I have been guilty of this more times than I ‘d like to admit.
I assume someone else’s feelings mirror my own and act on that assumption by withdrawing or not showing up or “giving them space”.
But the problem is, most times, on reflection, I realize my action (or inaction) was really all about sparing my own feelings or staying within my own comfort zone.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
For so much of my life, I thought sucking it up and faking away the pain showed true strength. But real strength is identifying a wound and asking God to enter it. We are robbing ourselves of a divine mystery and a divine intimacy when we pretend to have it all together. In fact, we lose an entire vocabulary from our prayers when we silence the reality of our pain. If questions and cries and laments are not cleaned up throughout Scripture, then why are we cleaning them up or removing them completely from our language?
~Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine
Social media is replete with memes, stories and “pass this on and Jesus will bless you” messages that imply if only our faith is strong enough or our hope steadfast enough things will be alright.
But sometimes they aren’t!
So when I see posts about a survival story and another family spared the awful journey my family must make, I am truly thankful but my heart cries out, “Why him and not MY son?”
It was a long, long time before my first reaction to someone surviving an awful car accident or motorcycle accident (my son died on his motorcycle-instantly) was joy for the family of the one that survived.
I would have a moment of relief for them (that they didn’t have to suffer this pain) but then my mind went to the place I wish I didn’t-why them and not us?
One of the hardest tasks in this journey has been to lay aside the questions I know won’t be answered before Heaven and to learn to live in the now with them tucked away.
I’m better at rejoicing but I still can’t tolerate talk of “miracles” (even if it really IS a miracle) or “answered prayers” or “prayer works” or someone trying to justify why one person dies and another lives in the same circumstances.
I can tolerate mystery but not men’s attempts to explain away God’s working in the world.
So I have learned to let it out in the privacy of my own prayer closet or journal and beg God to pour more mercy and grace into my broken heart. Pretending it’s OK doesn’t help me or anyone else. Lament allows me to exhale my doubts, questions and disappointment and make room to inhale the truth that the Lord is faithful and that He loves me.
I know my Redeemer lives and that every promise of God in Christ is “yes” and “amen”.
I hang onto that truth, even when my heart begs for more.
Because I have absolutelyNO IDEAif anyone is aware of the passage of time in Heaven or if birthdays are even a thing there.
So instead of celebrating another year with my third born, I’m celebrating the years I had with him-too few as far as my heart’s concerned.
I am oh, so thankful for the time I had.
But my heart cries, “More! More!”
I’m no good at this “birthday in absentia” thing. This is the sixth time May 28th has rolled around without Dominic here to eat cake, open presents or break his usually strict dieting rules and gobble down pasta.
A couple of years I’ve purchased a cake in secret at a local bakery for a child that shares Dom’s birthday.
Most years I’ve quietly remembered the events leading to his birth including what now feels like a prescient experience: my obstetrician’s nurse came into the room as I was waiting for a C-section delivery and whispered, “Dr. H is here, but his daughter completed suicide yesterday”. *
When they brought Dom close to my head so I could kiss him before they whisked him away and sewed me up, tears streamed down my face. I really had NO CLUE, but I realized (in a tiny way) that this man was here ushering life into the world as his own heart was breaking for a life that was no more.
All I could say was, “Thank you! I am so, so sorry.”
And I meant it.
Now I know what it cost him to be there. What it cost him to see a family made larger at the moment his (earthly) family had been made smaller.
This year we are at my oldest son’s home savoring the first precious moments holding our grandson. Born too early, his story could have ended badly.
It didn’t and for that I am thankful.
Ryker’s original due date was May 27th-one day before Dominic’s birthday.
It’s fitting that we have a new life to celebrate even as we celebrate missing Dom.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know how to merge these two lives, these opposite feelings, this joy and sorrow meeting in my heart.
I vacillate between overwhelming sadness and overwhelming gratitude that my grandson’s story is beautiful, remarkable, nearly miraculous.
So today I will try to honor Dominic-who he was, who he still is (even more so and perfectly in Heaven!) and the precious gift of another generation to love, nurture and cherish.
I’ll try to lay aside the awful knowledge I carry in my heart that any day things can change. What you never think can happen DOES happen.
I’ll celebrate love.
Because love lives forever.
Always.
*Dominic was killed instantly in a single vehicle motorcycle accident April 12, 2014.
There may be some mamas that don’t drill this into their children but if there are, they don’t live south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Every time there was back and forth in the back seat or on the front porch and Mama overheard, we were told, “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.”
Parents weren’t interested in policing every errant word out of the under 18 crowd’s mouth back in the day.
It was a simple (and effective!) rule: If what you want to say does not meet the criteria of T.H.I.N. K. (true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, kind) then
All the preparation and anticipation meet under a covered outdoor chapel as my daughter and her fiance exchange vows and become one.
By the end of the evening, we will have laughed (and cried!), danced and toasted our way through this very important event.
And they will leave changed in ways they can’t imagine nor fully understand. It takes time to grow into lifelong commitment.
It takes years for singleness to be sanded down to a perfect fit one for the other.
Weddings are fun.
Marriage is work.
My parents have been married for 58 years. My husband and I for nearly 35. None of us has a magic formula for marital longevity. Mostly it’s been leaning into the commitment we made at the altar so many years ago even when it seemed easier to give up and give in.
We’ve all faced so many challenges in our decades together. Some we saw coming and some landed suddenly on top of us without warning. Life, death, moving house, illness, accident, floods, hurricanes, and dozens of smaller crises have forced us to change course, adjust our sails and adapt to new and often unwelcome directions. But we haven’t abandoned ship.
Sometimes it’s been pure grit and determination that see us through. Other times it’s holding on to the good things we’ve shared together.
I’m thankful we are celebrating today.
I’ll be tucking this memory in a safe place where I can pull it out on days that aren’t so beautiful.
It’s my prayer that Fiona and Brandon do the same.
When life gets hard (and it will!) may they remember the promises they made to one another and weather the storms together.
Now this is the reason a man leaves his father and his mother, and is united with his wife; and the two become one flesh.
I haven’t had a good gut-wrenching, chest-thumping ugly cry in awhile.
I had one yesterday.
Taking clothes off the line to bring indoors before nightfall, I was suddenly overcome with emotion.
I remembered Dominic’s graduation presentation in our back yard. I thought about my daughter’s wedding and how he was missing another important event. Then I pictured my grandson who would never know Uncle Dominic in three dimensions-only by flat photos and through our renderings of him.
Five years!
How can it possibly be five years since I last saw that face, hugged that neck, heard that voice?
And what has become of us in the meantime?
We are more
and less.
More compassionate, more deliberate in maintaining connection with one another, more focused on what really matters, more likely to cry in movies, more willing to drive or fly or walk or swim to get to the people we love. Five minutes of face-to-face makes it worthwhile.
We are less tolerant of petty grievances, less sure that bad things don’t happen to “good” people, less likely to sweat the small stuff and less inclined to assume we know another heart’s story when we first meet her. We don’t take anything for granted.
Walking into wedding weekend is another giant challenge. Full of beautiful things and special moments and wonderful friends.
But we all carry Dominic-his life, light and death-with us everywhere we go.
So I’m sure there will be moments when my heart shows up on my face.
The news goes out over Facebook, over phone lines, over prayer chains and everyone shows up.
Crowds in the kitchen, in the living room, spilling onto the lawn.
It’s what you do.
And it’s actually the easiest part. Lots of people, lots of talking, lots of activity keep the atmosphere focused on the deceased and the family. The conversation rarely dips to deeper waters or digs into harder ground: “Where was God?”; “Why him?”; “Why do ‘bad’ things happen to ‘good’ people?”
But eventually the busyness and noise gives way to stillness and silence.
When it first happened all I could think about was getting through a minute, then a day and then all the decisions and days leading up to a funeral or memorial service.
There’s no road map.
Even when others come alongside (and many, many did!) there’s just no easy way to navigate that part of the journey.
And then I realized that in addition to all the “regular” days that absolutely, positively break your heart, I had to forge a path through “special” days.
It was overwhelming!
Mother’s Day was especially challenging that first year. Our loss was fresh and we’d had to acknowledge and celebrate two graduations and a wedding was about a month away. How in the world could I honor my living children and also safeguard my broken heart?
We muddled through by having Mother’s Day at my daughter’s apartment co-hosted by some of her sweetest and most compassionate friends. Not a lot of fanfare, but good food, good company and a quiet acknowledgment of Dom’s absence but also my living children’s presence.
It was a gift.
This is my sixth Mother’s Day. Every year is different. Every year presents new challenges and every year things change.
Since discovering there is an International Bereaved Mother’s Day my heart has taken advantage of having a day to think about and honor Dominic and then another day to think about and honor my living children.
That helps.
I wrote this post three years ago but can’t really improve on it so I’ll share it again. I pray that each heart who finds Mother’s Day hard will lean in and take hold of the hem of His garment.
thelifeididntchoose 