heartache – Page 27 – thelifeididntchoose

A Day in the Life

If you get up every morning and go to work-I applaud you!

Most of my days start with work, but I don’t have to go farther than my own property to discharge my duties.

But today I had to get going extra early for a doctor’s appointment with a specialist about 50 miles away. So I rushed through my morning chores, double-checked I had everything I needed and left home by 7:10.

I had to park in a parking garage-no easy feat when you drive a full-size pickup and the spaces are designed for mid-size cars. The low roof, confined space and limited light make me feel trapped and uncomfortable.

Every time I have to fill out health paperwork there is always a question or two that makes me think of Dominic. I shake off the beginnings of tears and wait to be called back.

My blood pressure is higher than it usually is and I’m a bit heavier than last time I was there-both things that make me feel like a failure and add to the voice in my head that says, “You aren’t good enough. You are doing something wrong or this wouldn’t have happened to you.”

My disease is progressing and although my doctor is kind, and patient, and fully aware of the fact that I’ve buried a child, she broaches once again a treatment option that has more risk but potentially greater efficacy.

I’m just not ready to take the leap.

So my anxiety mounts as I think of both alternatives: Submitting myself to a new treatment that may have grave consequences or giving in to the inevitable limitations that rheumatoid arthritis is imposing on my life.

She graciously puts off the decision for another three months but I know I won’t be in any better position to make it then either. I’m paralyzed now when I have to decide these kinds of things-torn between “doing what’s best” and “what difference will it make?”

Bloodwork means waiting in a area next to the infusion clinic and hematology departments and I am surrounded by people that are in dire straits. Once more, between the waiting and the thinking, I’m ready to be out of there.

When I get back to my truck, what had looked like a pretty good place to park has become a nightmare. Another truck beside me and two parked opposite have closed the space I should have had to get out to the bare minimum. And someone is waiting for my spot.

Oh, joy!

I try.

I really try to figure out how to get too much vehicle out of too little space.

Finally, in tears, I step out of my truck (now in what I think is an impossible position) and raise my hands in the air-I give up! You win!

The kind man that was waiting steps out of his car and guides me backward and forward (4 turns!) until I am free from the awful predicament. I thank him and keep going.

Before Dominic left us this day would have seemed like a tiny blip on the radar of life. It certainly wouldn’t have brought me to tears.

But the energy required to simply get up and get going in the wake of losing him means that I have so much less to spend on anything else.

I don’t suffer from anxiety.

I’m not depressed.

But there are many moments throughout the day when I am anxious or sorrowful.

One minute I’m fine. And then a series of events, phone calls or memories pile one atop the other until they become a load I can no longer bear.

It feels like I am always behind, always short on resources, always close to tears.

And no matter how hard I try, I am unable to simply “get better”. No matter how much I organize or plan or work at it, I always end up frazzled and frustrated and feeling like a failure.

I wish it wasn’t like this-this added burden in addition to the missing and the sorrow. Maybe it’s part of the missing and the sorrow. I don’t know.

But I’m ready for a day, a single day, when I feel just a little bit victorious..

The Shadowlands

Isn’t God supposed to be good? Isn’t He supposed to love us? Does God want us to suffer? What if the answer to that question is, ‘Yes'”? I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that He makes us the gift of suffering.

I’m not sure that God wants us to be happy. I think He wants us to be able to love and be loved. He wants us to grow-up. We think our childish toys bring us all the happiness there is and our nursery is the whole wide world. But something must drive us out of the nursery to the world of others and that something is suffering.

You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the sculptor carves forms of men. The blows of His chisel, which hurt so much, are what makes us perfect.

C.S. Lewis

Lewis referred to this life as “The Shadowlands”. The place where we see the shape of the promise but not its substance.

I am caught between the world I live in and the world to come. There is beauty in both, but only in Eternity will my heart be at home.

Right now, I am Living Between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection

More Grieving Hearts-What Grieving Parents Want You to Know

Two weeks.

Two families added to the roll call of those who have lost a child-suddenly, without warning.

Two more sets of parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins plunged beneath the sea of sorrow.

And those are only the ones I know about-the ones whose lives touch my own.

Every day we are shoulder-to-shoulder with people carrying a load that threatens to undo them. If you haven’t experienced child loss you probably think you can imagine how it feels.

I know I did.

But I was wrong.

THIS is what it feels like: What Grieving Parents Want Others to Know

My Heart Hurts

Every time the headlines scream death and destruction, I feel like I’ve been punched.

My heart hurts.

It hurts for the community of people who feel targeted by police.

It hurts for police officers and their families who feel targeted for simply doing their jobs.

It hurts for the mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters and others who will bury someone this week.

It hurts because the possibility for constructive conversation around what has been done, what should be done and what might be done is drowned out by wailing and yelling and strident protests and incendiary social media posts that leave no room for real change.

We are all on one side or the other.

And that is beyond sad. It is diabolical.

Jesus said that the thief comes only to “steal, kill and destroy”. (John 10:10)

I refuse to be part of the enemy’s plot to destroy us by dividing us into opposing camps.

No matter where I fall on the political spectrum, if I add my voice to the screaming and drown out reasonable and meaningful discussion, I join with those advocating anarchy instead of progress toward positive change.

We are making choices right now that will affect ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.

I choose to listen.

I choose to learn.

I choose to try to understand different perspectives and to work toward our common goal of protecting all lives.

Everywhere.

Every. time.

Changed

I’m not the same me I was two years ago.

I no longer look with confidence down the driveway as friends and family pull away, certain that we will see one another soon.

I whisper, “Be safe” when we part, but know that they are not the keeper of their days and that “being safe” doesn’t mean everyone escapes deadly peril.

Read the rest here: A Different Me

After

Last week’s headlines were full of heartache: first the attack in Orlando and then the tragic tale of toddler and alligator.

So many parents and others bearing so much grief.

As is the way of things, this week the mentions will be fewer.

And in a month or so, as the nation turns its collective attention to campaign coverage, these stories will move further and further to the background.

Most mentions will be in the context of larger “issues”-individuals largely forgotten. .

But each person lost represents others who will mourn them for the rest of their lives.

Hearts of parents grieving their child will ALWAYS require special care:

Please, please, please don’t look for the moment or day or year when I will be “back to my old self”. My old self was buried with my son. I am still “me”–but a different me than I would have chosen.

Read the rest here: Loving the Grieving Heart

June Challenge: Eight Legs and Eternity

Day Eight of Kathleen Duncan’s June 1-30 challenge.

The prompt: Write a story with eight legs or turn the eight sideways and use “infinity” (eternity) as your prompt.

Eternity is a long time.

Just try and wrap your mind around it.

But when you bury a child, that’s what you think about-the forever that comes when he left his earthly body and entered the Presence of Jesus.

So many hard days followed, so many tears, so much pain. I wanted to escape to eternity with Dominic.

I would be there eventually anyway, why not now?

But it’s not up to me to determine when I go. So I remain, and try to find a way to make the days count, be useful and stay hope-filled.

And eight legs have helped me stay rooted in the “now” when my heart longs to be in “forever”.

That first Thanksgiving after losing Dominic in April, we visited our oldest son and his wife in West Virginia where she was a vet.

Touring Lillie’s office, we were introduced to two fluffy, orange kittens that had been abandoned by the road and brought there in hopes of finding a home.

One look and I was smitten.

It took less than five minutes to decide to take them back with us to Alabama.

Who could resist those faces?

At dinner that night, we brainstormed possible names. I still have the list in my notes on my phone: Kit Kat, Pumpkin, Scratch and Sniff, Cheetos, Doritos, Tostito.

We decided on names that reflected their roots- Moonshine and White Lightning.

After all, West Virginia is home to as many stills as hills.

Once we got back, their needs became part of my morning routine-a constant and undeniable reminder that I HAD to get out of bed. And they made me laugh!

Here is Lightning soaking up the sun in front of the picture window.

Moonshine’s personality is more relaxed-why sit when you can lay down?

I used to be able to pick up both of them with one hand, now it takes two hands to pick up one of them!

They have grown into good companions, great mousers, soft lap warmers and serious purr machines.

I’m very glad these eight legs live in my house.

They’ve been excellent therapy for my hurting heart.

Benefits of Pet Therapy:

lowers blood pressure

improves cardiovascular health

releases endorphins (oxytocin) that have a calming effect

diminishes overall physical pain

the act of petting produces an automatic relaxation response, reducing the amount of medication some folks need

lifts spirits and lessens depression

decreases feelings of isolation and alienation

encourages communcation

provides comfort

lowers anxiety

creates motivation for the client to recover faster

reduces loneliness

Sweet Words

Watching someone you love in pain is very, very hard.

And it’s natural that people want to say something or do something to try to ease the burden.

They might offer a story illustrating that it “could be worse” or rush past an expression of sorrow by changing the subject or even compliment me on “how well I am doing”.

But none of those things makes me feel better.

The most powerfully validating thing that anyone can say to me is, ” I’m here and I’m sorry”.

I’m sorry for your pain.

I’m sorry that life is not what you expected.

I’m sorry that there is no way to undo the things that have happened and no way to shorten the years you have to live with remembering them.

But I’m here with you and I won’t leave you alone, even when I feel helpless.

Acknowledgement without trying to reframe my experience into something you can understand or accept is the greatest gift you can give my hurting heart.

The Absence of His Presence is Everywhere

Something I’ve been learning in this grief journey is that loss is an ongoing event.

It’s not confined to the moment of death, the funeral, the burial or even the boxing up of belongings.

I suffer loss every time there is a moment when Dominic would have been present, should have been present and isn’t here.

It happens when I need to ask him a question, get his opinion, long for his help or just want to hear his voice.

It happens when I look at myself in the mirror and realize that the living mirror that was Dominic is gone.

There is so much more to his absence than just the hole in my heart.

I shared some of these feelings a few months ago:

A family isn’t just the sum of its parts. It isn’t a simple equation that can be worked out on a chalkboard or around a dinner table-this person plus that person equals two persons.

A family is an organic mixture of personalities, relationships, strengths and weaknesses that exponentially influence one another. I always joked that our family was a ready-made committee. Wherever we went we brought a fully staffed, action-ready army of six that spread out and triumphed over whatever challenge we faced.

You can read the rest here: Minus More Than One

Do They Have Birthdays in Heaven?

Today would have been Dominic’s twenty-sixth birthday.

He should have been a little over a year out of law school and one year into a career.

Instead, he’s not here. And he will never be HERE again.

I’m getting pretty good at shifting my focus from the giant hole that is where Dominic is supposed to be to the fullness of the life that still surrounds me. Not today.

Today the absence of his presence is especially keen.

I miss him.

I miss his smile.

I miss his harsh logic that would slice through a conversation like a knife. I miss his noisy descent down the stairs-always snapping his fingers to a rhythm in his head.

I miss his sense of humor.

I miss his fearlessness.

I miss his hugs.

I miss how even though he claimed to “hate” kids, he melted every time one crawled into his lap.

I miss how he used to launch himself, back first, on my bed to announce he was there to talk for a bit.

I miss how he found special tools to help me in the kitchen when my arthritis kept me from being able to do something I loved.

I miss how he could combine tough talk and smooth BS into cajoling a complaint department to not only fix the problem but throw in a gift card as well “to keep his business”.

I miss being able to call him with my stupid tech questions and have him walk me slowly through the solution (even though I know it frustrated him).

I miss his texts, his calls, his FB messages. I miss his tweets.

I know I’ll see him again someday and that we will never have to say good-bye again.

But until then, I really, really miss him.

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