I have lots and lots of questions.
And I don’t think ignoring them or shoving them in a chest and sitting on the lid is helpful.
But I’m far enough along in this journey to admit that if I let my heart and mind focus on the questions I’ll drown in sorrow and despair.
Read the rest here: A Reason Can’t Wipe Away Tears: A Modern Lament
I was absolutely overwhelmed in those first days.
Cars, cars, cars filled my long driveway and front yard.
People spilling out like ants scrambling after the hill is disturbed.
Oh, our hill was disturbed-knocked wide open by that deputy’s visit.
Read the rest here: Who Steps In? Who Walks Out?
I participate in a number of online support groups for bereaved parents.
And one topic that makes the rounds at least once a week-often once a day-is how those outside our experience cannot truly understand our experience.
Because it’s true-you THINK you can imagine the pain of child loss if you have children, but even the most vivid imagination can’t conjure the utter blackness that waits on the other side of hearing, “Your son is dead.”
There’s a great divide between me and those who have not experienced child loss.
But it’s one I hope they never have to cross.
Because it’s a mercy to not know.
If all of us could fathom the pain of losing a child, no one would bear children–the risk would be too great.
So while the gap can be a source of misunderstanding and isolation for ME, it is a safeguard for YOU.
And I am grateful for it.
Grief has worn away some of the sharp edges of my personality.
I’m still prone to impatience-especially when faced with incompetence or hateful behavior in others.
But I’m learning that walking gently through life is not only good for others, it’s good for ME.
Life IS short. ‘
Not just the life of a child or teen or young adult cut down by accident or disease.
But even if I live my “threescore and ten” the Bible talks about, it will STILL be short. Seventy, eighty, one hundred years set on the timeline of history or eternity is less than a pinpoint.
What do I want my legacy to be? What do I want to leave behind for others to remember, to ponder, to carry in their hearts attached to my memory?
That’s easy. I want my legacy to be love.
I want people to remember that I treated them with kindness, that I respected them as persons, that I reached out, reached down and never separated myself from them by false barriers, foolish divisions or fake measures of who is “better” and who is “worse”.
More than anything I want people to feel that I made their burden lighter, not heavier.
So much of life is hard.
So many things happen for which there is no remedy.
I can’t choose everything, but I can choose love.
Life is short and we have not much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.
– Henri Fredric Amiel
There have been a number of posts from different parents in our closed groups recently remarking on how difficult this journey continues to be even decades down the road.
From the outside looking in, folks think, “Well, they’ve had plenty of time to adapt”.
But what they don’t understand is that for a parent, it’s not only what we HAD that is missing, it’s what we thought we WOULD HAVE that we miss too.
So every Christmas, every New Year, every birthday, holiday and family celebration our child isn’t present is another “not there” we have to process and accept.
This grief truly is relentless.❤ Melanie
re·lent·less
adjective
opressively constant; incessant.
Synonyms: persistent, continuing, nonstop, never-ending, unabating, interminable, incessant, unceasing, endless, unremitting, unrelenting, unrelieved.
I don’t know how you have responded to the chipper “Happy New Year” messages flooding your social media and inboxes but they generally land painfully on my fragile heart even after all these years.
It didn’t take long for me to realize after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven that so much of what we say in casual conversation is not helpful to those going through a hard time.
Even asking, “How are you?, “if you aren’t prepared for an honest answer, is an affront to an aching soul begging for someone, anyone to help bear the load.
New Year’s Eve I exchanged texts with someone who is well aware of all our family is going through only to have her send back: “Happy New Year! I hope your year is full of blessings!”.
At first I wanted to throw up. But then I literally laughed out loud in the darkness of my son’s truck because she has. no. clue.
Right after Dom left us, I was a walking nerve. Everything that anyone said or did that hit me as less than compassionate felt like a punch in the gut. It was physically painful. I didn’t want to be around anyone for very long except those in my immediate grief circle.
But over time, by the grace of God and by doing the work grief requires, I grew stronger and better able to carry this load. It wasn’t any lighter. I didn’t miss my son any less or “move on from” or “get over” his death.
I was able to gain perspective, though.
I could accept that before it was ME, I was just as ignorant as those who were saying and doing what they thought was the right thing (or maybe just the easiest thing) yet were causing pain instead of bringing hope and light.
If you are early on this journey, you may have to set strong boundaries to protect your broken heart. That’s not only OK, it’s good. Don’t expose yourself any more than necessary to those who (especially!) demonstrate repeatedly that they are not willing to learn more about how to compassionately companion the bereaved.
But be willing to expand your world a little bit as you heart begins to heal.
I don’t believe we will ever be “healed” until eternity. Yet when we invite Jehovah Rapha to do what only He can do, He will bind up our wounds.
There will be scars and tender places. We will never be able to walk in the world as those who have no enduring pain. But we CAN learn to walk in the world again.
Happy anything just isn’t something I say to folks anymore.
Instead I wish them a gentle and peace filled whatever the holiday might be.
And that’s what I wish and pray for you, my dears.
May this year be one in which the Lord’s Presence is very real and in which you feel seen, loved and held.
We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We plot and plan and hope and dream but in the end we have very little control over how our story ultimately plays out.
So we are left each New Year’s Eve with some good memories, some not so good ones and some we cling to like gold from a treasure chest because they are all we have.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?
Never.
Read the rest here: New Year’s Eve and Auld Lang Syne
I’ve been stretched this year in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
Everyone I love has needed me-often at the same time and in disparate geographical locations.
I’ve learned the ins and outs of caregiving for a previously independent parent, navigated our complex healthcare system and traveled miles and miles in a dirt covered car because there is absolutely NO time to get it washed.
I’ve shoved grief down into an iron chest and screwed the lid on tight because I knew if I ever let it sneak out, I wouldn’t be able to get it back in.
The thing is, life goes on after child loss, with or without our permission. All the roles we filled BEFORE must still be filled. And I want to fill them.
But some days it would be lovely to have a break.
❤ Melanie
It would be helpful if the world could just stop for a day or a week (or a year!) when your heart is shattered by the news that one of the children you birthed into this world has suddenly left it.
But it doesn’t.
And immediately all the roles I have played for decades are overlaid by a new role: bereaved mother. Except instead of being definitive or even descriptive, this role is more like a foggy blanket that obscures and disorients me as I struggle to fulfill all the roles to which I’ve become accustomed.
Read the rest here: Wife, Mother, Daughter, Sister, Friend
Oh, dear one who opened your eyes to the morning light carrying wounds so deep no one can see!
I am so, so sorry.
When things have gone terribly wrong it’s hard to get up and make merry.
I know.
Read the rest here: Christmas Morning Prayer for Hurting Hearts
I admit it-patience is not my strong suit.
I’m a person of action rather than deliberation.
Sometimes that gets me into trouble. Almost always it makes me intolerant of delays.
So I have to be very, very careful not to apply my impatience to God’s timing.
Read the rest here: Advent: Right On Time
thelifeididntchoose 