Category: hard

Bereaved Parents Month 2022: Ten Ways to Survive Hard Grief Days

My hardest grief season begins in November and runs to the end of May.  Thanksgiving through Dominic’s birthday on (or near) Memorial Day are days full of triggers, memories and stark reminders that one of us is missing.

If I could fall asleep November first and wake up in June I’d do it.

But I can’t so I have to employ all the tricks I’ve learned in the over eight years since Dominic ran ahead to heaven to survive those particularly challenging months.

Here are ten ways I survive hard grief days:

Read the rest here: Taking Care: Ten Ways to Survive Hard Grief Days

Loss Changes You For A Lifetime

I’ve been reminded in the past few days that loss changes everything.

We often wish it didn’t-that it would last only a season and then things would return to normal. But they don’t.

When one life is yanked violently from the fabric of a family the hole simply can’t be mended. You have to learn to live with the fragility and compromised strength that remains.

It’s hard and it keeps on being hard.

❤ Melanie

When a child dies, everything shifts.

Every relationship is altered. 

Read the rest here: Grief Lasts a Lifetime

Marriage After Child Loss: Grieving Differently Is Hard!

For some of us life’s twists and turns include unfathomable pain, sorrow and loss. Broken hearts beating side by side in the dark often find it difficult to reach out across a chasm of grief.

Marriage is hard work under the best of circumstances. Child loss makes it harder.

But there are ways to create space for one another and to extend grace even in this Valley.

❤

It’s no secret that men and women are different.

It’s the subject of everything from romantic comedies to hundreds of books.

“Men are from Mars, women are from Venus” and all that.

So it shouldn’t surprise those of us walking this Valley that our spouse may be grieving very differently than we do. But it often does. Because everything is amplified when it echoes off the high mountains on either side.

And just when we need it most-for ourselves and for extending to others-grace is often in short supply.

Read the rest here: Grieving Differently: Growing Apart or Growing Stronger?

Uphill, Both Ways

Yesterday my youngest son, my husband and I unloaded a large rented box truck packed front to back with boxes, furniture and other random things.

We brought it all into the house or stashed it for safekeeping and future sorting in our storage building.

It was-literally-uphill both ways.

Protect Your Belongings with Moving Insurance | Angie's List

A long, long ramp (which I really hated!) up into the truck and steps and stairs into the house or building. Exhausted is too small a word for how I fell into bed last night.

But we did what we set out to do.

We didn’t quit, we didn’t give up, we didn’t stop until we emptied that truck and safely deposited its contents where they would be sheltered from the rain that started falling sometime early this morning.

It made me think: How often do I stop just short of pushing through something (physical, mental, spiritual or emotional) because it’s hard?

How many times have I looked at the work it would require to dig in, dig deep and finally face a fear or a failing or even a future that looks very different than the one I’d have chosen for myself when all I see is a steep uphill climb?

If I felt the same urgency about those things as I did with a rented truck and impending bad weather I might be more inclined to press on. But usually I console myself with the mantra, “I’ll worry about that tomorrow”.

Trouble is, tomorrow turns into tomorrow into tomorrow until there’s a whole string of days gone by and not one whit of progress toward my goal.

The hills will still be there.

Time won’t change the difficulty of the climb.

Beginning and continuing and refusing to stop is the only way.

This morning I feel beat up, worn down and probably won’t get much done. But I have the satisfaction of knowing yesterday was a victory.

And victories add up over time.

Even small ones. ❤

Mountains And Mole Hills: Sometimes Doing My Best Has To Be Good Enough


There’s a saying in the South, “You’re making a mountain out of a mole hill”.

It’s supposed knock sense into someone who is overreacting to a small and easily resolved problem.  Most of the time it works-stepping back and gaining perspective is a good thing.

But I find that this side of Dominic’s leaving, many, many things that were mole hills before are MOUNTAINS now.  Because my faith in my own ability to handle things has become so very small, nearly any challenge feels like a never-ending ascent up the mountain.

Read the rest here: Mountains and Mole Hills

A Study In Contrasts: Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday

I think I will post this link as long as I maintain the blog because I will always be a voice for those whose lives look more like Ash Wednesday than Mardi Gras.

I will continue to speak out for space in our congregations and fellowships that acknowledge life is often hard, often unfair and often more like a broken hallelujah than a high note.

I am not a member of the Church of the Perpetually Cheerful. 

I am a member of the Broken Body of Christ, limping through this world, holding onto hope with both hands.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/02/28/mardi-gras-and-ash-wednesday-a-study-in-contrasts/

Repost: Absolutely More Than I Can Handle

We’ve allowed a lot of common sayings to rise to the level of Scripture in everyday language and that’s unfortunate.

Because many of them are just plain wrong.

And some of them are dangerous.

One of those I consider dangerous is this:  “God will not give you more than you can handle”.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/12/26/absolutely-more-than-i-can-handle/

Nothing Tidy About That First Christmas

We’ve whitewashed everything about this scene:  beatific Mary gazing serenely at a cleaned up baby cozy in a cleaned up manger towered over by Joseph and surrounded by adoring shepherds and freshly groomed, sweet smelling animals.

It was nothing like that.

Birth is pain and sweat and effort.

And messy.  So, so messy.

I like to think more clearly about what that night was like.  It helps my heart to know that even while God was being birthed as a man into the world He created, He didn’t hide the hard.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/12/24/christmas-drama/

Repost: Why, Oh Why Is Christmas SO Hard???

As the [sixth] Christmas without Dominic rapidly approaches, I am pondering the question:  “Why, oh why, is Christmas so hard?” 

I think I’ve figured out at least a few reasons why.

For me, probably THE biggest reason Christmas is hard is because it throws off the routine I depend on to shepherd my heart through a day.  It’s easiest for me to manage when I have at least a couple of hours of quiet time each morning.  I need those silent moments to let my heart feel what it needs to feel, to cry if I must and to orient my thoughts after, once again, “remembering” that Dominic isn’t here.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/12/17/why-oh-why-is-christmas-so-hard/

And The Gap Grows

Today has not been a good day.

It’s not a grief anniversary or a holiday or a birthday or any other identifiable grief trigger.

But I have cried. A lot.

Life refuses to pause, to take a break, to stop plowing forward even though I’m worn out and begging for a moment to catch up, catch my breath, figure out how to keep going.

No matter how well I plead my case it seems there’s no reprieve.

The gap between how I wish things would go and how they actually proceed grows wider each day.

I’m not angry.

I’m defeated.

Tomorrow is another day and I look forward to new mercies with the sunrise.

❤

%d bloggers like this: