family – Page 35 – thelifeididntchoose

Repost: True Love

I wrote this post last year and want to share it again.

Because the thing God speaks to me over and over and over in this journey is:

LOVE LASTS.

There is nothing I can spend my time, energy and resources on that will follow me into eternity and remain in the hearts of those I leave behind besides love.

It’s nice to get flowers or chocolate or balloons or cards that say, “I love you”.

But true love can’t be bought.

True love is marked by sacrifice, ongoing support, genuine compassion and willingness to do whatever it takes to “be there” for another person.

It means standing with someone even when walking beside them includes bearing the unbearable.

Read the rest here: True Love

When It’s Been YEARS-How to Bless a Grieving Parent

Please hear me.

I do NOT blame you that my son and my sorrow have drifted down your list of “things that need attention”. Your life is as busy as mine once was and your calendar full of commitments and celebrations that require your attendance.

There is no way you would know it’s 69 days until the fourth anniversary of Dominic’s sudden absence.

There is no reason for you to be aware that as the southern landscape turns to spring, my heart and mind turn to death.

But it’s the truth.

As the rest of the world looks forward to Easter (and I do too-for the promise and hope it brings) I am dreading Holy Week. Dominic was killed the Saturday before Palm Sunday and laid to rest the Monday after Easter. So every year I relive it twice-once during Holy Week and once again (when the dates are different) according to the calendar.

And each year it feels lonelier and lonelier.

Because each year fewer and fewer people remember or if they do, they don’t know how to offer that up as a blessing because it feels awkward or stiff.

So may I suggest a few things that most bereaved parents would absolutely LOVE for friends and family to say or do-especially as the months roll into years or even decades?

Send a card, message or text indicating that you DO remember. And not just for the date of passing, but also for his or her birthday or other important milestone dates.
Send an electronic or physical copy of a photo. It feels so empty to peruse the same photos over and over. It is an invaluable gift to get one I haven’t ever seen before. Every time it feels like I get a tiny new piece of Dominic to hold close to my heart.
If you have saved voice mails or videos-send those. Not every parent can or wants to listen/watch these, but they are a gift nonetheless. Just having them brings some comfort.
Post a memory on Facebook. If the child’s timeline is still up, write something TO the child-did you share an experience, a class, a hobby-then speak to that. Tell me how Dominic is still part of your life. Because as long as his influence still lives, part of him lives also.
Speak his or her name in conversation. I know it can be awkward. But don’t shy away from mentioning my child in conversation just as you would if he were living. If you are talking about an event in which he took part, please, please, please do NOT talk around him. I remember. You aren’t shielding me. It is so good for my heart to share these memories with other people.
If I post a photo or memory on Facebook, please don’t scroll past with the attitude “there she goes again!”. I post because I will talk about Dominic just as I will talk about my living children as long as I live. Yes, it’s the same photo-but I don’t have new ones because I CAN’T TAKE THEM, not because I don’t want them. If you think it’s “too much” I challenge you to cut off all (I mean ALL) communication with one of your living children for a week. That’s just the tiniest taste of what it’s like.
If I plan some kind of memorial activity, participate if you can. Personally I haven’t done this but many parents plan balloon releases or ask people to do a Random Act of Kindness in the name of their child. If you are able, join in.

There is a common theme here: if you think about my child, let me know.

I will not forget Dominic.

I couldn’t.

But it is oh, so helpful to know that others aren’t forgetting either.

Grief and Family

One of the things I absolutely LOVED about having four kids was the way they pinged off one another. There were evenings when the comments were flying so fast I could barely keep up. Sly looks, secret texts, funny faces and friendly punches made up most of our times together.

That’s how families are-each person is just a little “more” when surrounded by folks that love and understand him or her.

When Dominic left us, we didn’t only lose HIS companionship, we also lost the part of each of us that was reflected back from him.

And just as each one of us had a unique relationship with him in life,we have a unique relationship with him in death.

Sure he was brother to all his siblings.

But he was a younger brother to the older two and older brother to our youngest. He was a middle son but a third child. He was close to his sister who shared his love of musical instruments, bonded with his younger brother over cars and butted heads with his older brother when he felt like he was bossed around.

Dominic and I were both political junkies and loved to debate policy and current events. We listened to NPR and compared notes.

He enjoyed talking sports with his dad and trying out different guitars and sound effects pedals as they jammed to the radio.

So how we remember him, what we miss, what we long for and what we hold onto is a reflection of the different way we interacted with him.

How much and how loud we express our grief is also a combination of our relationship with him and our innate personalities.

Sometimes that is helpful-like when one of us can sit and listen to another because we are not so emotional at the moment. Sometimes it causes frustration or even conflict when one or more of us feels that we need to DO a certain thing to remember Dominic and one or more of us is uncomfortable doing that very thing.

We’ve got to respect our differences, embrace them, make room for them even in this Valley.

We ALL miss him. That’s something we can agree on.

We ALL would give anything to have him back.

And we are ALL in this together, even in our unique expressions of the same pain.

Grief is a family affair as much as life is.

We learn, we grow, we adapt.

And together we survive.

Why I Won’t Hide My Tears

It’s always a delicate balancing act when I’m with my living children and missing Dominic. I never, ever want to elevate their brother to a level that says I love him more than them-because it isn’t true.

I didn’t love him more when he was living and I don’t love him more now that he’s dead.

But I do love him differently.

I can no longer DO things for him. I can’t buy him a special Christmas gift, send him a thoughtful text when he’s having a tough day, make his favorite dish because he’s coming home for the weekend.

I can only testify to the love I continue to carry in my heart and to the impact he made on my life.

THAT’S why I won’t hide my tears.

I won’t pretend that some things don’t sting, some moments don’t overwhelm my wall of defense against the grief waves that pound relentlessly against it, some smells or sights or memories don’t bowl me over and knock my heart to its knees.

Because not only am I testifying to the love I have for Dominic, I’m also testifying to the love I have for each of my children.

They can see with their own eyes that death will never sever the ties I have with them nor cut the bond of love that stretches like a silken cord between my heart and theirs.

New Year’s Resolution: Leaning into Love

Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.

~C.S. Lewis

Romantic love is a relatively new idea in the long history of mankind.

We moderns take for granted that in order to DO something kind and loving for another person, we must FEEL kind and loving toward that person.

But that’s not really what love is all about.

We act in love all the time without feeling love.

Changing diapers. Changing oil. Cooking chicken nuggets when you really want coq au vin.

I am absolutely convinced God makes babies utterly helpless because as parents care for them, they come to love them more deeply and in ways that would never happen without hours and weeks and YEARS of hands-on ministration.

That same principle can be transferred to anyone.

If I am having a hard time “loving” my neighbor or my co-worker or my family member, if I begin to DO loving things for them, my heart will follow.

Maybe not in a day or a week. It might well take a year or more. But eventually, the feelings will develop.

And if they don’t because the person continues his or her prickly ways?

Well, then I will have become a more loving and patient and kind person regardless of their response to me.

Either way, I win.

So this year I am purposing to choose three people in my life that are hard to love and begin actively loving them.

I am going to make sure I contact them often, speak kindly, include them in events and reach out in other ways. I will look for small favors to do that can brighten their days. I will remember birthdays and anniversaries and other special days, I will speak well of them to others.

And I will pray that grace flows both ways from them to me and back again until it blossoms into love.

Stay tuned. 🙂

Did She REALLY Mean It That Way?

Most of us are used to them by now-those photo filters that can turn an awful picture into a dreamy masterpiece.

The same filters can take a perfectly lovely photo and distort it into something comical or worse.

Our minds are like that.

When we see things, hear things, experience things-we are filtering them through our own experience, emotional state, physical condition and biases.

As a bereaved parent, I’ve got to be very, very careful I don’t misinterpret other people’s words, actions and intentions.

It’s easy sometimes for me to feel like someone is purposefully seeking to harm me when all they are doing is acting in ignorance.

I can be quick to assume that a person’s absence is avoidance instead of simply a function of an overbusy schedule.

I can take words and twist them to mean something very different than what was intended because my heart hears everything through the filter of loss.

If I don’t constantly remind myself, I forget that if someone else hasn’t experienced child loss they really, truly HAVE NO CLUE what it feels like to walk in my shoes.

Because if I don’t, I spend most of my time hurt, licking my wounds in the corner and avoiding the very people that can help my heart heal.

Do other people have a responsibility to try to understand?

Of course they do!

But I also have a responsibility to try to see their hearts and not only their actions.

I need to check my own filters to make sure I’m not placing blame where there is none.

I should give them the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.

What’s Your Legacy?

I can’t tell you how many people try to tell me what Dominic’s “legacy” is. They extol his positive virtues and comment on how many lives he touched in his short 23 years.

They want me to be consoled with the intangible, relational, immeasurable impact of his life on the lives of others.

Yet they continue to live as if their OWN legacy will be determined by the amount of stuff they acquire or the size of their retirement accounts or the money they leave behind for others to spend.

It can’t be both.

If my son’s life is worth remembering just because of who he was, the people he loved and how he lived, then EVERYONE’S life is worth remembering for the very same things.

Christmas is the one time a year when far-flung family members are often gathered around the same table. It’s an opportunity to make connections and build relationships.

So I ask myself, “Am I going to spend it talking about the weather and the news and other sundry things that won’t matter in a day, much less a year?”

OR, maybe I can choose to reach out, to ask deep questions, to make space for honest conversation and real sharing.

Maybe I can mend a broken relationship by offering a long-hoped-for apology, speaking aloud the offense and taking responsibility for the pain I’ve caused in the past.

Perhaps I can proclaim a REAL blessing-not just the one we memorized from grade school-over the food and over the heads of the people gathering to eat it.

Why am I glad they are there? TELL THEM!

Most of the presents under the tree will be consumed, broken, outgrown and tossed away one day. But meaningful words spoken in love and kindness will live forever in a person’s heart.

We all leave something behind.

We are all building a legacy.

This Christmas I’m asking myself, “What’s mine?”

Why, Oh Why, is Christmas So Hard???

As another Christmas without Dominic rapidly approaches, I am pondering the question: “Why, oh why, is Christmas so hard?”

I think I’ve figured out at least a few reasons why.

For me, probably THE biggest reason Christmas is hard is because it throws off the routine I depend on to shepherd my heart through a day. It’s easiest for me to manage when I have at least a couple of hours of quiet time each morning. I need those silent moments to let my heart feel what it needs to feel, to cry if I must and to orient my thoughts after, once again, “remembering” that Dominic isn’t here.

Changing schedules and extra commitments mean that some nights I stay up later than usual and can’t manage to get out of bed in time to have those hours. Extra people in the house mean that they may get up and join me in the living room. While I love the company, I have to be honest and say I would love it more a little later in the day 🙂 ,

Another reason I struggle at Christmas is because all (almost all!) the family is together in one place. This may sound odd to anyone who hasn’t buried a child, but when every single person I care most deeply for is together, it highlights the space where Dominic SHOULD be but ISN’T.

Other times of the year we are more or less a full circle-as long as one or two others are missing, it kind of feels like maybe, just maybe, Dominic is away for awhile instead of away for the rest of my life. But when we are all gathered round the table or the tree or the fireplace, it is oh, so obvious that he isn’t here.

Buying presents and filling stockings I go down the list. I have to skip Dom because he won’t be here to open gifts or pull out his favorite candy from a Christmas sock. I can’t even mail him a package where he is. So I try to focus on the fact that his Christmas is the best one, because he is with the One Who IS Christmas.

But my heart still hurts, still yearns for one more hilarious morning when the camcorder won’t work or one of our sleepy young adults refuses to roll out of bed while the rest of us are waiting.

We are waiting now for a different kind of morning-one where the light dawns and never dims.

While I am in no way ashamed of the grief I carry-great love means great grief- I do try not to burden others with my tears at events or in places where smiles should rule. The Christmas season multiplies those occasions and calls for so. much. energy. just to maintain my “happy face” for the masses. It’s exhausting in a way only other grievers can truly understand.

And, of course, we celebrate Christmas in the US during what my grandmother used to call “the dark of the year”. Shorter days, longer nights means less time outside, less sunshine to generate the feel-good hormones I depend on to get me through each moment. When the nights come early and linger long, my mind has more time to ruminate on what was and what will never be again.

Finally, because Christmas is stressful for everyone for different reasons, people can just be a little harder to deal with-less flexible, more impatient, quicker to take offense or give it. All that emotional drama can overwhelm my heart in a flash-leaving me speechless, crying and anxious. It’s no one’s fault. It just is what it is.

For all these reasons-and dozens more-Christmas is an especially difficult time of year for this hurting heart.

So I try to be gentle to myself and to extend the same grace to ME that I extend to others.

I remind my heart that it is perfectly OK to turn down invitations when I just. can’t. go.

I lean into the Promise born in the manger-Emmanuel, God with us-and hold on with both hands.

Christmas 2017: What the Bereaved Need From Family and Friends

Christmas is fast approaching so I’m posting this one last time. I hope it helps someone who is struggling to share how hard it can be to “make merry” when a heart is broken. ❤

I know it is hard. I know you don’t truly understand how I feel. You can’t. It wasn’t your child.

I know I may look and act like I’m “better”. I know that you would love for things to be like they were: BEFORE. But they aren’t.

I know my grief interferes with your plans. I know it is uncomfortable to make changes in traditions we have observed for years. But I can’t help it. I didn’t ask for this to be my life.

Read the rest here: Grief and Holidays:What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

Time and Time Again

Since Dominic ran ahead to heaven we have celebrated four graduations and a wedding.

Wednesday night was another one. My daughter, Fiona, graduated nursing school.

We are so excited for her!

And, as usual, our family rallied round, pitched in, showed up and made a great fuss over the accomplishment.

It was beautiful and hard all at the same time.

Because time and time again we join hands and hearts to celebrate an achievement, a milestone, a special moment or a holiday and there is always, always, always one missing.

Every photo is just slightly askew- one daughter, ~~three~~ two sons.

We’ve gotten good at closing ranks, squeezing out the space where he should be standing. But our hearts mark the gap.

Our hearts will always mark the gap.

I am much better now at actually enjoying these things-I love the way my daughter’s friends surround and encourage her, I laughed at the antics of the children that enjoyed running from adult to adult, getting more attention than they knew what to do with. I sat and listened with great pride as Fiona gave the closing remarks to her graduating class, drawing from a deep well of wisdom that includes heartache as well as hallelujahs.

And it was all good. Really, truly good.

But you have to go home eventually.

Hugging necks and saying “good-bye” is when it always hits me-I hug harder, cling longer, make sure to whisper not only “I love you” but everything I need to say-just in case.

And grown children text their mama so she knows they are safely home.

Dominic’s legacy is this: We never miss a chance to celebrate one another.

We cling to the good and try to let go of the bad.

We love fiercely and openly and are not ashamed for one minute of our tears or our laughter.

Because you never know.

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