Category: lessons

Christmas 2022: Grace Gifts of Grief

It was a long time before I wanted to believe that I received any gifts worth keeping from this life I didn’t choose.

I knew I had tears, pain, agonizing sorrow, loss, heartache, dashed hopes, empty arms.

If I could give those back and regain my son, I would do it in less than a heartbeat.

I can’t, so I’m left here to ponder what else I’ve received from burying a child.

And I am learning that I have been given some gifts I truly cherish, although the price was higher than I would have willingly paid.

Read the rest here: Grace Gifts of Grief

Lessons in Loss: Learning to Listen

I admit it:  I’m a fixer.

It’s probably genetic (won’t mention any names!) but it has been reinforced by training and life experience.

When faced with a difficult or messy situation, my mind instantly rolls through an inventory of available resources and possible solutions.

And I tended to cut people off mid-sentence with my brilliant (?) plan to save the day.

But there are things you just can’t fix.

I knew that before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven but I mostly ignored it.

I can’t do that anymore.

Read the rest here: Lessons in Grief: Learning to Listen

I’m Still Learning

It may seem odd to catalog things I’ve learned and am still learning as a result of child loss.

But it’s one way to take stock of where I started and how far I’ve come.

It’s also a reminder that some things are only learned through lived experience no matter how well another heart may describe the or yearn to share them.

❤ Melanie

The way things are supposed to be isn’t always the way things are.

I can experience joy and sorrow in the same breath.

The capacity to love and extend grace is enlarged by suffering if I submit to it and don’t fight it.

Never, never, NEVER underestimate the power of presence or texts or the random, “thinking of you” card.

Read the rest here: Things I’m Learning

Reflections on a New Year

This year has been challenging in ways I could never have imagined nor anticipated. It’s been that way for most of us I think.

Communal grief, pain and loss have wrapped themselves around the unique grief, pain and loss of hearts everywhere.

Definitely plenty to give a person pause.

And while I do believe it’s a good thing to reflect every so often I’m not certain it has to be on the same date every year.

But since the world seems to agree on this one, I’ll join in:

Turning a calendar page doesn’t guarantee a fresh start. Resolutions, affirmations, hopeful aspirations can’t erase the marks we bear from previous life experiences. I’m all for declaring boldly that tomorrow may be better but I’ve learned the hard way it might be worse. So I hold my hands open either way and adjust my stance to accept whichever it may be.

Attitude makes a difference. I despise silly little mantras that claim I can will my way out of every dark and desperate situation. Bad things happen. Sorrow and sadness are appropriate and reasonable reactions to hard times. Sometimes there’s nothing else to do but feel the feelings, let the tears fall and allow my heart to experience the pain. But I can choose to turn my attention to whatever may still be beautiful in my world. I can lift my eyes to tiny flickers of light on the horizon. I can embrace joy along with sorrow.

My worth is not tied to external accomplishments or society’s arbitrary markers of success. I refuse to listen to the enemy’s lies whispered in my ear, “You are less than. You are a failure. You only count if your ‘wins’ outweigh your ‘losses’”. A new year may feel like a new beginning but it can also be a stark reminder of last year’s list of resolutions that may or may not have yielded measurable progress. Striving for improvement is healthy. Beating myself up for not meeting every goal is not.

Things can be replaced, people can’t. I’m not making light of the very real and very painful loss so many people have suffered this year as businesses failed, income dwindled and hopes for financial progress dashed. It’s no small thing to come back to ashes where your home once stood. Standing in line at a community food bank for a box when you used to stand in line at the grocery store is humbling. But if my family is alive and (relatively) well at the end of the year, we can work the rest out together.

The only investment with a guaranteed return is love. Sure I try to plan for the future. I eat right, exercise, save money and maintain my home and car all in the hope that investing time, energy and effort today will pay off tomorrow. But truth is (as we’ve all learned this year!) outside and unseen forces can undo the best laid plans and preparation. But love is never wasted or destroyed. All the love I pour into others lasts forever.

This time last year I was hope-filled and looking forward to a less stressful, amazing twelve months.

That’s not how it turned out.

I’ve learned some things though.

So I’ll carry that wisdom into 2022-no lofty resolutions or proclamations-and settle for survival ❤

Learning to Listen: A Lesson From Loss

I admit it: I’m a fixer. 

But there are some things you just can’t fix.

I knew that before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven but I mostly ignored it.

I can’t do that anymore.

So I’m learning to listen better.  Learning to let others express the hard things that can’t be fixed so that their burden is a bit lighter for the sharing.  

Read the rest here: Lessons in Grief: Learning to Listen

Please! Think Before You Speak, Post or Comment.

I wrote this post four years ago when we were in the midst of a divisive political cycle.

I was both saddened and wearied by all the rancor and hateful speech on social media platforms. I was horrified that people who had been spared the awful pain of losing a close loved one to death were willing to sacrifice that same relationship over differing political positions.

I really didn’t think it could get worse but it has. So I’m sharing again.

Please, please, please people!!! There is only one thing sadder than suddenly and unexpectedly losing someone and that is losing them while you are estranged. Death is not kind. It comes for us all.

You cannot reconcile with someone who’s no longer here.

❤ Melanie

Do not hurt people in your life because you’ve hitched your wagon to a particular cause or candidate or party.

Don’t play politics with your personal relationships.

Don’t call people names that can’t be taken back, hurt feelings that may never heal or draw lines that make division permanent.

Read the rest here: Think Before You Speak, or Post, or Comment…

A Bit Of My Heart

“People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” ~ Maya Angelou

It’s easy when you’re scared to shout loudly at whatever scapegoat crosses your path. But it’s hardly helpful.

My earnest hope in this season of worldwide fear is this: that people will show themselves to be more compassionate than they think they are, that communities will come together instead of falling apart and that while politicians may work hard to spin headlines one way or the other, citizens will insist on helping one another instead of hating one another.

❤ Melanie

A friend recently posted that not all the lessons of grief are bitter.

Some are sweet.

She’s right.

I’ve learned a lot on this journey.  And one of the sweet things I’ve learned is that the best thing to offer fellow travelers is a bit of my heart instead of a piece of my mind.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/03/09/a-bit-of-my-heart-instead-of-a-piece-of-my-mind/

Repost: Lessons Learned

I don’t believe for one minute that child loss is a test or curriculum or punishment.  

But I  do believe there are things I can learn from it. 

I absolutely believe there are things I HAVE learned and am learning in this Valley of the Shadow of Death.

What are some of those lessons?

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/12/03/lessons-learned/

Book Review: Remember to Breathe

I’m a member of several online bereaved parents groups.

They are safe spaces to share my heart and be assured the ones who read what I write understand my pain.

Over the years, I’ve been blessed to develop friendships with some of the women who, like me, have experienced child loss and who have made a choice to seek God in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Evelyn Fannell is one such friend.

I was drawn immediately to her honest but grace-filled posts and comments in our groups. I recognized a heart that was full of Scripture but was, like me, dissatisfied with pat answers to the difficult questions a mother has when her child is taken suddenly, unexpectedly and tragically.

When life throws you a curve, even if you hurt so much you feel like giving up or giving in, remember to breathe. Deeply. Hold on to that breath as though it were your last, and it will get you through the next moment. And you’ll get through the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that…until that when you see your beloved again.

Just remember to breathe.

Evelyn Fannell, Remember to Breathe, page 169

She has written a memoir that is honest, helpful and hope-filled.

Her son, Joseph, was killed by a distracted driver just a short distance from his destination.

Image result for Remember to Breathe Evelyn Fannell

No mama’s heart is prepared to get THAT phone call. It knocks the wind right out of you. But from the beginning, Evelyn knew if she was to survive this, she had to remember to breathe.

In Remember to Breathe, Evelyn draws on her experience walking the road of child loss and her relationship with her Savior and weaves them together in a way that grieving parents will find authentic and encouraging.

Even in my dreams, God reminded me to live and to breathe.

There aren’t words to describe how devastating it has been to lose my youngest child. But I have learned and grown through the experience of grief, and one of the lessons I’ve learned is something I think applies in a lot of different situations.

It is okay NOT to be okay.

Evelyn Fannell, Remember to Breathe, page 43

I’ve said here before that we have to exhale in order to inhale.

Remember to Breathe is one woman’s account of doing just that-letting go of the things and thoughts that weigh us down on this journey and inhaling the grace, mercy and courage of our Shepherd.

If your heart is longing for an authentic example to follow, I highly recommend this book. ❤

Remembering Death Teaches Me How To Live

The other day I listened to an NPR interview of Amy Tan, author of the Joy Luck Club among other best-selling titles.

Her brother and father died within an year of one another when she was fifteen.

I was spell-bound as she recounted how that experience shaped her adolescence and still shapes her today.  I identified with things I am observing in my children and things I feel in my own heart.

She said she thinks about death every day.  Not in a morbid sense, but in the sense that she is very aware death is every human’s experience, eventually.

Some of her friends call her paranoid.

Some of my friends call me gloomy.

But she went on to say that thinking about death gave her a precious gift…

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/10/29/why-i-wont-forget-death-lessons-in-living/

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