Category: Dominic

When Holidays Are Hard: What To Do About Mother’s Day

This will be the eighth Mother’s Day since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Every year has been different because families continue to grow and change and the world turns and life marches on.

Every year presents unique challenges and particular paths that must be navigated anew. It’s always an emotional roller coaster.

The Captain, March 2019

Two years ago our family welcomed a first grandchild. His frightening entrance into the world made his life all the more precious and Mother’s Day gave us a chance to celebrate him, his mama and the fact that his story has a happy ending.

The Captain, April 2020.

This year I’ll be a motherless child when the sun rises tomorrow. For the second time in my life, I won’t be able to see or telephone my own mother. Another light and life lost from sight.

Dominic and Mama in Heaven together.

Julian, Dominic, Mama, James Michael & Fiona

Every year my living children work hard to celebrate me even when they are unable to make it home.

I always feel loved.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is fiona-and-brandon-wedding-boys-and-fiona.jpg

So what’s a mama to do when her heart is torn between the very great and beautiful blessings of her living children and grandchildren and the very great and devastating sorrow of missing her child in Heaven?

Since discovering there is an International Bereaved Mother’s Day my heart has taken advantage of having a day to think about and honor Dominic and then another day to think about and honor my living children.

I also rise early enough on Mother’s Day to have time alone with my thoughts and feelings.

I walk my heart through the upcoming hours and “pre-grieve” moments where I’ll be looking for Dom among the faces at the table or around the room. I remember the gift of his life and place it in context of the gift of each of my children.

I thank God for my family.

Thanksgiving years ago, when we were all younger and all here on earth. One of my favorites. ❤

And then I get up, get dressed and open my heart to the love I have in front of me.

I never, ever want my living children to think that their brother’s ABSENCE is more important or more precious to me than their PRESENCE.

My mama’s heart has room for all of them as it always has.

And as it always will.

Another Meltdown

I’ve spent most of this afternoon crying.

It’s beautiful weather and nothing terrible happened today but my heart is heavy and I can’t shake it off.

I try so hard to identify triggers and personal traits that lead me down this path of sorrow.

Sometimes I come up empty.

I do think it has something to do with all the changes we’ve been forced to embrace.

They feel familiar.

Sudden, unexpected events have squeezed all of us into a narrow place with fewer options than we are accustomed to have available. Jobs lost, schools closed and (what is the deal???) no toilet paper.

A life that used to feel like an open vista of opportunity now feels constrained and burdensome.

I’m limiting my exposure to news and social media but there’s no escaping it altogether and it’s affecting my ability to keep a stiff upper lip.

I guess lack of sleep has something to do with it too. And the fact that someone’s dogs got into my chickens and killed half of them. Death-any death-is awful!

Plus Mother’s Day coming up. It will be the first I’ve spent without one of my children and without my own mother being at least a phone call away.

I would normally try to talk myself out of giving in. But not today.

I’m sitting outside in the extraordinary windy day and letting the tears fall. I think that’s what I need.

I miss my mama.

I miss my son.

I miss life the way it used to be.

Struggling With Sleepless Nights

I first shared this post about a year ago.

I was planning my daughter’s wedding and juggling a number of other pressing responsibilities. I managed to keep my composure most days when talking with caterers, family members and vendors but all that pent up stress kept me from falling asleep when I finally put my head down at night.

I had just begun to settle back into a decent sleep pattern when my mother suffered a stroke and died a few days later in September.

That threw me right back into the sleepless cycle that plagued me for years after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven in 2014. I couldn’t fall asleep or when I fell asleep I couldn’t stay asleep. What sleep I managed to get was filled with terrible and terribly vivid dreams.

I’m not sure I will ever enjoy the blissfully ignorant and pleasant slumber I knew as a young girl.

My heart won’t let me.

❤

For the first couple of weeks after Dominic left us, I couldn’t fall asleep.  

It was impossible to close my eyes without a dozen awful scenes flashing behind the lids. 

Silent darkness was not my friend. 

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/05/02/sleepless-nights/

An Open Letter To My Fellow Sisters In Loss On International Bereaved Mother’s Day

Dear Mama,

I know that you never-in your wildest imagination-thought that you would need a day set aside for your broken heart and your empty arms.  

Who thinks when they learn a new life is growing inside that this same life might be cut short?  What heart is brave enough to consider the possibility? 

Yet here you are.  

I’m so, so sorry.  

But there are a few things I want you to know.  There are some important truths to remember on this broken road-truths that can help you hold onto hope and finish strong.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/05/06/international-bereaved-mothers-day-an-open-letter-to-my-fellow-sisters-in-loss/

International Bereaved Mother’s Day 2020

International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States. This year it’s tomorrow, May 1, 2022

I didn’t even know such a day existed until I was a mom that needed it.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/05/06/international-bereaved-mothers-day/

In The Blink Of An Eye


It’s just not comforting for my heart to think my son is looking down on me from Heaven.

I can’t reconcile the idea that he might be watching my sorrow with what the Bible says about Heaven being a place of joy and peace.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/05/01/blink-of-an-eye/

Future Denied

I read A GRIEF OBSERVED in my 30’s as another in a long list of “Books You Should Read”.  I gleaned a bit here or there that I thought might be of use later on.

But when Dominic ran ahead to heaven, it was the first book on grief I bought for myself and I read it like a starving man set down to a full table.  

This passage, in particular, was helpful in understanding how my absolute trust in the FACT of ultimate redemption of my pain and sorrow did absolutely NOTHING to take away the pain and sorrow-it only made it bearable.

If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her. But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild.

C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/04/29/wisdom-from-c-s-lewis/

My Story Scares You. I Know Why.


At first all I could feel was pain.

Pain of abandonment, of being misunderstood, of being pushed to the outside edges of groups that used to welcome me with open arms.

But as time passed, I began to understand.

My story scares you.  You are utterly afraid that if child loss can happen to ME, it can happen to YOU.

You’re right.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/25/i-know-why-my-story-scares-you/

Is There A Cure For Our Broken Hearts?

Healing and curing are not the same thing.

Healing is a process that takes as long as it takes and may never be complete this side of eternity.  It’s a folding in of the hard parts of my story, an acknowledgement of the way I am changed because of the wounds I’ve received.  It involves scar tissue and sore spots and ongoing pain.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/04/08/healing-curing-same-thing/

Over And Over Again

I was surprised to find that this journey is not straight ahead, one foot in front of the other onto a predetermined destination.

Instead it’s a winding path with lots of switchbacks, circles and I often get lost in territory I have passed through before.

I am, in large measure, at the mercy of my heart.

❤

I don’t cry nearly as much as I used to.  

I’m not sure if it’s because I feel the need less often or because I’m just better at holding the tears at bay.  But when I do, it’s pretty ugly.

My heart is still broken.  

My soul still cries out for the child I carried in my womb and mothered for nearly 24 years.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/04/06/again-and-again/