Category: holidays

Remember: Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service TODAY [12.10.2023]

It’s natural for parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers to mark the light and life of one they miss.

It’s less natural for friends and extended family members to do so.

One of the greatest fears of every bereaved parent is that his or her child will cease to be remembered or that the light and life of a son or daughter will simply fade as time goes on.

Year-end holidays accentuate the place where our children should be but aren’t. Merry making and picture taking emphasize the gap between grieving hearts and those untouched by death of a close loved one.

If you want a simple way to bless someone you know who lost a child, grandchild or sibling, a single candle and a quick picture or post on social media will do it.

My heart is always encouraged and strengthened when others take time to remember Dominic.

Sunday, December 11, 2022 is the Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service (WCL) sponsored by The Compassionate Friends (TCF).

Read the rest here: Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service: Second Sunday in December

Christmas 2023: Surviving Siblings and Christmas

I first shared this post in 2016 when we had muddled through the first two holiday seasons after Dominic left us and were headed for a third.

Now facing our tenth, there are some things that have changed a lot (adding grandchildren and losing my mama) and some things that remain the same (the ongoing struggle to balance everyone’s needs and expectations with the reality of sorrow).

I still find the principles I outlined years ago to be the best way to approach the season. We certainly don’t always get it right but we continue to strive to honor one another, to honor the true meaning of Christmas and to honor Dominic.

❤ Melanie

How do I honor the child for whom memories are all I have and love well the children with whom I am still making memories?

That’s a question I ask myself often.

And it is especially difficult to answer for celebrations and holidays, special events and birthdays.

Read the rest here: Surviving Siblings and Christmas

Christmas 2023: Inviting Grief to the Table-Holiday Host Etiquette

Spending holidays with friends and family while grieving is hard. No one is really comfortable-neither the bereaved nor those hosting them.

But there are ways to welcome grief to your table, to pave the way for the broken and bruised to join you, if they are able.

Here’s something that’s been going around social media circles this holiday season and offers advice on hosting the bereaved this Christmas.

❤ Melanie

Holiday Host Etiquette by Sarah Nannen

(Emphasis and paragraphs added)

“If you’re inviting someone to your home and they’re grieving, be sure you’re inviting their grief to attend, too. It will be there, anyway.

Read the rest here: Inviting Grief to the Table: Holiday Host Etiquette

Worldwide Candle Lighting Service: December 10, 2023

I love candles-always have.

I especially love them as the days get shorter and we creep toward the longest night of the year.

I love them more since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Every time I light a candle, I remind my heart that even the smallest light can chase the darkness.

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When hundreds, thousands and even millions of candles are lighted together, it does more than chases darkness, it undoes it.

Sunday, December 10, 2023 is the Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service (WCL) sponsored by The Compassionate Friends (TCF).

Read the rest here: Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service: Second Sunday in December

Christmas 2023: What Grieving Parents Want Others to Know

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

Christmas 2023: 25 Ways to Bring Holiday Hope to the Grieving

This is the tenth Christmas without Dominic. There really are no words to describe the intersection of holiday cheer and another milestone in this journey of child loss.

I’m not sad all the time-far from it. Often I am very, very happy.

But I will never stop missing him, missing the family we used to be and missing our blissful ignorance of how quickly and utterly life can change in an instant.

And I will never outgrow the need to have others remember him as well, to encourage my heart and the hearts of my family members and to help us make it through another year, another Christmas. 

Here are some great ways to do it:  25 Ways to Give Holiday Hope to the Grieving

Christmas 2023: Honestly, How ARE You Doing?

Sometimes it’s hard to gauge effectively and objectively how I’m really doing.

Living inside my own head often obscures tell-tale signs that maybe I’m not coping as well as I think I am.

So I depend on feedback from friends and family as an early warning safety system.

But many of us are physically isolated from others who might otherwise help us discern when we need help. A heart can fall fast into a deep pit of despair without realizing it.

Read the rest here: So…How ARE You Doing?

Christmas 2023: What the Bereaved Need From Family and Friends

Dominic left us in April, 2014.

At the time all I could manage (barely!) was the twenty-four hours of each long, lonely and pain-wracked day.

After nine-plus years I’ve learned to look ahead, plan ahead and forge ahead to birthdays, holidays, special days and not-so-special days.

But it takes a great deal of effort and often uncomfortable conversations because no matter how long it’s been, I’m still dragging loss and its after affects behind me.

I wrote this in 2016 when I was desperate to communicate how hard it is to try to marry joy and sorrow, celebration and commemoration, light, love, life and darkness, grief and death.

It remains (I think) my most useful post: Grief and Holidays: What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

Christmas 2023: Why I Still Put Up a Christmas Tree


I confess that I am already exhausted and we are barely into December!

I haven’t yet brought the tree down from the attic but plan to do it early next week.

I’m looking forward to the opportunity to sit and savor the twinkling lights that remind me that darkness doesn’t win.

❤ Melanie

It’s a question every hurting heart has to answer if you celebrate a traditional western Christmas:  Will I put up a tree this year?

christmas-tree-melanie-edited

I had a few months of lonely travel through the Valley of the Shadow of Death before I had to answer that one.

Dominic left us at Easter, so by December I had learned that wishing didn’t make anything better nor did it make decisions disappear.

As Christmas drew near, I just could not bring down the usual decorations from the attic.

So I didn’t.

Read the rest here: Why I Still Put Up a Christmas Tree

Christmas 2023: How To Survive December With a Broken Heart

It comes up again and again-and not just for the parents facing their year of “firsts”:  How do I survive December with a broken heart?

There’s no single answer or list of things to do that will suit every family.

But there are some general principles that can make even this awful reality a little easier…

Read the rest here: How To Survive December With a Broken Heart