Category: wisdom

It’s a High Price to Pay for Wisdom…

I have learned a lot in these ten years since Dominic ran ahead ahead to heaven.

But what a price to pay for wisdom!

It’s certainly not one I’d have agreed to up front.

Yet, here I am, older and oh, so much wiser, than I would have been if I had not buried a child...

I will shout from the rooftops, from the hillsides, from any bit of altitude I can gain that the most important thing in life is love.

Nothing else really matters.

Everything else can be bought and sold.

But love cannot be traded for money-it is priceless, eternal and immortal.

Our bodies don’t last forever, but love does.  

Our hopes may be dashed, but love lives.

Our breath may be exhausted, but love never runs out.

Read the rest here: A High Price to Pay

Life Isn’t Fair

One of the things I’m learning this side of burying my precious child is that there is no upper limit to the sorrow and pain I may have to carry in this life.  And it’s no use comparing my burden to that of another-begging God to consider the differing weights and to make adjustments to lighten my load because it is heavier than that of another.

I do not get a pass on daily stress and strain. 

I’m not guaranteed physical health. 

I am just as likely as anyone else to get the grumpy cashier, to drop a dish or lose my keys. Or worse.

Read the rest here: Life is Absolutely NOT Fair

Ten Years: What’s Helped and What’s Hurt

If I’m honest, the things that hurt in the first days, weeks and months could fill a book.

But now, I’ve developed a thicker skin and a better perspective.

If you are still early in your journey and, like me, a giant walking nerve, then your list would definitely be different.

I can narrow them down at this point to a few.

What really hurts:

  • Assuming you understand my pain (unless you also have buried a child).
  • Insisting that time=healing.
  • Ignoring the ongoing nature of child loss.
  • Questioning my faith because I question what happened.
  • Refusing space to share about my missing child.
  • Not saying Dominic’s name.
  • Acting like I should “be over it”.
  • Pretending like it never happened or Dominic never existed because it makes you uncomfortable to talk about him.
  • Not acknowledging my surviving children’s grief.
  • Ignoring the times of year when grief is especially heavy like birthdays, holidays, and the anniversary of Dom’s leaving.

What helps:

  • Admitting that you STILL might not know what to say or do to support me and my family in marking the loss of and missing Dominic. It’s OK. I’ll help you.
  • Listening. Even if it’s something you’ve heard before.
  • Reacting to social media posts about Dominic. I’d love to have new photos but I don’t. But I may be sharing a newly recovered memory or exposed feeling.
  • Notes, cards, messages and calls that let me know you KNOW. That you haven’t forgotten and that you still help carry Dom’s light in the world.
  • Granting space and grace when milestones loom large and my capacity for interaction is limited. Don’t ditch me because I don’t get back to you. Please.
  • Accepting that I will never be the person I was BEFORE but that I’m still a person. I need affirmation, love and kindness like everyone else.
  • Asking questions, staying curious and compassionate and allowing me to help you understand how grief is experienced over time.
  • Respecting my boundaries. These have changed since the early days but I still have hard stops that mark the edges of what I can and can’t do and maintain my sanity.
  • Sharing photos or experiences you may have had with Dom. He was an adult when he left us and there are parts of him I don’t know. I always love to see and hear about him. ❤
  • Patience. I didn’t get a manual on how to live after burying my child. I’m learning as I go. I make mistakes, say things I wish I hadn’t said, step on toes. I’m genuinely sorry. I’m doing the very best I can.

I will not say that Dominic’s death is good.

It’s not.

Death is awful and should be recognized for the enemy it is.

But I will say I have gained wisdom through this experience.

I’ve paid a price I would never willingly have paid. And I would trade it all for my boy in the flesh, my arms around him, his deep voice added to the chorus at our table.

I won’t waste it.

I will share it.

I pray every day that it helps other hearts walk this Valley and instructs those walking with us.

2024: Reflections on a New Year

I saw a cute meme on social media that said, “No one claim 2024 as THEIR year”. It made me laugh. But I get it.

I begin every January thinking that THIS year things will be more manageable, things will be brighter, easier (even a little?), somehow more predictable and enjoyable instead of just survivable. But, sure enough, February comes along and knocks those fool notions right out of my head.

My life is not one disaster after another. In fact, on a global scale my life is quite lovely. But it’s consistently filled with challenges and more-than-challenges that force me to recalibrate and adjust my sails to meet the gale force winds.

I first shared this a couple years ago and find it just as appropriate for the first day of 2024. I’m not making broad predictions, proclamations or resolutions.

I just plan to take things one day at a time.

❤ Melanie

This year has been challenging in ways I could never have imagined nor anticipated. It’s been that way for many of us I think.

Communal grief, pain and loss have wrapped themselves around the unique grief, pain and loss of hearts everywhere.

Definitely plenty to give a person pause.

And while I do believe it’s a good thing to reflect every so often I’m not certain it has to be on the same date every year.

Read the rest here: New Year Reflections

Birthdays Can Be Tricky…

Tomorrow I will be sixty 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.

Ten years later and it seems a lifetime ago.

Read the rest here: Birthdays Are…Complicated

Busyness Doesn’t Define Me

 I will not waste my time running here, there and everywhere.

I will not spend my life energy on things or projects or activities that don’t matter.

I am not going to invest the scarce resource of the rest of my life in busyness.

I will give everything I’ve got to hearts and lives and people.  I will pour myself into projects I’m passionate about, people I love and pursuits that will outlive my few years on this earth.

Because busyness does not define me.  

Love does.

2016: A Little Extra Grace

Each day I am reminded by sights, smells, sounds and memories that Dominic is in Heaven and not here.  

But there are moments and seasons when his absence is particularly strong-when I can’t breathe in without also breathing a prayer, “Father, let me make it through this minute, this hour, this day.”

And that’s when I need grace-from family, friends and strangers.

Read the rest here: A Little Extra Grace

2017: Who’s Gonna Miss You Baby?

Busyness has become a national idol-we rush from commitment to commitment, signing up to fill every single minute with something, anything that makes us feel important, valuable, irreplaceable.

Of course we have job and family obligations-as we should-but we don’t feel fully accomplished until we have colored in the edges of our calendar until no white space remains.

Because we think that if we don’t show up, people will miss us.  We think that if WE don’t do this or that, it won’t get done.  We are absolutely certain that our input is critical to the success of every mission, every committee, every project.

Can I let you in on a little secret?  It’s not.

One of the inconvenient and difficult truths that has been burned in my brain since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven is this:  his absence didn’t make a bit of difference to the world at large.

It only made a difference to the hearts that loved him.

Read the rest here: Who’s Gonna Miss You Baby?

2018: A High Price to Pay

A High Price to Pay

I have learned a lot in these four years since Dominic ran ahead ahead to heaven.

But what a price to pay for wisdom!

It’s certainly not one I’d have agreed to up front.

Yet, here I am, older and oh, so much wiser, than I would have been if I had not buried a child.

Sometimes I resent that I wasn’t given the choice.  I would trade any wisdom, no matter how beautiful and valuable for the life of my  son.

Read the rest here: A High Price to Pay

2019: Distant Music

I don’t know about you, but sometimes cute little memes intended to help me “look on the bright side” fly all over me.

Sure, if life gives you lemons (bad hair day, late to work, long line at the grocery store) make lemonade.

But sometimes it’s not lemons life gives you, it’s an avalanche of pain, heartache and world-shattering awful.

Read the rest here: Distant Music

ALL Wisdom Comes At a Cost

ALL wisdom comes at a cost-either to me or to the person who is gracious enough to share theirs with me.

I am a very, very different person than I would have been if Dominic were still here.

I’ve learned that suffering comes in all shapes and sizes, seasons and from sources you don’t expect. I’ve learned to sit silently with sorrow.

I’m intolerant of small talk, small people and small, crowded spaces. I’ve learned that many people are small-minded about others’ pain.

I’ll leave it to those who know me to decide what is wisdom and what is not.

All has come at a cost I’d never agree to pay.

2016: How Job’s Comforters Got It Wrong

I want to make sense of the senseless.

I want to draw boundary lines around tragedy so I know what precautions can keep it far away from  me.

But God is in control.  Not me.

Read the rest here: How Job’s comforters got it wrong…

2017: ALL Things Through Christ

It is kind of a catchy saying to plaster across a Christian school’s gymnasium wall.

I know the one who decided to put it there meant well.  But “I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength” is absolutely NOT about lifting weights, running an extra lap or hitting a ball out of the park.

No. No. NO.

Read the rest here: ALL Things Through Christ

2018: Night Time is So. Much. Harder.

I’m pretty good at pushing away uncomfortable or sad or downright horrifying thoughts in the daytime.

Sunlight means there’s plenty to do and plenty to keep my mind from dwelling too long on anything that will make be cry or bring me to my knees. 

But there is a dangerous space just between wake and sleep, when the house is quiet and my mind is free to explore random corners that guarantees unpleasant thoughts will pour in and overwhelm me.

I can’t tell you how many times the last moment before sleep claims my consciousness is filled with thoughts of Dominic.

Not sweet memories of his smiling face.  

Oh, no.

Read the rest here: Night Time is So. Much. Harder.

2019: When I Can’t See His Hand, I Trust His Heart

No matter how much we love someone, we will eventually fail them somehow.

I know I recite my failure as a mother quite often-usually when I’m tired, weak, stressed and especially burdened with this grief I haul around like a bag of bricks every day.

So it’s hard for me to comprehend the unfailing, faithful, never-ending, compassionate love of God.

But it’s true whether I can wrap my mind around it or not: God’s love never fails.

Read the rest here: Scripture Journal Challenge: When I Can’t Trace His Hand I Trust His Heart

2021: You Are Absolutely Allowed to Mourn *Smaller* Losses

When your scale of awful is off the charts, there’s a tendency to dismiss anything less as merely inconvenient or inconsequential.

But that’s just not how our hearts work.

You can be shattered by child loss and still feel the slings and arrows of everyday losses, disappointments, discomfort and sadness.

It’s OK to mourn the things that don’t measure up to the pain and despair of burying a child.

Read the rest here: You Are Absolutely Allowed To Mourn *Smaller* Losses

Relationships, Grief and Emotional Overload

There are so many ways child loss impacts relationships!

Some of the people you think will stand beside you for the long haul either never show up or disappear right after the funeral.

Some people you never expected to hang around not only come running but choose to stay.

And every. single. relationship. gets more complicated.  

When your heart is shattered, there are lots of sharp edges that end up cutting you and everyone around you.  It’s pretty much inevitable that one or more relationships will need mending at some point.

Read the rest here: Emotional Overload and T.M.I.

Still Flying the Plane

I first shared this a couple of years ago when the world seemed to be going crazy and there was nothing I could do about it.

This year has been a real humdoozy too for different reasons!

Our family has welcomed another little bundle of joy earlier than expected (he’s doing really well, thank the Lord) and transitions abound.

So when a friend of Papa’s reminded me of his wise words, I decided to share once more.

Maybe someone else needs to hear it again too.

❤

I was talking to my dad the other morning as I do every morning.

We catch one another up on personal news and then turn to the world at large.

After another day of dismal and disconcerting headlines I asked my retired fighter pilot/flight instructor/still flying/recently bereaved dad, “So, how are you REALLY doing?”

He replied, “I’m flying the plane.”

He told me the first rule of flying was: NO MATTER WHAT– never, never, never stop flying the plane.

Read the rest here: Fly The Plane

Sometimes Sadness is Sanity

Sometimes sadness is sanity. Tears are the reasonable response. Quickness to shush, shame or fix them, can reveal resistance to wisdom.

Zack Eswine

It wasn’t until I suffered the unbearable that I realized how very true this is: Sometimes sadness IS sanity.

Deep grief is the price we pay for great love.

But it’s easy to mosey through most of a life before you’re forced to come face to face with this truth.

Tears are an appropriate and proportional response to loss. Despair is a reasonable reaction to tragic and sudden death. Horror is perfectly understandable when disease ravages the body and steals the soul of someone you love.

So often those who haven’t experienced it want those of us who have to hold the knowledge close like a secret in hopes they won’t have to acknowledge it is true.

But sooner or later death visits all of us.

And when we choose to stand with those who have, through no fault of their own and without giving permission to the universe, been thrust head first into the unrelenting reality of loss, we not only encourage them, we enrich ourselves.

Life is a tenuous and fragile gift.

The quicker we understand and embrace that the wiser and more compassionate we will be.