, never, NEVER underestimate the power of presence or texts or the random, “thinking of you” card.

Read the rest here: Things I’m Learning

I Just Want to be Me!

I first shared this post four (!) years ago when I was approaching the four year milestone of Dominic’s leaving for Heaven.

By that time most folks who knew me when he died had relegated that part of my story to some ancient past that surely I was over by now. I’d met others who had no clue my heart skipped a beat on a regular basis because one of my children was buried in the churchyard down the road.

And even the closest ones-the ones I thought would understand forever-were sometimes impatient with my ongoing refusal to leave Dominic behind and be “healed” of my grief.

What I long for more than anything as the eighth anniversary of his departure draws near is simply this: Let me be me, whatever that looks like.

Don’t try to fit my journey into your mold.

❤ Melanie

Even in the very first hours after the news, my brain began instructing my heart, “Now, try to be brave.  Try not to disappoint people.  Try to say the right thing, do the right thing and be the example you should be.”

Whatever that meant.

Read the rest here: Can I Just Be Me?

The Importance of Agency in Grief

For those of you who follow the blog on a regular basis you’ll know that I managed to disable my laptop keyboard yesterday by spilling my coffee.

Well, I’m up and running again thanks to the marvels of technology and bluetooth.

And while that might be a tiny blip on the radar for some folks, it’s HUGE for me!

Here’s why: when my son was killed in a random, unpredictable, unanticipated accident nearly eight years ago, I was stripped of any illusion of control. My world-which up to that moment had been fairly predictable-was suddenly chaotic and very, very frightening.

I learned early on this journey that if I was going to survive, I’d have to exercise what psychologists call “agency” even if it was in something as simple as choosing for myself what I’d have for breakfast or finding a workaround for a broken keyboard.

Years ago in my undergraduate studies we read about a famous experiment in which fish were placed in tanks with invisible dividers. At first the fish would try to cross over to the other side of the tank.

But hitting the divider over and over, they soon learned to stop trying.

When the researchers removed the barrier they found the fish still stopped where it used to be and didn’t even try to reach the other side any more.

Traumatic loss can make a heart give up on everything-not just the one or two things that are truly outside our control.

It’s why so many of us bereaved parents find ourselves staring off into space, sitting in a chair, unable to move and do even the simplest tasks.

We aren’t crazy.

We are just conditioned to believe that no matter what we do, it won’t make any difference.

But I’m here to tell you-don’t give up and give in!

It’s absolutely true that we have so. much. less. control than we think we have. Seat belts, good health habits, careful living can’t protect against random.

But there are many ways we can still craft a world where love and light reign.

So today I’m celebrating the fact that while I can’t make the sun come up or protect my loved ones from every unpredictable horror I can choose to DO what I can to shape my sphere of influence and exercise control over some parts of my little world.

If you can’t do it all, do something.

And celebrate.

❤