truth – thelifeididntchoose

An Open Letter to My Fellow Sisters in Loss on International Bereaved Mother’s Day 2026

Dear Mama,

I know that you never-in your wildest imagination-thought that you would need a day set aside for your broken heart and your empty arms.

Who thinks when they learn a new life is growing inside that this same life might be cut short? What heart is brave enough to consider the possibility?

Yet here you are.

I’m so, so sorry.

But there are a few things I want you to know. There are some important truths to remember on this broken road-truths that can help you hold onto hope and finish strong.

You are not a failure. I don’t care about those silly social media memes that are tossed around like candy from a Mardi Gras float. You kept your baby or your child as safe as you knew how. You are not omnipotent nor omniscient. You did the best you could. That’s all ANYONE can do.

no way to be a perfect mother child in arms

You are a mother even if you don’t have a single child to hold on earth. You have a child-just not one that others can see. When people ask how many children you have, answer boldly and count the one (or more!) that wait for you in eternity.

Your love is valid and worthy of expression. Love for your missing child may look different than love for a child still walking the earth with you. That’s OK. Grief is love with no place to go. Tears are fine. Laughter is fine. Speaking his name is your privilege. Carrying her legacy is your honor. No one gets to tell you how or when to express your heart.

mothers grow love intl bereaved mothers day

You are brave. Bereaved mothers are not the only brave ones on this planet but they are some of the bravest ones I know. You have received the heaviest blow a mama’s heart can know and you are still standing. You get up every day and carry on. You continue to love the people in your life and serve your family. You have not given up although giving up would be the easiest thing to do. Don’t discount your own courage.

You are strong-not because you want to be but because you have to be. Other people depend on you and you are trying your best not to let them down. It’s no compliment when someone says, “I just wouldn’t be able to survive.” Because, really-what choice do we have? We bear up under the burden because the alternative is to further burden our families.

You are beautiful. Every time you look in the mirror and notice the circles under your eyes or the lines around your mouth, don’t think that makes you ugly. They are scars-scars of love and sacrifice. They bear witness to the fact that you choose to carry on and carry your child’s legacy even though it costs every ounce of energy and will you can muster. You may not like the way you look in pictures, but trust me, you are beautiful.

You are a living legacy for your missing child. You carry his light. You honor her memory. You keep it fresh and alive and present and refuse to let others forget or ignore it.

You have a story to tell so tell it. Your story may be the key to unlock another mom’s prison. We cannot do this alone. We need one another. Don’t let fear of being dismissed or misunderstood silence you. Speak up. Stand out. Shout your truth for others to hear.

This day is for YOU.

It is set aside for all the mothers who love a child they can no longer hold.

Observe it however is meaningful and healing for YOU.

There’s no right way or wrong way to grieve.

International Bereaved Mother’s Day 2026

This year my daughter in law joins me in observing this solemn day. In January our sweet little Holly joined Dominic in the presence of Jesus.

There are few days on the calendar when a mother (or a father) who is missing a child’s earthly presence gets to publicly acknowledge that fact.

After the memorial or funeral, most folks are uncomfortable with child loss. It makes them feel vulnerable and makes real the fact that no one is ever truly safe.

But on this day, we lay bare the truth: children die before their parents.

If you know someone who has a child who has gone before, don’t turn away. Ask them about him or her. Choose to listen and not turn away.

❤ Melanie

International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States. This year it’s next Sunday, May 3, 2026.

I didn’t even know such a day existed until I was a mom that needed it.

For those of us who have children in heaven, setting aside a day to acknowledge that unique mother/child relationship is helpful.

Read the rest here: International Bereaved Mother’s Day

Grief Lessons: Trying To Be a Better Listener

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.

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. I’m learning that silent hand holding or hugging or just looking someone in the eye instead of dodging their gaze is a great gift.

I’m learning that lending courage is possible. One heart can actually beat in synchrony with another and the duet is musical and magical strength.

I’m learning that there are too many voices shouting “solution!” and too few ears listening to the full expression of a problem.

I’m learning that often my rush to remedy is hurtful, not helpful.

I’m learning that time does not heal all wounds-there are many among us bearing injuries that may be decades old but have never been spoken aloud because no one would listen.

we all need people who will listen to our stories

I’m learning that even the spoken stories need to be repeated often and with just as much emotion each time because the telling has a way of releasing pain all it’s own.

I’m convinced that if we were a society of listeners who slowed down just long enough to really HEAR other people’s stories we’d be a society with much less pent up anger, bitterness and other dark emotions.

sometimes you can hurt yourself more by keeping feelings hidden

I’m embracing the old saying, “God gave us two ears and one mouth so we should listen twice as much as we talk”.

Sometimes that means literally biting my tongue or placing my hand over my mouth.

But I’m trying not to waste this hard-bought lesson.

Need an ear?

I’m here.

Still Fighting Grief Brain

I first wrote about Grief Brain many years ago.

When I reshare that post, it always generates lots of comments from fellow bereaved parents.

Forgetting things and people’s names, misplacing important documents, sometimes even getting lost in familiar surroundings while driving-all common experiences following loss.

It feels like you’re losing your mind but for most of us, it gets better over time.

I’ve developed lots of habits and tricks that help me navigate my still-less-than-perfect memory and much slower processing ability since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

One of them is to carefully check when exiting my car that I have my keys, phone and payment method.

The other Saturday I was running a couple of errands early in the morning so I could cocoon the rest of the weekend, knowing Sunday was the anniversary of Dominic leaving for Heaven.

My first stop was our local feed store.

I got out of my car, opened the trunk and went in to purchase a couple bags of horse feed. When I began walking back to my car, I reached in my pocket for the keys and realized I didn’t have them. Panic set in (it’s never far away).

So I went in to the store to see if I left them on the counter. Nope.

Back out to car-not there. Damn.

As I’m standing there, getting ready to phone AAA and order a locksmith the young man who loads feed asks me what is wrong. I tell him and he says, “You know you can crawl through the trunk and into the back seat on these cars, don’t you?”

Of course I had no idea even though I’ve owned the car for fifteen years and knew the back seats folded down. Never had need of using that feature before.

So now I’m wondering how in the world my big behind and arthritic joints are going to navigate that space when the same fella offers to do it for me.

Can I just say I’ve never been more grateful to anyone in all my life as I was to that young man?

He wriggled and squirmed and wedged his not-too-slender form into that tiny space and popped up victorious in the back seat.

God bless him.

He walked away to continue working and it was then I reached into the driver’s side and realized my keys weren’t there. Not in the ignition. Not in my purse I’d left behind when I tucked the debit card in my pocket.

The WHOLE TIME they were in the key hole of the trunk. Accessible, available.

SIGH…

I slid my hand over them as if I was only closing the trunk down on the feed and drove off. Thankful. Embarrassed. Humbled.

Again.

I know everyone forgets things sometimes.

But those of us living with grief understand that this happens all too often.

And it doesn’t go away even when it gets better.

We just learn to live with it.

Twelve Years. For You a Moment, For Me a Lifetime.

Twelve years ago today I woke up knowing that at some point I’d close the lid on my son’s casket and never again see his face this side of Heaven.

For friends and family it was the moment when Dominic’s death was “over”. His story complete. His life appropriately marked and celebrated. It was the end.

For me, it was a beginning.

A beginning I did not want to embrace. But there was no going back, only forward, ever forward.

Melanie

I used to look at tombstones in cemeteries and do the math between the dates.

I was most focused on how long this person or that person walked the earth.

I still do that sometimes. But now I do something else as well.

I look to the left and the right to see if the person who ran ahead left parents behind. My eye is drawn to the solitary stones with the same last name next to a double monument clearly honoring a married pair.

And then I do a different kind of math.

I count the years between the last breath of the child and the last breath of his or her mama.

Because while that first date marked an end for everyone else, for the mama, it marked the beginning of the rest of her life- a life she never imagined nor would have chosen.

Read the rest here: For You, a Moment; For Me, a Lifetime

This Is What Grief Looks Like

Today I was backing out of the driveway when my eyes landed on the tag of one of our other cars.

Suddenly I realized that I hadn’t renewed our tags this year.

They are due in January and, like other important dates graven in my over- organized brain, I literally NEVER forget.

But I did.

And I hadn’t even thought about it these three months until just now.

My sweet granddaughter, Holly, went to Heaven at Dallas Children’s Hospital January 4th. My elderly dad had eye surgery in Florida January 19th. I was home for exactly four days the whole month.

This is what grief looks like in real time twelve years later.

I still have six half grown kittens born a week before Holly entered the world . I brought their poor mama 700 miles because I didn’t want her to deliver while I was away welcoming my precious girl.

I just can’t let them go.

They are connected to her life, a source of joy, a reminder that death doesn’t claim every beautiful thing.

I’m probably going to keep them all because I can and because a farm can always use more barn cats.

This is what grief looks like twelve years later.

I recently had a nuclear stress test and an echocardiogram. My EKG in January was just a little “off” so my cardiologist sent me for testing.

The results were good. No real issues other than that I need to get back to walking every day and should lose weight.

I finally activated a Fitbit tracker I bought months ago to track my heart rate, activity and steps.

This is what grief looks like even after over a decade.

I’m rapidly approaching another unwelcome milestone marking twelve long years since I heard Dominic’s voice, saw his face, hugged his neck.

I’m stronger.

I feel joy.

I don’t cry every day.

But if anyone thinks the absence of my son or my granddaughter doesn’t change EVERYTHING, they are wrong.

Holy Week: Resurrection-Reality and Reassurance

“The worst conceivable thing has happened, and it has been mended…All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

~Julian of Norwich

I’m not sure when I first read this quote, but it came to my mind that awful morning. And I played it over and over in my head, reassuring my broken heart that indeed, the worst had already happened, and been mended.

Death had died.

Christ was risen-the firstfruits of many brethren.

Read the rest here: Resurrection: Reality and Reassurance

Holy Week 2026: Living Between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection

It is tempting to forget that there were three long days and nights between the crucifixion and the resurrection beause the way we observe this season rushes us past the pain to embrace the promise.

But it’s not hard for me to imagine how the disciples felt when they saw Jesus was dead. It was neither what they expected nor what they prayed for.

There were many points in the story when things could have gone a different way:

When taken by the religious leaders-surely, they thought, He will explain Himself, they will let Him go.
When taken before Pilate-Rome will refuse to get involved with our spiritual squabbles, Pilate won’t authorize His death.
When presented to the crowd-no Jew would rather have a wicked murderer released instead of a humble, healing Rabbi.

At every turn, every expectation they had for a “happy ending” was dashed to the ground.

Read the rest here: Living Between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection

Holy Week 2026: Why Good Friday Matters as Much as Resurrection Sunday

On the one hand Death is the triumph of Satan, the punishment of the Fall, and the last enemy. Christ shed tears at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane: the Life of Lives that was in Him detested this penal obscenity not less than we do, but more. On the other hand, only he who loses his life will save it. We are baptized into the death of Christ, and it is the remedy for the Fall.

Death is, in fact, what some modern people call “ambivalent.” It is Satan’s great weapon and also God’s great weapon: it is holy and unholy; our supreme disgrace and our only hope; the thing Christ came to conquer and the means by which He conquered.

~C.S. Lewis, Miracles

Bury a child and suddenly the death of Christ becomes oh, so personal.

The image of Mary at the foot of the cross is too hard to bear.

Read the rest here: Remember: Why Good Friday Matters as Much as Resurrection Sunday

Holy Week 2026: Sorrow Lifted as Sacrifice

In some liturgical Christian traditions, today is the day the church remembers and honors Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with expensive and rare perfume.

It was a beautiful act of great sacrifice as the perfume would ordinarily be a family treasure broken and used only at death for anointing a beloved body.

It’s also an expression of deep sorrow because somehow Mary knew.

Mary. Knew.

So she poured out her precious gift on the One Who loves her most.

Tears are my sacrifice.

Holy Week Reflections: Sorrow Lifted as Sacrifice

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