Some of us enter trembling through the door of a new year.
This last year wasn’t so good and our hearts are broken.
What if the next year is worse? How will we manage? Where can we hide from bad news, bad outcomes, disastrous trauma?
Truth is, we can’t.
So here we are, bravely marching in, hanging on to hope and begging God for mercy.
Read the rest here: New Year’s 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
Tomorrow I will be sixty-two years old.
When I celebrated my fiftieth, I had so many dreams and plans! I couldn’t have imagined that the next ten years would be filled with the heartache of child loss, along with all the hope and joy of an expanding family.
But here I am.
Definitely older and, I would like to think, a little wiser.
Wiser to the truth that no one escapes pain in this life. Wiser to the fact that joy and sorrow can coexist. Wise enough to know by experience that sometimes the very best thing you can do is shut your mouth and open your arms to a hurting heart. Wise enough to realize that birthdays for bereaved parents are often complicated.
I wrote this post several years ago but share it annually because unless you’ve sent a child ahead to Heaven, you might not realize how very tricky birthdays can be for the parents left behind.
❤ Melanie
Tomorrow is my birthday.
And while I am truly grateful for another trip around the sun, since Dominic left us it’s not a simple celebration of life lived and the hope of years to come.
The last birthday I had with an unbroken family circle was a lovely surprise party for my fiftieth held in Dom’s apartment.
Eleven years later and it seems a lifetime ago.
Read the rest here: Birthdays Are…Complicated
From the outside-very soon after all the formal visiting, meal bringing and memorial service or funeral-most bereaved parents look “fine”.
We have to.
The world doesn’t stop turning because our world imploded.
Work, life, family duties, household chores, and all the ordinary things determined by hours and calendars keep rolling along.
But on the inside, every bit of who we are, how we feel, what we think has been devastatingly poked, prodded, ripped apart and rearranged.
And just like there is no substitute for TIME in physical healing, there is no substitute for TIME in emotional, mental or spiritual healing either.
So if you are fresh on this path, new to the rigors of trying to “do life” while mourning your precious child, recognize that there is oh, so much damage where people can’t see.
Read the rest here: Don’t Let The Outside Fool You
If you think that time makes a difference to a mama missing a child who ran ahead to Heaven without her, you don’t know as much as you think you know.
Time does not heal all wounds-especially the kind that shatter a heart into a million pieces.
It takes time for the wound to scar over, but it doesn’t undo the damage.
So if you are wondering why your coworker still takes the day off on his child’s birthday or the anniversary of her child’s homegoing, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Years disappear when those milestones loom large.
Read the rest here: It’s Been Years-What’s Wrong With You?
I cannot speak for others but in my case, it seems that I did not lose Dominic all at once.
In fact, I’m still losing him.
Bit by bit, a little at a time, nearly molecule by molecule, his mark on my life, my walls, my world grows smaller.
Of course the space he occupies in my heart is safe-a mother’s heart grows larger with each birth and never shrinks again!
But in the physical world, the observable world, the world outside the safe sanctuary of my own soul-his presence THERE is fading.
And that’s it’s own brand of grief that must be recognized, felt, mourned and laid to rest.
Every time Dominic SHOULD be here but ISN’T means another memory made without him, another photograph with a missing piece, another family milestone celebrated a bit more quietly because his booming laughter doesn’t join the chorus.
Every decision that would ordinarily involve consulting all four children’s schedules and desires is one more opportunity to count down two, skip one and go to my youngest. I never can remember that there are only three phone calls or texts to make. My heart hurts each time I don’t check in with Dominic.
Odd pieces of mail come in his name-leftover from mass mailing lists that have not yet been purged of deceased individuals. Still a little shocking, always sad, I carry it up the quarter mile to the house and lay it on top of the pile of other things that prove he once walked the earth.
Digging through the toolbox in the garage for a screwdriver and there’s that funny little part he took off a car years ago and tucked inside the drawer-just in case we could use it for something. I smell the grease and gas and feel him near.
Then my mind drags my heart back to reality and he’s gone again.
Dozens of moments make me miss him anew.
I’m not delusional.
I know he has run ahead to Heaven.
But my heart holds on to every shred of physical connection as long as it can.
And then he’s ripped from me all over again.
Most of the time I’m just kind of rolling along.
There are things to do, places to go, people to see, animals to feed.
I get up, get going and get on with it.
But there are some days that are what I call “Hard Stops” on this journey. They are the days that force my heart to take special notice of the fact that Dominic isn’t here.
Sometimes they are milestone days like birthdays or holidays or the anniversary of that awful knock on the door.
Sometimes they are events where he should be there-like seeing his brother one more time before he deploys half-way around the world.
These days make my heart measure the time since I last hugged his neck, heard his voice, saw his strong, square hands reach across the table for the salt shaker-and I am overcome with how long it has been!
Then my heart shifts to the months and likely years I will have to live with this aching empty place where he should be but isn’t and I fear I just can’t do it!
Many days I’m able to distract myself from the sorrow and to live with the missing.
But these “hard stop” days force me to face it head on. and it is overwhelming.
Every. Time.
So what do I do?
When my heart is overwhelmed, I take it to the Rock that is higher than I.
I run to the Refuge of my Faithful Father.
I turn my eyes to my Savior Who will redeem and restore.
I put my hand firmly in the hand of my Shepherd Who will not leave me in this Valley of the Shadow of Death.
And I pray for myself-and every heart having a hard time holding onto hope today-that we will feel the Father’s loving arms around us and that He will give us strength to stand.
When my daughter was learning to walk, I would hover near-ready to catch her if she fell.
I covered sharp corners or moved furniture so that the chance of injury was minimized. I clapped and cooed each time she made a little progress-pulling up, cruising around the edge of the sofa and coffee table-those tentative moments when she was brave enough to let go and then plop on her bottom.
And finally, when she made her first unassisted steps between the security of holding on and my waiting arms.
It was a judgement free zone.
I wasn’t looking for technical perfection or measuring progress according to any external metric.
I didn’t rush the process. I couldn’t do it for her. I could only support her own efforts toward the goal we both had in our hearts. I never despised her baby steps.
They were a beginning.
And everything has a beginning.
When Dominic ran ahead to heaven, I felt like I was physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually knocked to the floor. I had no idea how I was going to make a life after this great blow. I could barely get dressed, much less do anything that took more thought or energy than that.
I was overwhelmed. I had to learn to walk all over again.
And I did it with baby steps, in a judgement free-zone I created for myself where I refused to gauge my progress against anyone else’s.
Because baby steps count.
Here are some of the baby steps I’ve taken and am still taking:
I have yet to hit my stride and I don’t think running is in my near future, but I am moving forward. I’m making progress. I don’t have to meet a timetable or get anyone else’s approval.
It’s my journey.
And baby steps count. 
I know that when I first stumbled onto a bereaved parent group, it was one of the things I was looking for: evidence that the overwhelming pain of child loss would not last forever.
Some days I was encouraged as those who had traveled farther down this path posted comments affirming that they could feel something other than sorrow.
Some days I was devastated to read comments from parents who buried a child decades ago asserting that “it never gets better”.
Who is right?
What’s the difference?
Do I have any control over whether or not this burden gets lighter?
It was eleven years in April since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven and I’ve learned a few things since then.
Time, by itself, heals nothing. But time, plus the work grief requires, brings a measure of healing.
If I cling with both hands to my loss, I can’t take hold of the good things life still has in store for me.
Longing for the past all the time only brings sorrow. I cannot turn back time. Days, weeks, years will keep coming whether or not I choose to participate in them. I will rob my heart of potential joy by focusing exclusively on the sorrow I can’t undo.
Daily choices add up. When I lean into the small things required each day, I build confidence that I can do the bigger things that might still frighten me. Making phone calls eventually helps me show up to a meeting or to church. I strengthen my “can do” muscle every time I use it.
Doubt doesn’t disappear. Facing my doubt forces me to explore the edges of my faith. It does no good for me to stuff questions in a drawer and hope they go away. They won’t. I have to drag them into the light and examine them. Doubt is not denial. If God is God (and I believe that He is!) then my puny queries don’t diminish His glory. He knows I’m made of dust and He invites me to bring my heart to Him-questions and all.
My mental diet matters more than I might think. I have to be very careful what I feed my mind. If I focus on sadness, tragic stories, hateful speech and media that feeds my fears and despair then those feelings grow stronger. If instead I focus on hopeful stories, good conversation with faithful friends and inspiring quotes, verses and articles I feed the part of my heart that helps me hold onto hope.
I need a space where I can be completely honest about what this journey is like. Bereaved parents’ groups have been that space for me and have been an important component of my healing. But even there I must be cautious about how much time I spend reading other parents’ stories if I notice that I’m absorbing too much pain and not enough encouragement.
Grief is hard.
It’s work.
And that work is made up of dozens of daily choices that are also often difficult.
I don’t expect to be healed and whole this side of eternity. But I do know that if I consistently do the work grief requires I will be stronger, more whole and better able to lean into the life I have left than if I don’t.
I want to live.
I want to honor my son by living a life that’s more than just limping along, barely making it, struggling for each step.
So I do the work grief asks of me.
Even when it’s hard.
I know I’m not the only one who carries a calendar in my head that threatens to explode like a ticking timebomb. Days that mean nothing to anyone else loom large as they approach.
The date of his death.
The date of his funeral.
His birthday.
My birthday.
The day he should have graduated from law school.
On and on and on.
How can I survive these oppressive reminders of what I thought my life would look like? How can I grab hold of something, anything that will keep my heart and mind from falling down the rabbit hole of grief into a topsy-turvy land where nothing makes sense and it’s full of unfriendly creatures that threaten to gobble me whole?
Read the rest here: Surviving Grief Anniversaries
thelifeididntchoose 