friendship – Page 23 – thelifeididntchoose

No More “Quiet Mouse” For Me

Believe me, I’ve imposed my share of“Quiet Mouse” on my own kids through the years.

Raising four close-in-age siblings, sometimes that was the only way to make the last five miles home without losing my mind.

But the premise of the game is really this: I’m bigger, I’m stronger, I’m in control and you are not-so shut up.

Even if you have something important to say.

Even if you feel like you will burst wide open if you have to hold it in.

No excuses allowed. Just. Be. Quiet.

quiet_as_a_mouse (2) — Peace at all costs.

I’ve been a quiet mouse for most of my life when it comes to standing up for myself.

Now, advocating for my children or for someone unable to fend for themselves-that’s another story. But somewhere in my formative years I embraced the message that the most important thing in the world was to keep the peace.

Even if you have something important to say.

Even if you feel like you will burst wide open if you have to hold it in.

No excuses allowed. Just. Be. Quiet.

But all this emotional turmoil I’ve been feeling since Dominic left us has uncovered layer after layer of brokenness, pain and untold stories. His death lifted the lid on the vault that had been sealed for decades.

Emotions are flying out like genies.

And I’ve come to understand that peace at all costs-when the costs are borne by a single individual in a relationship-is not peace.

It’s slavery.

I also realize that not every friendship and family tie is a mission field on which I must spill my life’s blood to prove my love for Jesus.

Sometimes laying down simply enables bad behavior and encourages bullying and disrespect.

I want to walk in love. Always.

But love does not mean I must allow other people to walk all over me.

I don’t plan to.

No more “Quiet Mouse” for me.

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

Choosing To Be Seen

It’s tempting to hide.

All I have to do is stay home or plaster on the “I’m fine” mask before I leave my driveway and venture out into the world.

Because, frankly, sometimes I just don’t want to explain why I’m crying again, struggling still, walking wounded and not “healed”.

But it’s not healthy.

I cannot selectively numb my emotions. When I push down the painful, I slam the lid on all of it-joy and love included.

It takes courage to choose to be seen.

It’s hard to choose to walk honestly and openly in the world.

It’s risky to offer my authentic self up to an often inattentive, insensitive and critical audience.

But if I am to be truly known then I must choose to let others see my struggle and allow them to witness my failures and heartache.

Truth is, when I hide I forfeit real connection.

There’s no authentic relationship without vulnerability.

I want deep and authentic bonds with family and friends.

I don’t want to hide.

I want to be seen.

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.

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.

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

25 Ways to Give Holiday Hope to the Grieving

This will be the [eleventh] Christmas without Dominic.

I’m certain that for some of my family and many of my friends, they are less and less aware of his absence. That’s completely natural and understandable.

But for me, his absence looms just as large THIS Christmas as it did that FIRST Christmas.

Even if you do realize how hard it is for grievers during the holidays, you might not have any idea how to show you care.

I came across this list originally published Family Life Today that gives 25 ideas to give holiday hope to the grieving and wanted to share it because I think it is wonderful.

I can promise you that any hurting heart would be delighted to have a friend or family member reach out in one or more of these ways.

25 Christmas Gifts or Remembrances for the Brokenhearted

1. A tree that can be planted in the family’s yard in memory of the loved one (or a gift certificate to a nursery that can be used to purchase a tree in the spring)

2. Bibles, Christmas Poinsettias, or library books given as memorials

3. Memorials to the local church or charities

4. Home videos of the loved one (especially ones of activities that the family may not have)

5. A scrapbook filled with pictures of the loved one

6. Special Christmas ornaments (for example, if the child played the piano, see if you can find an ornament in the shape of a piano)

7. Books such as Streams in the Dessert and When Life is Changed Forever

8. A personal item that would become a memento about the loved one’s personality or gifting

9. Gift certificates to a cabin or lodge, or to a place that the loved one once enjoyed

10. An original poem about the deceased

11. A journal from friends and family with written memories about the deceased

12. A written tribute to the deceased (The Best Gift You Can Ever Give Your Parents by Dennis Rainey and David Boehi, explains how you can do this.)

13. Addressing their Christmas cards or notes

14. Joining them in holiday shopping or doing the shopping for them

15. Asking if you can help decorate their home for Christmas

16. Sharing homemade Christmas cookies

17. Arranging family photographs in albums

18. Inviting them to decorate a gingerbread house

19. Picking them up for Christmas services at church and holiday get-togethers

20. Helping them shop for that “perfect gift” that they can give to others in memory of their loved one

21. Decorating a small tree with ornaments that have special memories of the loved one

22. Helping them write holiday memories

23. Organizing a candle-light memorial for close friends and family

24. Having a family-time of singing some of the deceased’s favorite Christmas carols and hymns

25. Giving the brokenhearted blank journals to write Bible verses that remind them of God’s presence, such as 2 Corinthians 1:3-4a and Jeremiah 29:11

Repost: Christmas Cards-Yes? No? Maybe?

I’m posting this again because last year it seemed to help some bereaved parents figure out something that plagues all of us: what to do about Christmas cards after a child runs ahead to heaven.

This year I did things a little differently. I actually sent out Thanksgiving cards (a week late since my mom was in the hospital) and included a similar note with those.

Whatever you decide to do, do it because it helps YOUR heart, not because you feel compelled to meet others’ expectations. ❤

Getting Christmas cards out on time was always a challenge in my busy household.

So for the last years of kids at home, we transitioned to sending New Year’s greetings. It was easier to get a family photo with everyone home for Christmas, there was no artificial deadline to send them and we could include a “thank you” or respond to news in their Christmas letters.

I haven’t sent anything for three years.

What could I say?

And a family photo was out of the question.

Read the rest here: Christmas Cards-Yes? No? Maybe?

Holding Space

We do it all the time in the physical world-leave the shopping cart in line with the admonition to the person behind us to “hold our place” while we run to get that forgotten item.

We leave a gap for that minivan to pull in just where the construction cones narrow a highway from two lanes to one.

We open a door and step aside so the elderly lady with her hands full can manage to get through without dropping the load.

But most of us are not as good at it in relationships.

I think part of the reason is because we are often unaware of the NEED to do it. We don’t have external cues like traffic cones or physical barriers or long lines waiting to check out or get in.

So we miss the opportunity to step aside, or step back or simply wait a moment for another heart to catch up or move over or step through.

Sometimes it’s because our minds are so used to multi-tasking and treating every single minute as if “time is money” that we are unwilling to slow down enough to truly HEAR another heart.

two women rear view

I find that if I’m not very, very careful, I spend a good part of the time I’m supposed to be listening, constructing my response before the person I’m “listening” to has even finished her comment.

It takes a lot of discipline not to do that.

And I don’t always exercise it.

I want to be a person that holds space for others. I want to be a heart that listens well and pays attention to the message another heart is sharing.

I believe that when I do that, I can lighten a load.

Because often what someone needs is just to know they are seen,

they are heard and

they are loved.

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