Category: friendship

Compassion 2024: Tales of Extravagant Love and Friendship After Loss

I am well aware that not everyone is blessed by an outpouring of love and support in the wake of child loss. In fact, depending on the circumstances, some families are practically shunned.

It breaks my heart every time I hear of such an experience.

Because if there is one thing I’ve learned in this Valley, it’s this: when a heart is shattered my ONLY job is to show up and do whatever is helpful-even if that means sitting silently and holding a hand.

❤ Melanie

When I asked other bereaved parents to share the things people did that blessed them in the wake of losing a child, I didn’t expect so many stories of extravagant love–of acts surpassing anything I could have thought of or imagined.

“After my daughter passed, which was minutes before Mother’s Day 2012, outside the hospital room-

Read the rest here: Extravagant Love: Tales of Friendship and Encouragement After Losing a Child

Compassion 2024: Bereaved Parents and the First Few Days

It will be ten (!) years on April 12th. A decade of living without one of my children here on earth. 

And yet those first hours and days are some of the most vivid in my memory. Who showed up, what they did, what they said (or graciously and wisely DIDN’T say), how fragile and lost I felt as precious friends guided me through so. many. decisions.

I will never, ever forget the kindnesses shown to our family during that time. I will never, ever stop thanking God for the brave souls that entered into our world of pain and simply refused to be shooed or frightened away.

❤ Melanie

The death of any loved one opens a door and forces you to pass through.

You cannot procrastinate, cannot refuse, cannot ignore or pretend it away.

Suddenly, you find yourself where you absolutely do not want to be.  

And there is no going back.

Many bereaved parents describe the first hours, the first days after losing a child as a fog–we feel both horrified (I can’t believe this is happening!) and numb (Is this real? Am I dreaming?).

Read the rest here: Loving Well in the First Days After Loss

A Beautiful Moment When the Light Gets Through…

A few years ago, I had a grace-filled, heartwarming visit with another bereaved mama who came all the way from Maine just to hang out with me. And that was so, so good.

As she and I shared over coffee and tea, shopping and meals, lounging and walking we found so many ways in which our journeys have been similar even though the details are really very different.

One is this: There was a distinct moment along the way when each of us began to see light and color again in the midst of our darkness and pain and it was a turning point.

Read the rest here: There’s A Moment When The Light Makes It Through Again

Truly…They Don’t Know What They Don’t Know.

I remember the first couple times I ventured out in public after Dominic left us and the flurry of activity surrounding his funeral was over.

I felt naked, afraid and oh, so vulnerable.  

The tiniest misplaced word or random glance could undo me and I burst into tears.  

Read the rest here: They Don’t Know What They Don’t Know

So…Here Come the Holidays

I will confess: I’m no better at this than the first set of holidays after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Every. Single. Year. has brought changes and challenges on top of the empty chairs round the family table.

Since Dominic left us we’ve had additions (two grandchildren and various significant others) and sadly, more subtractions (my mother joined Dom in 2019). We’ve dealt with distance, deployment, healthcare and retail work schedules, a pandemic and lots of other, less easily defined tensions and difficulties.

Read the rest here: So…Yeah, The Holidays.

There’s Just NO Substitute for Showing Up

I totally get it–we are ALL so busy.

Calendars crammed weeks and months in advance and no white space left over to pencil in lunch with a friend even though we desperately NEED it.

It seems impossible to make that call, write that note or stop by and visit a few minutes.

How can I meet my obligations if I use precious time doing the optional?

But when the unexpected, unimaginable and awful happens, suddenly that calendar and all those appointments don’t matter.  Balls drop everywhere and I don’t care.

Because when your family or best friend needs you, you come-no questions asked.

Read the rest here: Being There: No Substitute For Showing Up

Grief and Holidays 2023: Practical Ideas for Dealing With Holidays After Loss

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.

So I’m including some ideas from other bereaved parents on how they’ve handled the holidays.  Many of these suggestions could be adapted for any “special” day of the year.

Not all will appeal to everyone nor will they be appropriate for every family.  But they are a place to start.

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

Grief and Holidays 2023: What the Bereaved Need From Family and Friends

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.

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

Grief and Holidays 2023: Having 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

Grief and Holidays 2023: Working It Out

The first set of holidays after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I was both numb and absolutely devastated.

Our family’s loss was fresh enough that folks understood if we just couldn’t do ALL the things or even anything. And that’s pretty much how we blundered through.

The next year, which was more than eighteen months post-loss, it was harder to explain to others how my heart was still oh, so raw and how the thought of “celebrating” still felt overwhelming.

I didn’t want Dominic’s absence to dominate the holidays but I couldn’t pretend it didn’t make a difference.

So I realized I was going to have to speak up and plan ahead because no one else was going to do it for me.

Here is the first in a series of posts I wrote that year-for myself, for my own family to read and to share with the bereaved parent community in the hope they could share with THEIR families and friends.

Our own holiday observations have changed in the years since I wrote them but the principles remain the same.

❤ Melanie

I live in Alabama where we are still sweating buckets under the late summer sun, so I understand if thinking about the holidays is the furthest thing from your mind.

School just starting, new routines in place-am I crazy?

Well, yes (you can find plenty of folks to back you up on that) and no-the days keep coming, one after the other, and these big days will be here sooner than we think.

And for grieving parents, it takes some thinking, some planning and some preparation to meet both extended family’s expectations and extra responsibilities at Thanksgiving and Christmas while carrying a load of sorrow and pain.

One thing I am learning in this journey is that even though I wish someone else would blaze the trail for me, I’m going to have to do it myself.  And because every major milestone is overflowing with emotional booby-traps, I have to plan ahead.

Read the rest here: Grief and Holiday Plans: Working Out the Details