To all my email subscribers you may have gotten a rough draft of tomorrow’s post in your inbox already.
Sorry for that.
Even after all this time, I don’t know all the ins and outs of WordPress and instead of trashing that rough draft, it was published.
I’ve removed it from the archives but don’t know if it went out in email.
Please ignore that one and read tomorrow’s polished version. ❤
~Melanie
This life is not all sadness and sorrow, death and darkness.
It was. For a very, very long time all I could see was distant flickers of light.
They were just enough to keep me going but not enough to lift the utter blackness that surrounded me.
Now I would characterize life as hazy gray-most things still filtered through a lens of grief but generally brighter.
I can see and feel the change. It’s not as hard to get up most mornings. Not as hard to put dates on a calendar. Not as hard to commit to social activities and to actually show up. Not as hard to talk about family life with strangers and acquaintances. Not as hard to do so many things that were practically impossible in the first weeks, months and years.
I am so, so grateful.
And there are good things-very good things-happening in my family.
I’m even more grateful for those.
A baby who could have had a sad story has a happy one! He is growing and grinning and getting ready (within the month, we think) to escape the hospital. His dad is home from deployment. His mom is healing like a champ from severe illness and from her surgery. They are forming a happy trio and full of love.
My niece is graduating high school. All the kids in that generation are grown ups just as we finally added one to begin the next.
My mother and father are still here to enjoy these things.
If you are afraid you will never, ever feel joy again, I understand. That was one of the most frightening aspects of early days and months and years. I could not imagine having that heavy, dark cloud envelope me for the rest of my life.
It seems impossible it could ever be otherwise.
But I’m here to tell you-it doesn’t have to be that way. If you reach for the tiny lights you can just barely see in the distance and make whatever feeble and faltering steps forward, your heart will learn to feel something besides sorrow again.
At first it may only be a split-second when a smile nearly, but not quite, crosses your lips.
Then it might be an hour when you realize you’ve actually been completely engaged and present with your family or good friend.
One day you will be slipping into bed and think, “Today was a pretty good day”. It will shock you, sadden you and encourage you all at the same time.
It’s not a smooth upward journey that lands you out of the pit of grief.
It’s a bumpy road that tosses you around. Highs and lows, ups and downs. And it lasts a lifetime.
But if you purpose to hold on with both hands, to stay the course, keep heading toward the bits of light, laughter, love and loveliness teasing you in the distance, you will make progress.
Bad things have happened-the worst, in fact.
Bad things still happen.
But good things happen too.
Very good things.
I want to be present for them, don’t you?
I learned this lesson years ago.
As a matter of fact, I had a cute little picture on my fridge of a sinking ship that said. “Another day, another disaster”.
That was before I had actually lived through disaster.
Now it’s engraved on my heart as well as my mind.
I think I’m in control. I think my “to do” list determines a day. I think I can set the alarm and set my agenda.
But I’m not. It doesn’t and I can’t.
Last week I was rocking and rolling, moving and grooving. Making molehills out of mountains and working my list.
Today I’m sitting in my chair, heating pad on my back, barely able to move.
My body hates me.
This is the hardest part of chronic illness and lifelong grief-I want to be able to plan ahead, make progress, achieve momentum and finish tasks. But I just can’t. I can’t be sure when I go to bed that the next day is going to be anything like what I hope it will be.
If you think weather forecasts are unpredictable, they are solid compared to my life.
And while I absolutely, positively accede God is in control, is sovereign, does not answer to me or anyone else and can order my life and the world as He sees fit; I would love, love, love to have two days in a row that followed a pattern of positive progress.
So I’m just a *little* bit frustrated.
I know I need to adjust my expectations.
I’m trying.
Really.
Dear Mama,
I know that you never-in your wildest imagination-thought that you would need a day set aside for your broken heart and your empty arms.
Who thinks when they learn a new life is growing inside that this same life might be cut short? What heart is brave enough to consider the possibility?
Yet here you are.
I’m so, so sorry.
Read the rest here: International Bereaved Mother’s Day: An Open Letter to my Fellow Sisters in Loss
International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States. This year it’s tomorrow, May 5, 2019.
I didn’t even know such a day existed until I was a mom that needed it.
Read the rest here: International Bereaved Mother’s Day
I was (and am) relying on my senses to tell me where I am in this process of embracing the life I didn’t choose. Yet they are easily overwhelmed by my daily experience-crying one day, laughing the next, undone by memories again, blessed by a friend’s text or phone call-filled to the brim with input.
I have a hard time sorting it out and looking objectively at what the data suggests.
When I can take a step back, I see that my heart has healed in some measure. I have enfolded the truth that Dominic is not here into who I am and what my life will look like until I join him in heaven.
Read the rest here: [Mis] Perception
For the first couple of weeks after Dominic left us, I couldn’t fall asleep.
It was impossible to close my eyes without a dozen awful scenes flashing behind the lids.
Silent darkness was not my friend.
Eventually exhaustion won and I could fall asleep but couldn’t stay asleep. Two or three hours in and my body had just enough rest to shake slumber and force my heart to face another day (even if the sun wasn’t up yet).
Somewhere around year three I finally settled into a pretty regular pattern of between five and six hours of solid sleep.
But for the past several months I’ve lost the rhythm and am once again struggling.
Lots of changes, lots of stress, lots of physical discomfort and lots of lists floating in my head have landed me back in sleepless territory.
I wish there was a switch I could flip that made it easy to fall and stay asleep. I wish there was a way to stop stray thoughts from invading my consciousness and my dreams. I wish I could have a solid week of solid sleep.
I know it would make everything so much easier to manage.
I’d be calmer, more focused, more energetic and more optimistic.
But it’s a vicious cycle.
I’m hoping long days of hard work in the summer sun will shift my body back to a better rhythm.
Maybe.
Eventually.
It’s just not comforting for my heart to think my son is looking down on me from Heaven.
I can’t reconcile the idea that he might be watching my sorrow with what the Bible says about Heaven being a place of joy and peace.
But I do love the idea that he’s outside time and so isn’t “waiting” on reunion the same way I am.
No matter how many years it may be, it will be only a “blink of an eye” for him. ❤
An exchange with a Facebook friend got me thinking.
How much of my struggle in life is a result of ignoring my own limits?
How much pain do I inflict on myself because I won’t admit I need help? Why do I insist on living to the edge of endurance and emotional capacity?
Why, why, why do I try so hard to keep up a front of invincibility?
Pride.
Pride goads me like a whip.
Pride makes me say, “yes” when I should say, “no”.
Read the rest here: Learning Limits
I try hard not to imply that MY child loss experience is representative of EVERY child loss experience.
Because, as we all know, every parent’s journey (even parents of the same child) is utterly, incontrovertibly unique.
My son was killed suddenly in an accident. Other parents I know have stories of prolonged illness. Some feared it coming as his or her child struggled with addiction and dangerous choices. And still others bear the added burden of suicide in child loss.
I have always, always felt a special duty to tread lightly with respect to those parents in particular. I want to honor them and never suggest I speak for them. I’ve started and discarded at least a dozen posts on child loss and suicide.
So when a mom who lost a child to suicide shared this in one of our closed groups, I messaged her and asked permission to publish her comment here.
Sheri Yancy Brown graciously agreed.
So here are HER words, precisely as she shared them:
“The Lord showed me this on Friday [Good Friday, 2019]. I hope it is a comfort to those of you who have lost a child to suicide.
“Two of the hardest things to come to terms with regarding Tyrel’s suicide for me (a Christian) have been:
“There’s a very common scripture in the book of Isaiah that has been on my mind this morning because it is Good Friday. It was written long before Christ died on the cross.
“The scripture is:
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5 KJV
“The main questions I ask myself after reading numerous books, attending many support groups, and meeting many people with this type of loss are:
“Was Tyrel’s suicide:
“Look how this scripture literally covers all four situations!
“According to this scripture, the whys don’t really matter and Tyrel’s salvation is not in question. As a believer for all of his short life, he is covered no matter which way you look at it. Tyrel’s unimaginable actions are exactly why Jesus went to the cross.
“The Bible says so.”
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