Category: Dominic

Why Don’t I Feel A Thing? Sometimes Grief = Numb.

Many bereaved parents will tell you that after the initial shock of loss hits hard, a blessed numbness falls over a heart.

It happened to me.

The pain was still there, of course, but a fog descended that allowed me to maintain some distance between what I was feeling deep down and what I had to do in order to get through the decisions and days that follow death.

Nighttime was still hard because when the house went dark and quiet, all the emotion I’d managed to push away in the daylight came flooding back. I spent months falling into fitful sleep with tears on my pillow.

And then the fog lifted.

I’m not sure how long it was that I sobbed uncontrollably for some portion of every day and some days all day long.

A whiff of fresh air reminded me Dominic no longer drew breath into his lungs. A random sound upstairs or outside jolted my heart into hoping maybe, just maybe, he was coming home. Everywhere my eyes landed held a memory that screamed, “He was here! Where is he now?”

I felt everything. All the time. No respite.

It was exhausting.

But at some point-maybe in the middle or toward the end of the second year-a blanket of profound emotional silence wrapped itself around my heart and I could not feel a thing.

Really.

Not one single thing.

I could conjure up appropriate facial expressions so those around me didn’t have a clue. I could remember what I was supposed to feel. I could almost-almost-touch a spot deep inside that used to feel. But if there had been a meter on my heart it would have displayed a flat line.

This was more frightening than the prospect of living with overwhelming sorrow and pain for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to hurt like that forever but I didn’t want to give up feeling love and happiness and excitement and awe either.

I don’t really know how long that lasted.

Maybe most of a year, I think.

And then one day I realized some color had crept back into my daily life.

I was beginning to look forward just a bit to a date on the calendar. A smile crossed my lips without effort in response to a joke. Sadness once again took up residence in my heart next to the place Dominic always lived. But joy eased its way in around the edges.

I’ve thought long and hard about that season of “un-feeling”.

Why did my heart shut down? Why the long silence when no emotion pierced my soul?

I think it was necessary.

I think a body and mind and heart can’t operate for too long at warp speed. I think that just like fainting is a response to the brain needing oxygen, numbness is a response to the soul’s need for respite and time to heal.

So if you are in the season of numb, you’re neither crazy nor alone.

It, too, will pass.

Feeling will find its way once again to your heart. Pain, yes, but also joy.

When you are ready. ❤

Nothin’ Easy About Death

I wrote this post a year ago after my mother joined Dominic in Heaven. Her passing reminded me once again (as if my heart needed reminding!) that there ain’t nothing easy about death.

One year later and I’m no more willing to pretend it’s anything but awful even as I’m resigned to admit there’s nothing I can do about it.

I miss you both so very much.

❤

I remember the moment I realized I was going to have to summarize my son’s life into a few, relatively short paragraphs to be read by friends, family and strangers.

It seemed impossible.

But as the designated author of our family I had to do it so I did.

Today I wrote my mama’s obituary and though her death was not as surprising as Dominic’s it was just as hard to swallow.

Read the rest here: Ain’t Nothing Easy About Death

Living Between What I Know and What I Can’t Comprehend

It’s easy to imagine when sitting in a safe place surrounded by other believers that if tragedy should visit my home, my faith would remain rock solid and unshakeable.

After all, I stuffed my head and heart with truth, kept a prayer journal, wrote out Scriptures and jotted notes and dates in the margin of my Bible.

I put on the full Armor of God and raised my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Our family didn’t just attend church, we served the Body of Christ inside and outside the four walls of the building.

But when the knock came and the words from the deputy flew at me and pierced my heart, I unraveled.

Not at first, mind you.

Oh, I screamed and couldn’t catch my breath. I fell to my knees and barely made it to the sofa where I had to make phone calls. I was shaking and crying.

Still, a blessed numbness fell over me and my first Facebook posts and my first words to friends and family affirmed my belief that God was still in control and we would somehow make it through. It was reflex to lean in and take hold of the faith that had carried me that far.

I clung to the only life raft I could see in that awful storm.

It really wasn’t until a few weeks later, when my heart and mind began to fully comprehend the neverness of Dom’s return that the questions started.

I soon realized that if my faith was to endure, I had to examine everything I thought I knew about God and how He worked in the world in light of child loss.

Platitudes and hand-me-down interpretations of Scripture were not going to be enough.

So I brought the questions to God Himself in prayer and pleading, in whispers, shouts and writing. I sat silent waiting for His response and I searched the pages of my Bible looking for new insight into old, familiar passages.

I got some answers.

But not all of them.

And I had to decide what to do with that.

My heart is utterly, absolutely convinced that God is a good God, a faithful Father and the trustworthy Savior of my soul. He is all-knowing, all-powerful and ever-present. He knows the end from the beginning and I can trust Him to work all things (even child loss) for good.

So I’ve learned to still my spirit, to quiet my heart’s restless quest for answers and abide in the arms of my Shepherd.

I will live in the mysterious space between what I know and what I can’t comprehend.

I will wait patiently for the answers or until eternity when my pain is redeemed and what is lost restored and the answers won’t matter.

Because they who wait on the Lord will never be put to shame.

The Stories I Never Knew

I spent long hours with Mama in the last years of her life.

That gave me plenty of time to mine her memory for details of stories I’d heard for years but never took time to really listen to closely.

I knew (although I had no idea how soon it might happen!) that I wouldn’t have her forever. I wanted to gather all the bits and pieces I could hold that would remind me who she was, who she loved and what made her unique so I could always, always remember.

Mama loved to get her hair done every week!

When she left us last September I felt like I had a treasure chest of tales and precious mementos.

It wasn’t that way with Dominic.

I never imagined I’d need such a thing.

I never thought I would be the one left behind with questions about what motivated him to this or that, go here or there, what brought him particular delight or made him stay awake at night.

Time was on my side.

He was young and vibrant.

No need to dig for bits to tuck away in case he wasn’t here to ask.

I was wrong.

Heavy Lifting

Like many families in the United States ours has entirely too much stuff.

Homeschooling four children over twenty years and living in the same house for longer than that added to the pile of memories and tokens tucked in boxes and corners.

This week I decided (along with my youngest son) to tackle a couple of storage buildings we have. It was definitely time to clean out, throw out and pare down the piles.

So together we opened the doors and dug in.

Boxes that hadn’t been opened for years spilled out souvenirs from childhood, teen years and early adulthood. It was tempting to get lost in remembering but the heat of summer spurred us on.

More than once tears threatened and I had to take a deep breath to keep going.

Cleaning out is especially hard on my heart.

Just a couple months before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I had gone through a ton of homeschooling papers, memorabilia and odds and ends, gleefully culling them down to a few representative bits I thought I’d box or scrapbook into a keepsake for each child.

I filled my truck bed with boxes and boxes and took it to the dump. I enjoyed tossing them on the pile and relished the now organized space left at home.

What felt like freedom then, feels like regret and longing now.

Because what I have left of the physical presence of my son is represented in the scraps I have kept-the clothes, the notes, the scribbled comments in the margins of his notebooks and college texts.

So I’m careful about what gets tossed and what I keep.

And regardless how many bins and boxes I sort through on a given day, I’m exhausted by the end of it.

It’s ALL heavy lifting for my heart even when it’s light in my arms.

❤

Healing Is Not Linear

I remember thinking in the early days, weeks and months of this journey that healing was impossible.

The wound was too great, too deep and too devastating to allow for that.

No amount of work or help or wishful thinking could undo the damage.

But I was wrong.

Little by little the shattered pieces of my heart began to reassemble themselves into a very fragile, not-quite-the-same, semblance of the old shape.

When life knocks me around (as it still does quite often) a bit falls off here and there and I have to begin again to put my heart back together.

It’s not simple.

It’s not a straight line.

It’s not a once and done thing.

But it’s possible.

Grief Is Really Only Love

At first grief felt only like sorrow and longing and brokenness.

Then it felt like confusion and anxiety and despair.

A little further along this journey it mostly felt like apathy.

Now it feels like love.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/09/23/grief-its-really-just-love/

It Has Been Years-What Is Wrong With You?


If you think that time makes a difference to a mama’s heart that’s missing a child who ran ahead to Heaven without her, you don’t know as much as you think you know.

Time does not heal all wounds-especially the kind that shatter a heart into a million pieces.

It takes time for the wound to scar over, but it doesn’t undo the damage.

So if you are wondering why your coworker still takes the day off on his child’s birthday or the anniversary of her child’s homegoing, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Years disappear when those milestones loom large.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/09/14/its-been-years-whats-wrong-with-you/

Missing Him Is Background Music To My Days


Another bereaved mom wrote that she was better able to cope now than she had been a year ago.

And thanks to Facebook memories she had proof.

Several comments down a second mom wrote something that got me thinking-when, exactly, did Dominic’s loss move from the forefront to the background?

I’m not sure I can pinpoint a day or moment when I realized that sorrow was no longer ALL I feel and Dominic’s absence no longer ALL I see.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/03/07/background-music/

This Time Last Year

Oh the blessing of not knowing what’s coming!

This time last year much of my family had just wrapped up several days of boisterous togetherness forced upon us by Hurricane Dorian.

It was the first time Mama and Papa had seen their great-grandson and it was an unexpected blessing to ooh and aah over him, hold him and witness an infant milestone as he perfected the art of turning from his back to his stomach before our eyes.

Mama was energized and so much like her old self singing lullabyes and funny songs and absolutely delighting in him!

We had no way of knowing that in a few short weeks she would be gone.

I’m struggling a bit right now.

It seems that as the days grow shorter the light reflected in my windows mimics the springtime light that reminds my heart of when Dominic left us. The mirror image of his time of leaving and Mama’s time of leaving are not lost on this body.

He ran ahead in spring and she in fall. For those of us who live by the sun and length of day there is a corresponding physical reaction as the golden orb makes its journey through the sky.

I’ve fallen back into the pattern of going to sleep only to be awakened in the middle of the night and unable to go back to sleep. Every dream, every. single. night. has a theme of loss, impotence and deep sadness. I don’t know how to stop it.

Of course my dad has it harder.

I can’t help him any more than he could help me when Dom left us.

All I can do is listen, let him know I absolutely, positively understand and pray that each day he receives sufficient grace and strength to endure.

I know many in the child loss community express that nothing compares to burying a child. I would agree. Out of order death is uniquely traumatic. No parent births a child thinking he or she will outlive that baby brought home from the hospital.

But my mother’s death (the first significant loss since Dom died) has tossed me back on the rocks of grief.

It taps the wound and makes it fresh.

Places I thought were fairly healed are not nearly as scarred over as I thought.

So I’ll walk back through last year, remembering.

Feeling,

Crying,

Acknowledging that death is awful, whenever and however it visits us.