I am crafting a legacy every. single. day.
People will remember me for who I am, not who I wish I had been.
Age doesn’t magically transform anyone into a better self than that which they have been practicing to become.
Read the rest here: One Day I Will Be A Memory- I Want To Be A Good One.
I cling fast to words that speak aloud what I’ve only thought.
I collect sentences that eloquently express what I can only feel.
I pull them out on days when my head and heart are doing battle and I can’t find any middle ground.
Reading reminds me I’m not the first soul to travel this way.
Others have been here before and left breadcrumbs.
Read the rest here: Words For a Wounded Heart
I wrote this post two years ago after my mother joined Dominic in Heaven. Her passing reminded me once again (as if my heart needed reminding!) that there ain’t nothing easy about death.
Two years later and I’m no more willing to pretend it’s anything but awful even as I’m resigned to admit there’s nothing I can do about it.
I miss you both so very much.
❤ Melanie
I remember the moment I realized I was going to have to summarize my son’s life into a few, relatively short paragraphs to be read by friends, family and strangers.
It seemed impossible.
But as the designated author of our family I had to do it so I did.
Read the rest here: Ain’t Nothing Easy About Death
When grief was fresh, the pain was raw and my heart was oh, so tender, I desperately needed a safe space to talk about the nitty-gritty of child loss.
And I found it in online bereaved parents’ groups.
I’m so thankful that they exist, that they are maintained by people who give time and energy to keeping them safe and that-for the most part-participants are kind, compassionate and encouraging.
There is something I’ve noticed now that I’ve been here awhile. Many parents tend to drop out of active participation when they get a little further along in their journey.
Read the rest here: Stick Around: Help Another Heart Hold Onto Hope
God is the Faithful Father watching and waiting with open arms for the Prodigal to return.
He will weave even the darkest and most tangled threads of my life into a beautiful, redeemed tapestry if I let Him.
He’s the God who stays.
Read the rest here: The God Who Stays
At first everyone talked about him.
It’s what people do just after a person leaves this world and leaves behind only memories.
It comes natural before the unnatural fact of child loss settles in and begins to make everyone uncomfortable.
But at some point after the funeral and way before the tears dried up, people stopped feeling easy mentioning his name.
Read the rest here: Help! My Family Won’t Talk About My Missing Child.
Today my heart hurts more than usual.
It’s my mama’s birthday-the third one we will celebrate without her here to blow out the candles.
It’s also the third anniversary (do you call it that?) of the day Papa had to call an ambulance to rush her to the hospital.
She never came home.
These past two years have been hard. Mama’s death plunged me back into deep grief for her and for Dominic. It tapped the wound that had begun to scar over a bit and the feelings I’d learned to push down bubbled back to the surface.
I’ve just now begun to sleep through the night again most nights. For much of the past two years I’ve been waking two or three times in the dark to vividly awful dreams-my family in peril and no way to help them is the theme over and over and over.
I know other motherless daughters.
Somehow knowing Mama isn’t available on the other end of the phone or sitting in her chair, waiting for me to come through the door at the farm, makes me supremely vulnerable.
One less generation between me and whatever the world might throw at me.
I know she is healthy and whole, happy and full of joy in Heaven. I know she’s reunited with her own mama, her siblings and Dominic.
On good days, that’s enough to make the missing bearable.
But on days like today, when we should be celebrating another year together but can’t, it doesn’t help all that much.
I miss her.
I miss Dominic.
I miss the me that used to be ignorant of what death steals from the living.
Happy Birthday in Heaven, Mama. We’ll be there soon. ❤
It is scary to speak aloud what you hope will never happen to you. It’s unbelievably frightening to admit that we really have no control over whether, or when, we or the ones we love might leave this world.
But I am not going to keep silent.
Not because I want pity or special treatment, but because I want that parent who just buried his or her child to know that you. are. not. alone.
Read the rest here: Courage is a Heart Word
Maybe what God has for me and others who suffer long is not a victorious tag line that can be slapped on a photo or shared on social media.
Maybe it’s only in the continued press of suffering that God reveals Himself in ways the non-suffering never see.
Maybe a dash to declare victory is actually rushing past what God has for us in deep pain and ongoing struggle.
Maybe waiting in hopeful expectation for what God is doing and will do in me and through me IS the victory.
Read the rest here: Not Ashamed to Wait
If you, like me, have had a less-than-stellar recent record dealing with those you love, those you meet and those you pass on the street or in your car, accept this truth:
You are absolutely, positively NOT perfect.
And that’s OK.
Read the rest here: No Shame In Being Human
thelifeididntchoose