friendship – Page 24 – thelifeididntchoose

How To Survive December With a Broken Heart

It comes up again and again-and not just for the parents facing their year of “firsts”: How do I survive December with a broken heart?

There’s no single answer or list of things to do that will suit every family.

But there are some general principles that can make even this awful reality a little easier:

Be gentle with yourself. Accept that you will not be able to do all the things you could do before child loss. Understand that tears will fall at the most inconvenient moments and grief waves will take you under when you least expect them to. That’s OK. You do not have to be strong or brave or keep smiling when you are sad. Feel what you feel. Do what you need to do.

Be honest with others. No matter how wonderful it would be if they could truly understand what it feels like to bury a child (without the experience, of course!), it is not the way things ARE. So if you need something from someone, speak up. If you don’t want to go to this or that, say so. If your heart can’t take one more family gathering or meal, send your regrets and stay home. Use “I” statements and say something like, “I’m just not able to participate in gift-giving (or whatever) this year. My heart won’t take it.” They may not like it. But they can’t argue with your experience.

Do not let people cross the boundaries you set up to protect your heart. Once you have figured out where you need to draw the line and have communicated that to others, hold fast. It’s really just fine to not return phone calls or text messages designed to force you to meet others’ expectations. You don’t have to be rude, but you also don’t have to submit your heart to constant trampling.

Be open to change. This is the fourth set of holidays for me without Dominic. Each year I’ve entered the season with certain ideas about how they will go, what will and won’t be helpful, and where I needed to set boundaries. And every year I’ve made adjustments. Some things I thought I COULD do, I couldn’t. Some things I swore I’d NEVER do, I’ve done. Work schedules, plane delays, illness, or even happy surprises alter plans and require adjustment.

Remember that December doesn’t last forever. As hard as this season is, it is only a season. The earth turns, the sun rises and the days pass. If you spend the month in bed with the covers over your head, January will still roll around. If you get up and participate (whatever that looks like for YOU) then January will also show up on schedule.

These days are just like all the rest: in the end we survive them one breath, one moment at a time.

But we do survive.

Pressure Relief Valves and Blowing Off Steam

I use a pressure cooker when canning some things from the garden. It’s the only way to ensure food safety for low-acid, low-sugar foods.

It took me awhile before I could work up the courage to use that contraption-when a pot comes with warning labels about “check to make sure seal is intact before every use” and “always be certain pressure cock is seated properly and working”-well, that’ll make you think twice about how much you want canned beans come winter.

I imagined all kinds of awful scenarios the first time I fired up the stove under that big cooker. But none of them came to pass. Sixty minutes later and all was well.

I’ve thought a lot about my pressure canning days recently and how that pot is uniquely created to allow just enough steam to escape to keep it from exploding. Sure, it gets mighty hot (that’s the point-to kill the bacteria) but not so hot that it bursts into lethal metal shards all over the kitchen.

I feel like so many of us (bereaved parents or not!) are like that pressure cooker-boiling and roiling with heated emotions getting hotter and hotter and threatening to explode.

Some of us do.

It’s messy or even dangerous.

I’ve thought about how critical that relief valve is to the proper function of the pressure cooker and how people need relief valves too.

Some of us find relief through hobbies or exercise or journaling or praying. But many of us can only relieve our sense of building pressure by talking to another person.

We need to be HEARD and SEEN in order to let off steam.

We need someone to be the relief valve for our pent up feelings so they don’t spew uncontrollably over everyone and everything.

So when you are thinking about what YOU can do for someone going through a tough time, here’s a thought: Offer to meet them and let them talk. Just let them say whatever they need to say without correcting them or judging them or steering them toward safer topics of conversation.

Just listen.

Offer appropriate comments now and then so they know you are paying attention but let them empty their hearts of the pent up steam of strong emotions.

Then keep all the secrets they shared in your own heart. Don’t spread them around to others and don’t use them later as ammunition or leverage.

Listening is love in action.

Providing a safe space for a heart to let go is one of the best gifts of all. ❤

What IS and IS NOT “Impossible”

I freely and publicly admit that until Dominic ran ahead to heaven I was just as likely as the next person to declare something “impossible” when it was really simply hard, distasteful or uncomfortable.

Because before Dominic was snatched away in an instant-irretrievably lost to me this side of eternity-I lacked perspective.

I didn’t realize that as long as someone is breathing, there is hope.

As long as there are choices, you can make them.

As long as people offer to help, you can let them.

What I am facing may seem insurmountable but if money, time and/or energy can make a difference, then no circumstance is truly impossible.

So I carry an absolute yardstick in my heart: death is the only utterly impossible situation.

Anything that falls short of that holds out hope.

I can choose to grab hold or choose to let go, but I have a choice.

It may be excruciating and hard and frustrating and foolhardy, but I can still hold on.

❤

The Irresistable Power of Love

As you gather with loved ones today, can I tell you something oh, so important?

Don’t wait for that phone call or red-letter calendar day to reach out. Don’t let busy-ness overrun your life so that it squeezes out what and who is really important. Don’t let twelve months separate this time and the next time you talk to the people you care about.

When you think about someone-call them or get in touch in some way. We have the potential for connectivity as never before. There is really no excuse for not sending a text or an email or a Facebook message. Don’t just think about it, DO it!

Love is irresistable when it’s not just a feeling.

Love in action can break down walls, build bridges, overcome evil and speak courage to broken hearts.

There is so much we cannot control in this world-so many hard things we cannot stop from happening.

But when we choose to love-really, really love-we can create pockets of peace and places of safety.

Never underestimate the power of love.

Gratitude and Grieving: The Truth Will Set You Free

How much energy do we spend dancing around the truth? How many times do we gather with family or friends and cast our eyes downward so we can ignore the elephant in the room? How many shackles would fall away if just one person stood up and said what everyone else was thinking but was afraid to whisper aloud?

As family gathers around the table for Thanksgiving, we all have those subjects no one will touch. And often they are the very ones that need to be laid bare, talked about and shared. They are what keep hearts apart even while bodies sit closer than any other time of year.

Now I’m no advocate of random outbursts intended to shock and raise a ruckus but I am a firm believer in speaking truth in love.

It’s hard.

In fact, next to carrying this burden of missing, it is the hardest thing I do.

And I am often unsuccessful.

I screw up my courage, practice my speech, lay out the strategy and then crumble, last minute, under dozens of potentially awful outcomes.

What if they get mad? What if they think I’m crazy, or selfish, or wrong?

Or I DO share and it falls flat because the words I thought would communicate love are misunderstood or misdirected or misapplied.

So instead of helping, I hurt.

But the alternative is this: we all remain imprisoned behind a wall where freedom is clearly visible on the other side. We can smell it, almost taste it but not quite touch it.

And that is not how I want to live.

I want to claim the freedom that truth offers.

So this Thanksgiving I will try again: truth in love.

Lots and lots of love with truth sprinkled in. Maybe the sugar in the pie will help.

I’ll never know if I don’t give it a shot.

Too Scared to Stay

How many reading this enjoy roller coasters? Or scary movies? Or action films?

My guess is that most like one or the other or all three.

Why? Because it’s fun to dip our emotional toe into deep water when we know we can take it out at any moment.

We experience a sort of “high” when the “fight or flight” adrenaline pumps through our veins but our minds know full well that we are in no real danger.

What’s much more difficult is to commit to experience in real time with real people the real emotional roller coaster of hard situations and unending sorrow or pain.

Then people tend to withdraw because they are too scared to stay.

I am so sorry that broken hearts are wounded further when friends or family just can’t bear the pain of watching us hurt and run away instead of walking with us.

They are afraid. I used to be afraid too. But I’m not afraid now.

My new bravery was purchased at great cost. And I don’t want to waste it.

This Valley is teaching my heart to reach out further, quicker, more often and to stick around longer than I was willing to before.

I want to stand with and speak courage to wounded hearts.

I want to help healed hearts that choose to be brave and commit to walk with those in pain.

And I am learning to extend grace to the hearts who choose to run away.

Fear is powerful and I can’t blame them.

But for those who remain, I am so, so grateful.

Holidays and Grief: Some Practical Ideas

It cannot be overstated: holidays are extremely hard after loss. Every family gathering highlights the hole where my son SHOULD be, but ISN’T.

There is no “right way” or “wrong way” to handle the holidays after losing a child.

For many, there is only survival-especially the very first year.

These days also stir great internal conflict: I want to enjoy and celebrate my living children and my family still here while missing my son that isn’t. Emotions run high and are, oh so difficult to manage.

Read the rest here: Practical Ideas for Dealing with the Holidays after Child Loss

Holidays and Grief: What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

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.

I know that every year I seem to need something different. I know that’s confusing and may be frustrating. But I’m working this out as I go. I didn’t get a “how to” manual when I buried my son. It’s new for me every year too.

So I’m trying to make it easier on all of us.

I’m trying to be brave and think ahead and offer up what I can to help you understand.

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

Holidays and Grief: Having the Hard Conversations

You don’t have to bury a child to know that changing long-standing family traditions around holidays is a hard, hard thing.

Just ask a parent trying to work out Thanksgiving and Christmas for the first time after an adult child marries. Suddenly the way things have “always been” are no longer the way things are.

Holidays typically involve so many more people and family members than everyday get-togethers and each person brings expectations, emotions and personal history to the table.

So, that is why I decided to run this series of posts NOW. Because one of the things I have learned over the years is that giving people time to adjust to change is a good thing.

Read the rest here: Grief, Holidays and Hard Conversations

Holidays and Grief: Thanksgiving Plan

Thanksgiving is hard on my heart.

My birthday is usually close to, and sometimes on, Thanksgiving. So we often celebrate them together. What makes that especially painful for me since Dominic ran ahead to heaven is that the last birthday before he left was a surprise party at his apartment.

It was wonderful and loud and fun and filled with laughter and love.

So all those good but achingly hard memories are wrapped up with the turkey and dressing.

Thanksgiving has also been our family’s favorite holiday for opening our home to people. No gift-giving expectations and abundant food made adding another chair to the table easy and fun. Internationals, singles, widowers, and other families often joined us cramming the house as full as our stomachs.

So now when the gathering is intimate and one chair left unfilled, it echoes loudly to my heart that things are oh, so different!

The first year after Dominic ran ahead, we went out of town. Our eldest son had married that summer and we visited him and his wife in West Virginia. A power outage that lasted through Thanksgiving Day evening was a welcome, if slightly annoying, diversion from the heaviness of the first real holiday without Dominic. Traveling used up some of what would have been long, empty days. So, for us, it was the best thing to do that year.

The second year we kind of muddled through with a facsimile of years past. it was a struggle and not at all comfortable for my heart. I don’t really know what I was thinking or not thinking that year-the second year found me more anxious, less able to deal with my sadness and overwhelmed by unexpected grief waves that swept me under before I knew it.

The third year some very special friends invited us to join them for Thanksgiving. They fixed all the food and we crowded together in their daughter’s apartment, packed in but jolly and very well loved. Getting there involved an unpleasant and emotional discussion with extended family. But the day was redeemed and it was exactly what I needed last year.

This year-well-I’m not entirely sure just yet.

There are a number of factors keeping us from making definitive plans. My mother is still unwell and not able to travel. One son will most likely be absent. Some friends may need a place to land and a table around which to gather.

So my plan is to have a plan by early next week.

I’ve done a few things so far: purchased pretty paper plates, baked some goodies and put them in the freezer, got my Thanksgiving cards out (remember-I’m sending them instead of Christmas cards this year!), washed the big windows in the kitchen and living room, and begun putting out feelers to the lonely and abandoned in our circle to see if they are interested in coming for a meal.

The meal is the easy part. Because in the end, as long as it ends with pie and chocolate, who really cares what you eat beforehand? 🙂

The hard part is the conversations.

The way I have to remind even those closest to me that this year will be just. as. hard. as every other year since Dominic left us. The way I have to breathe deep and swallow words so I don’t burst out crying at the mention of who’s coming and who’s not-because Dominic will never come again. The way I have to be very, very careful to balance all the emotional needs of family members and try to respect various requests for what’s important to their hearts.

I remind myself that I am not the focus of every event or holiday. I am not the only one carrying emotional or physical burdens that require accommodation. I am not given a pass to act ugly or pitch a fit or crawl in a hole and hide just because I buried a child.

So I try to think ahead, ask ahead, make my needs known ahead and then I participate as fully as I can-with a smile and an open heart to the ones that still gather.

I refuse to turn every holiday into a battle and every meal into uncomfortable silence where people are afraid to say anything for fear of hurting my feelings.

I honor Dominic by honoring those I have left.

My heart may be broken, but it is also blessed.

I won’t let one overshadow the other.

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