Category: grief journey

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: Child Loss and Secondary Loss

While I certainly had no real idea in the first hours or even weeks what losing a child entailed, I understood plainly that it meant I would not have Dominic to see, hold or talk to.

I wouldn’t be able to hug his neck or telephone him.  

He wouldn’t be sitting at my table any more.

But the death of a child or other loved one has a ripple effect.  It impacts parts of life you might not expect.  As time went on, I was introduced to a whole list of losses commonly called “secondary losses”.

Read the rest here: Child Loss and Secondary Losses

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: I Don’t Want To Remember My Son

I don’t want to remember my son. 

I want to make memories with him.  

I want him to watch me grow old, to watch him get married and have children and to hear his voice mingled with his siblings at my table.

Read the rest here: I Don’t Want To Remember My Son

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: Physical Manifestations of Grief

Grief is not *just* feelings. It is so much more.

I shared this last year around this time in response to many, many comments and questions from bereaved parents about what felt like random or unusual physical manifestations of their own grief.

I hope it helps another heart navigate this life none of us would choose. 

❤ Melanie

It’s a well known fact that stress plays a role in many health conditions.  

And I think most of us would agree that child loss is one of (if not THE) most stressful events a heart might endure.  

So it’s unsurprising that bereaved parents find themselves battling a variety of physical problems in the wake of burying a child.  

Read the rest here: Physical Manifestations of Grief

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: What Grieving Parents Want Others to Know

I wrote this post December, 2015.  It hadn’t been long since I joined an online community of bereaved parents and began to see that I wasn’t the only one who had friends and family that misunderstood child loss.

I was spending a lot of time in my life trying to help others comprehend, just a little, what it felt like to bury a child.

Trying to give them a tiny taste of how this pain is so, so different than any other I had experienced.  Begging them to toss the popular ideas bandied around that grief followed “stages” and was “predictable”.

I re-share every so often because it seems to help, a little.  I’m re-sharing today in  honor of Bereaved Parents Month. 

❤

People say, “I can’t imagine.“

But then they do.

They think that missing a dead child is like missing your kid at college or on the mission field but harder and longer.

That’s not it at all.

Read the rest here: What Grieving Parents Want Others to Know

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: Why Friends Abandon Grievers

It happens in all kinds of ways.  One friend just slowly backs off from liking posts on Facebook, waves at a distance from across the sanctuary, stops texting to check up on me.

Another observes complete radio silence as soon as she walks away from the graveside. 

Still another hangs in for a few weeks-calls, texts, even invites me to lunch until I can see in her eyes that my lack of “progress” is making her uneasy.  Then she, too, falls off the grid.

Why do people do that? 

Read the rest here: Why Friends Abandon Grievers

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: Good Answers to Hard (Insensitive, Inappropriate) Questions

I was utterly amazed at the questions people plied me with not long after Dominic’s accident.

They ranged from digging for details about what happened (when we ourselves were still unsure) to ridiculous requests for when I’d be returning to my previous responsibilities in a local ministry.

Since then, many of my bereaved parent friends have shared even more questions that have been lobbed at them across tables, across rooms and in the grocery store.

Recently there was a post in our group that generated so many excellent answers to these kinds of questions, I asked permission to reprint them here (without names, of course!).

So here they are, good answers to hard (or inappropriate or just plain ridiculous) questions:

Read the rest here: Good Answers to Hard (Insensitive, Inappropriate) Questions

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: God in a Box

I first shared this some years ago as I was beginning to work through the theological implications of a God who did not intervene to save my son.

I thought I understood who God was and how He worked in the world because nothing that had happened to me challenged those assumptions. Things were neat and tidy with clear edges that demarcated “those who love God” and “those who refuse Him”.

But God is not confined to a box I or any other human can construct. He is GOD.

That’s a hard, hard truth to digest but it is truth. 

❤ Melanie

It’s possible that you haven’t thought of it this way, but if you are a believer in Christ and have yet to walk through faith-shattering trials, you may have placed God in a box.

I know I had.

I thought that after decades of walking with Jesus, reading and studying Scripture and wading through some fairly significant trials I had God pretty well figured out.

I could quote verses for every occasion, open my Bible to any book without looking in the Table of Contents, and had something sprirtual to say about everything.

But now, like Job, I cover my mouth.

Read the rest here: God in a Box

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: I Keep On Keeping On

I think I counted months for nearly three years after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Just like when he was an infant and toddler.

When he was living and growing I celebrated each milestone. But after he left, I cringed when the twelfth rolled around again.

Every time I folded the calendar back to reveal another four weeks had passed, I felt my heart flip flop in response to time’s unstoppable progression.

❤ Melanie

The months roll by, the calendar pages turn, soon school will be back in session and you are still not here.

Sometimes I think I have figured out how to do these days that remain between now and when we will be together again.  

And sometimes I realize that I haven’t.

Read the rest here: Keep On Keeping On

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: Digging Up Memories, Laying Down Dreams

I first shared this a few summers ago when I was actively working my way through several piles of boxed up memories.

I’d love to report that I whittled it down to a manageable few but I can’t.

I’m going to pretend it was lack of time that kept me from doing a better job but truth is it was mostly lack of heart.

❤

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only bereaved parent who has boxed up things post loss and left them untouched for years.

Life kept moving at a fast pace after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven and it’s only been in the last couple of years that I’ve had the time to even consider going through his stuff.

Time alone was not enough to push me toward doing the hard work of deciding what to keep, what to give away and (most painfully!) what to throw away. But various circumstances forced my hand and I’ve spent much of the last year digging through stuff and digging up memories.

To be sure, not everything has a direct connection to Dominic.

Read the rest here: Digging Up Memories, Laying Down Dreams

Bereaved Parents Month 2024: There’s No “At Least” In Child Loss

I know most folks are doing the best they can to come up with something to say when both they and I know there’s nothing to be said.

So sometimes they fall into the trap of pointing out what I still have as if it makes up for what I’ve lost.

But there really, truly is no “at least” in child loss.

None. At. All.❤

“At least you had him for 23 years.”

Yes, but I thought I’d have him for my whole life!

“At least you still have three other children.”

Yes, but which one of yours would you choose to do without?

Read the rest here: At Least?