It’s so easy to withdraw and hide.
It’s so easy to decide that since the world isn’t what I want it to be, I’ll just ignore the greater “out there” and create my own little corner filled with people and things that suit my preferences.
But that’s not who I’m called to be.
Read the rest here: Be The Difference
If you’ve just joined this awful “club” the thought of celebrating anything may make your heart shrink and your eyes fill with tears.
I understand!
That’s precisely the way I felt for a very long time. Not because I didn’t think there were still oh, so many things and people worth celebrating, but because I couldn’t remember what joy felt like much less experience it.
My heart was filled to the brim with pain, sorrow, longing and fear-there just wasn’t room for anything else.
Still, I kept up the discipline of celebration even when I wasn’t feeling like celebrating.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, as I picked my way through memories and feelings and did the work grief required, I made space in that broken heart for other things.
And now I can testify that celebration is once again a gift!
I not only mark the big things-like birthdays and holidays-but also the little things-like making muffins with my grandson.
Any and every excuse for a photo or a cupcake!
Today is my oldest son’s birthday and his dad and I are here to celebrate it with him for the first time in I don’t honestly know how many years. I am happy to make him a yummy meal (or take him to a favorite restaurant) and buy a special treat to mark the day he said “hello” to the world.
And I’m more than happy to spend time with him and watch as he pours into his own son some of the love and life we’ve poured into him.
So if you aren’t “feeling it” try faking it or at least showing up.
Eventually there will be a moment when your heart once again embraces joy.
Then hold on with both hands! ❤
Like I’ve said before, my emotions will leak out somewhere. I can’t keep them bottled inside forever.
When I choose to be honest AT THE TIME it’s so much better.
When I let folks know that what they say, do, expect from and thrust upon me is unhelpful or overwhelming or even painful, they usually respond with gratitude.
They almost always accept my boundaries.
Those of us walking the Valley often say that those who aren’t just can’t understand. They don’t know what they don’t know.
That’s true.
But they can be educated about some of what we know.
Read the rest here: Hey Fellow Griever-Being Honest Is NOT Being Rude
A couple of years ago, I had a grace-filled, heartwarming visit with another bereaved mama who came all the way from Maine just to hang out with me. And that was so, so good.
As she and I shared over coffee and tea, shopping and meals, lounging and walking we found so many ways in which our journeys have been similar even though the details are really very different.
One is this: There was a distinct moment along the way when each of us began to see light and color again in the midst of our darkness and pain and it was a turning point.
Read the rest here: There’s A Moment When The Light Makes It Through Again
I know sometimes folks get tired of me telling the story.
For them, it is a reminder of some awful event that is tucked neatly in the past.
A date on a calendar somewhere that might occasionally tickle the back of their brain and evoke a, “that’s so sad” response but not something they live with every. single. day.
But for me, Dominic’s death is an ongoing experience.
Every day I have to fit his absence into my world. I have to find a way to live around the giant void where he SHOULD be but ISN’T.
Read the rest here: I Need To Tell The Story (Even If You’ve Heard It Before)
One of the rituals I observe when the time changes and night closes in so very early is to light a candle each evening in the dark.
I’ve done it for years but now as I do it, I think of Dominic.
It is my small way of declaring the truth that darkness will not win.
It’s my protest against despair and hopelessness that threatens to undo me–threatens to undo ALL of us at one time or another.
Read the rest here: Light Bearers and Candle Snuffers
I admire those families that have holiday plans pinned down for next year by the time they box up this year’s Christmas decorations.
Somehow we’ve never perfected the art of predictable patterns and unchanging life circumstances that make such a thing even possible.
So while we try to observe some of the same traditions from year to year, they tend to be expressed a little differently each time.
Of course, the year Dominic left us EVERYTHING changed.
“Changed” isn’t even really the right word. It was more like everything just stopped. Holidays were out of place in a world where all the color had faded to gray. What heart can make merry when all it feels is sorrow and despair?
Even still, the calendar beckoned and we muddled through the first Thanksgiving and Christmas as best we could.
This will be the eighth (!) holiday season since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
My children are all adults with established careers living away from home. We’ve added to the family circle through marriage and childbirth and we’ve had to say “see you later” to my mama who joined Dom with Jesus in 2019. Of course, like so many others, Covid interrupted last year’s celebration.
The past two years have been filled with travel (some planned, some unexpected) including a trip this week out to Texas to spend time with my son’s family.
So I find myself only days away from Thanksgiving without a concrete plan for when we will actually get together around the table and what, exactly, might be on it when we do.
(Please don’t ask me about Christmas yet!)
It’s more than a little uncomfortable for this gal who loves lists and planning and decorating to choose flexibility and flying by the seat of my pants. And it’s very uncomfortable to be the point of contact for various family members who are used to me having answers instead of more questions when they call to find out when they should show up and what they should bring.
But if there’s one thing I’m learning in this life after loss it’s this: Control is an illusion. All the planning in the world can’t account for random and unexpected.
I’m going to make some phone calls today to try to figure it out.
I’m pretty sure we will have plenty to eat, plenty to say and plenty of room for whoever shows up.
Hugs all around!
And pie for dessert. ❤
We are graspers by nature, aren’t we?
I know it doesn’t take long for me to go from a sense of thankfulness at God’s bountiful blessing (being a steward) to a sense of entitlement/possession (being an owner).
As long as I think what the Lord graciously provides is mine, mine, mine, then it’s almost impossible to let it go.
When I can remember that everything-every. single. thing.-is from His hands, entrusted to mine for a season (maybe a lifetime but maybe not) then I can release it back to the One who gave it.
The more I practice the art and grace of letting go (even when it is so very hard!), the better I become at it. 
Every spring and every fall we dutifully make the rounds to our clocks and digital devices, putting them first forward an hour and then back in an attempt to make the days “longer”.
As if time was in our hands.
The sun rises and sets according to the Creator’s schedule, we can neither speed the world’s turning, nor slow it down.
We can only choose whether to be present in the moments He grants us.
Read the rest here: Time Change
I wrote this six years ago but most of it could have been written yesterday.
I was adding up all the things that have happened since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven and each autumn there has been some new and difficult circumstance to mar the beauty of falling leaves.
There have been lovely things too, though-precious moments of quiet rejoicing and memory making. I treasure them in my heart because loss has taught me their value.
Thanksgiving is still my favorite holiday because I am still so very, very thankful.
❤
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.
My birthday sometimes falls on the day itself, and I have often been able to celebrate with extended family and friends-a full table of food and a full house of fellowship.
I love the colors of fall, the scents of cinnamon and pumpkin, the freedom from gift-giving pressures that lets me focus on the people in my life.
Read the rest here: Thankful But Broken
thelifeididntchoose 