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 chair 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.
I remember thinking in the first days and weeks after Dominic’s accident that the world really needed to justSTOP!
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise again felt like an abomination when my son was never coming home again. Shouldn’t the universe take notice that something was terribly, terribly wrong?
But it didn’t.
So life (even for me and my family) carried on.
Some days lingered like that last bit of honey in the jar-slipping slowly, ever so slowly into nights when my brain betrayed me by replaying all the ifs, whys and should haves as I tried in vain to get some sleep.
Others flew by and I found myself months further into a new year unable to remember how I got there and what I’d done for all that time.
My adult children married, moved, graduated, changed careers, and had their own child (another on the way!).
My mother joined Dominic in Heaven.
I got older.
We’ve celebrated birthdays, anniversaries and holidays.
Daily life isn’t as difficult (most days) as it was in the beginning but my husband’s retirement has forced me to figure things out once again.
I can’t blame it all on the fact we’ve buried a child. I’m pretty sure most couples struggle to find a new normal when one or both give up long term employment for staying home.
Suddenly my little house kingdom has been overtaken by my husband’s love of music in the background (I’m a work in silence kind of gal), his tendency to leave a trail of breadcrumbs (paper, gum wrappers, tools) wherever he goes and a completely different wake/sleep/work cycle than my own.
I have a plan for the next day thenight before. He treats every morning as a blank slate and takes a few hours to decide what he will do. By the time he gets going, I’ve nearly finished my list.
Trying hard to accommodate these changes has laid bare one of the main waysI’ve managed my grief for almost eight years.
I can’t make time stop but I work hard to control it. I schedule and plan and execute the plan in an attempt to reorder life so I don’t feel as vulnerable to its vagaries.
It’s a vain attempt.
My husband’s sense of time is challenging my coping mechanism. Once again I need to figure out how to navigate a changing world, how to carry grief and carry on.
Before my mother’s illness and death, before the frighteningly early arrival of our little Captain, before an overseas deployment, a destructive hurricane, Covid19, and too many other stressful events to list.
I have watched my kids meet every challenge-sometimes with grace, sometimes with grit, sometimes with both.
They are different people than they would have been if Dominic still walked beside us. They know things their peers can’t even guess.
We all lost so much when we lost Dom. But we still have each other.
And that’s a treasure.
❤
I never thought it possible to love you more than I already did.
But I do.
Your brother’s untimely departure has opened my heart in a whole new way to the glory that is your presence. It has made me drink you in like water in the desert.
What a privilege to pour my life into them! What joy to see them grow and mature and become people I not only love but admire and respect!
I learned so very much while raising my children. The Lord used them to shape and mold my heart to be more like His. They were instruments of grace and discipline. Over and over and over I had to lay down my preferences and priorities to make way for theirs.
Now I have a grandson.
Another generation to snuggle and teach, comfort and care for.
I’m already learning even more in this season.
This little guy’s early and rocky start in life reignited passion for prayer in mine. Watching him grow and thrive sparks hope and joy like I haven’t felt in the years since Dominic left us for Heaven.
His smile lights up my heart and the room.
Just the other day his daddy shared this picture with me:
James Michael was being silly with him, oohing and aahing and making him giggle.
As I stared at the photo I realized this child was experiencing such joy, such complete contentment, fulfillment and utter sense of safety it was uncontainable.
So it spread all over his face.
Then I had an epiphany-that’s exactly what Dominic feels right now.
This very minute the child I am missing is missing nothing. Precisely when I am wondering if God cares, if He hears, if He’s even near, Dominic is filled to overflowing with undeniable and uncontainable joy because what I hope for he SEES.
And one day that will be me.
All the heartache of this life will fade away to a tiny, tiny dot in the distance. What has been stolen will be restored. What has been bartered away will be redeemed. Wounds will be fully healed and my heart will be whole.
I’ll be full of joy and safe in my Father’s arms. ❤
Because I have absolutelyNO IDEAif anyone is aware of the passage of time in Heaven or if birthdays are even a thing there.
So instead of celebrating another year with my third born, I’m celebrating the years I had with him-too few as far as my heart’s concerned.
I am oh, so thankful for the time I had.
But my heart cries, “More! More!”
I’m no good at this “birthday in absentia” thing. This is the sixth time May 28th has rolled around without Dominic here to eat cake, open presents or break his usually strict dieting rules and gobble down pasta.
A couple of years I’ve purchased a cake in secret at a local bakery for a child that shares Dom’s birthday.
Most years I’ve quietly remembered the events leading to his birth including what now feels like a prescient experience: my obstetrician’s nurse came into the room as I was waiting for a C-section delivery and whispered, “Dr. H is here, but his daughter completed suicide yesterday”. *
When they brought Dom close to my head so I could kiss him before they whisked him away and sewed me up, tears streamed down my face. I really had NO CLUE, but I realized (in a tiny way) that this man was here ushering life into the world as his own heart was breaking for a life that was no more.
All I could say was, “Thank you! I am so, so sorry.”
And I meant it.
Now I know what it cost him to be there. What it cost him to see a family made larger at the moment his (earthly) family had been made smaller.
This year we are at my oldest son’s home savoring the first precious moments holding our grandson. Born too early, his story could have ended badly.
It didn’t and for that I am thankful.
Ryker’s original due date was May 27th-one day before Dominic’s birthday.
It’s fitting that we have a new life to celebrate even as we celebrate missing Dom.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know how to merge these two lives, these opposite feelings, this joy and sorrow meeting in my heart.
I vacillate between overwhelming sadness and overwhelming gratitude that my grandson’s story is beautiful, remarkable, nearly miraculous.
So today I will try to honor Dominic-who he was, who he still is (even more so and perfectly in Heaven!) and the precious gift of another generation to love, nurture and cherish.
I’ll try to lay aside the awful knowledge I carry in my heart that any day things can change. What you never think can happen DOES happen.
I’ll celebrate love.
Because love lives forever.
Always.
*Dominic was killed instantly in a single vehicle motorcycle accident April 12, 2014.
thelifeididntchoose 