Fairy tales and favorite movies aside, what does love really look like?
How can I see this feeling that has driven some to distraction, some to destruction and even more to dedication to another in spite of whatever obstacles life has placed in the path?
It’s not often writ large.
In fact, it’s usually tiny stitches in the tapestry of life.
Read the rest here: How Can I See Love?
Life is really rather unforgiving, isn’t it?
I can only live forward and there are no do-overs.
No amount of regret can roll back the clock and give me another chance to do it right, do it better or just do it at all.
Read the rest here: The Best Time To Plant A Tree
I remember as a young mother of four working hard to keep my kids safe.
Next to fed and dry (two still in diapers!) that was each day’s goal: No one got hurt.
It never occurred to me THEN to add: No one got killed.
Read the rest here: What is Safe?
A few decades ago, faulty research methods made popular an inaccurate statistic that a disproportionate number of marriages fail after a couple experiences child loss.
Like many urban legends, once fixed in the minds of many, it’s nearly impossible to dislodge.
And that is more than unfortunate because when marriages falter (and they often do) after child loss, lots of people just give up because they think failure is inevitable.
But it’s not.
Read the rest here: Child Loss: Can My Marriage Survive?
I’ve thought a great deal about friendship since losing Dominic. I’ve been blessed by those who have chosen to walk with me and dismayed by some who have walked away.It takes great courage to sit in silence with those who suffer. We must fight the urge to ward off their pain with chatter.
Quiet companionship requires that we allow our hearts to suffer too.
❤
For fifty years I was on the “other side”-the one where I looked on, sad and sometimes horror-stricken- at the pain and sorrow friends or family had to bear.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: Being a Friend
A funeral or memorial service seems like a final chapter. We close the coffin, close the doors and everyone goes home.
But for bereaved parents and their surviving children, it’s not an end, it is a beginning.
Much like a wedding or birth serves as the threshold to a new way of life, a new commitment, a new understanding of who you are, burying a child does the same.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: Transitioning From “Good-bye” to Grief
If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them.
—James O’Barr
I grieve because I love.
My tears are a gift to the son I miss. My sorrow honors his memory. My broken heart gives evidence to the ones walking with me that my love is fierce and timeless.
Read the rest here: Love: The Reason I Grieve
It’s nearly impossible for anyone who has not lost the earthly companionship of a child to know how desperately I long to hear Dominic’s name spoken aloud.
There are days I walk around my home and think silently and even whisper quietly, “You existed! You exist!” just to remind my heart he is real.
You may hesitate to bring him up because you fear my tears. But any tears his name might evoke will be tears of gratitude as well as those of longing.
Please say his name!
❤
I know you are afraid.
You think that speaking his name or sharing a memory or sending me a photo will add to my sorrow.
I understand.
But even when it costs me a split second of sharp pain, it is truly a gift to know that Dominic lives on in the hearts and minds of others.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: Just Say His Name
Before I lost Dominic, I know that I, like others who had never experienced the death of a child, undoubtedly said and did things that were hurtful instead of helpful.
Loss will enter everyone’s life at some point–there is no escape.
We educate ourselves (as we should) on so many issues–work hard not to offend, to understand, to reach out. Bereaved parents don’t want pity, they would like to be better understood.
We did not choose this journey, it was thrust upon us.
Read the rest here: Loving Well: Some Things Hurt
I am well aware that not everyone is blessed by an outpouring of love and support in the wake of child loss. In fact, depending on the circumstances, some families are practically shunned.
It breaks my heart every time I hear of such an experience.
Because if there is one thing I’ve learned in this Valley, it’s this: when a heart is shattered my ONLY job is to show up and do whatever is helpful-even if that means sitting silently and holding a hand.
❤
When I asked other bereaved parents to share the things people did that blessed them in the wake of losing a child, I didn’t expect so many stories of extravagant love–of acts surpassing anything I could have thought of or imagined.
“After my daughter passed, which was minutes before Mother’s Day 2012, outside the hospital room-
Read the rest here: Extravagant Love: Tales of Friendship and Encouragement After Losing a Child
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