Category: grief

I Am Not a Fan of Halloween

I don’t want to take away any happy memories a parent may have of Halloweens past.

I know some families and some communities have celebrations that focus primarily on dressing up, more funny-than-scary traditions and even highlighting the connection between those who remain and those gone before that transcends generations.

I respect that.

What hurts MY heart (and maybe only my heart) is the elevation of death and dying to a spectator sport.

I’ll never get used to that. And I don’t want to get used to it.

❤ Melanie

Except for a few years early in childhood, I have never liked Halloween.  The combination of darkness and creepiness makes my skin crawl.

And now, this side of child loss it makes me angry. 

Why?  Because for one night (really, for a couple of weeks!) Americans not only think about death, they spend millions of dollars celebrating it.

Not celebrating ACTUAL death-not the absolute horror of being told your child is gone, gone, gone.  Instead it’s a fake, “funny”, silly made-up mockery of a very real, very awful truth.

Read the rest here: Halloween

Oh, How I Miss His Voice! Silent Echoes Haunt My Heart.

I try to limit the time I spend perusing old photos and old social media posts of my missing son.

I’ve learned that while they remind me of sweet memories and happy times they also prick my heart in ways nothing else can.

I was looking for something specific the other day and had to scroll through Dominic’s Facebook page to find it. As I did, I began reading some of the back and forth comments under the posts and pictures.

This time it wasn’t what was said or where the photos were taken that hurt my heart.

Instead it was the tiny little time stamp underneath the words that took my breath away.

Nothing more recent than nine years ago was recorded.

Because that’s when his voice went silent.

Read the rest here: I Miss Your Voice: Silent Echoes Haunt My Heart

Sunlight On The Ocean

One of the blessings of this awful, unwanted journey is the beautiful souls I have met along the way. Fellow travelers who, like me, wouldn’t have chosen this path but who are doing the best they can to walk it in a way that honors their child and Jesus.

One such precious friend is Rhyl Venning. Her daughter Kari-lee went to Heaven in 2014 a few months after Dominic.

We found each other through an online bereaved parents support group (While We’re Waiting) and discovered we both need to share openly and authentically about our child loss journey.


Over the years we’ve exchanged messages, participated in book studies together and very nearly met one another even though she lives in Australia and I’m in Alabama. (My mother’s illness and death prevented that.)

Rhyl has done what many set out to do but never accomplish: she’s written a memoir of her experience both as a mom and as a bereaved mom. It’s beautiful, heart rending, honest, riveting and ultimately, full of hope.

There is so much to be gleaned from her story!

The path to motherhood was not easy for Rhyl. Infertility, miscarriage and dashed hopes increased her longing for the precious daughter that finally made her way into the world.

Kari was born with cystic fibrosis though it was awhile before Rhyl and her husband knew. Thus began a lifetime of careful routine, watchful waiting and hope-filled pursuit of treatments and lifestyle choices and ultimately, a lung transplant.

In spite of that, Kari lived an exuberant, joyful and adventurous childhood, youth and young adulthood. She traveled. She loved. She was married.

Rhyl draws the reader into her world, into Kari’s world and into the world of her family and friends. She shares her inner life-her hopes, dreams, fears and sorrow. She doesn’t shy away from deep questions about her own faith and how much wrestling it has taken to reach a place of peace after her precious girl left for Heaven.

If you know a bereaved parent, you can gift this book to them without fear of adding pain to their suffering. They will find a fellow traveler-someone who is willing to tell it like it is and to lead them to the refuge of our Shepherd King without preaching at them.

I deeply love Rhyl and am so very thankful she has written her story and made it available for others to read.

I highly recommend this book to anyone but especially to bereaved parents.

You are not alone.

Not alone in your suffering,

in your wondering,

in your wrestling,

nor in the hope that is found in Christ Jesus. ❤

***You can find Sunlight on the Ocean at Amazon and Barnes & Noble***

Grief Brain: Nine Years and Counting

When I first became aware that Grief Brain was a real thing, it was a blessed relief!

I had long known that physical, mental or emotional stress could alter thinking and make it hard to remember things but I had never experienced such inability to hold even the most basic information in my head or found it nearly impossible to complete simple daily tasks.

It was truly frightening.

And it made life extremely hard.

I think the really, truly awful period of confusion, memory loss and difficulty lasted a good couple of years-not every day as bad as the next or the one before-but it was fairly consistent. I had to use lists, alarms and strict habits (like where I put my keys, the route I took somewhere, etc.) to make it through.

Now, nine years later, it’s not nearly as bad.

That’s partly because I’ve become so good at relying on aids and helps like alarms and calendars and partly because I’ve gotten better at keeping the constant hum of loss compartmentalized in my brain so I can actually think of something else.

But if there is any added stress in the system I regress.

I forget words, names, places, why I’ve walked into a room, where I’m going, what I’m doing and (much to my horror) food in the oven or on the stove.

So if you are in the early days of loss and wonder, wonder, wonder if you are losing your mind, odds are-you aren’t.

It’s just Grief Brain.

It WILL get better.

In the meantime, use whatever helps you do what you have to do.

And be kind to yourself.

There’s No Earthly Period on Grief

A bereaved mama recently shared that while watching a video lesson from a prominent, popular and prolific evangelical Bible teacher and pastor she was horrified to hear him say, “You need to put a period on your grief”.

Her husband walked out of the class.

I think I would have too.

Part of me wants to give grace to this Bible teacher and say that if he hasn’t lost a child (which, to my knowledge, he hasn’t) then he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

But the shepherd part of me wants to shake my finger in his face and say, “Shame on you! Shame on you for using your platform to shame others who are suffering from a loss you don’t understand!”.

He is entitled to his opinion but that does not reflect the totality of Scripture and certainly NOT the heart of God and Jesus.

Grief is a testimony to love.

It was God’s deep grief over sin and His unwillingness to allow eternal separation of His beloved creation from Himself that motivated and necessitated Christ’s sacrifice.

Aside from all the individual examples in the Bible (including Jesus Himself), this is the overarching theme of every book.

God pleads with HIs people to turn and return to Him.

The faithful father of the story of the prodigal son was always, always yearning and watching. He longed to have him back. Israel (Jacob) wouldn’t let the older brothers take Benjamin to Egypt because he was still tender from losing (from his perspective) Joseph ALL those years ago.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem because He longed to gather her in His arms.

No. Grief is as powerful as love.

There is no earthly period on grief.

The beauty of the Gospel is that in the end, all grief is washed away in the perfect Presence of God the Father and Jesus.

When we grieve, we are proving the power of love.

What If I Don’t Feel a Thing? Sometimes Grief = Numb.

I’ve thought long and hard about that season of “un-feeling”.

Why did my heart shut down? Why the long silence when no emotion pierced my soul?

I think it was necessary.

I think a body and mind and heart can’t operate for too long at warp speed. I think that just like fainting is a response to the brain needing oxygen, numbness is a response to the soul’s need for respite and time to heal.

So if you are in the season of numb, you’re neither crazy nor alone.

Read the rest here: Why Don’t I Feel A Thing? Sometimes Grief = Numb.

Shattered

Years ago I heard  a young woman describe a Chinese grieving ritual on an NPR broadcast:

At her grandfather’s funeral, his oldest son was tasked with demonstrating the depth of grief and pain the father’s passing left behind. He stood before the casket, raised a clay bowl above his head and smashed it to the ground while loudly wailing.

The bowl was shattered into fragments too small and too fragile to be put back together in any semblance of what they once represented.

Read the rest here:  Fragments

What Do I Do? My Family Won’t Talk About My Missing Child.

At first everyone talked about him.

It’s what people do just after a person leaves this world and leaves behind only memories.

It comes natural before the unnatural fact of child loss settles in and begins to make everyone uncomfortable.

But at some point after the funeral and way before the tears dried up, people stopped feeling easy mentioning his name.

Read the rest here: Help! My Family Won’t Talk About My Missing Child.

Won’t Pretend: Ain’t Nothing Easy About Death

I wrote this post four years ago after my mother joined Dominic in Heaven. Her passing reminded me once again (as if my heart needed reminding!) that there ain’t nothing easy about death.

Four years later and I’m no more willing to pretend it’s anything but awful even as I’m resigned to admit there’s nothing I can do about it.

I miss you both so very much.

❤

I remember the moment I realized I was going to have to summarize my son’s life into a few, relatively short paragraphs to be read by friends, family and strangers.

It seemed impossible.

But as the designated author of our family I had to do it so I did.

Today I wrote my mama’s obituary and though her death was not as surprising as Dominic’s it was just as hard to swallow.

Read the rest here: Ain’t Nothing Easy About Death

Some Things Are Worth Fighting For: I Will Not Be Moved

I’m not brave by nature.

If I have a choice, I will run every time.  But there are just some things worth fighting for.

My family is one of them.

I will not let the enemy have them.

I will not allow despair to overtake us, fear to bind us, hopelessness to sap our strength.

I will not let death win.

Read the rest here: I Will Not Be Moved