I shared this last year around this time in response to many, many comments and questions from bereaved parents about what felt like random or unusual physical manifestations of their own grief.
I hope it helps another heart navigate this life none of us would choose.
❤ Melani e
It’s a well known fact that stress plays a role in many health conditions.
And I think most of us would agree that child loss is one of (if not THE) most stressful events a heart might endure.
So it’s unsurprising that bereaved parents find themselves battling a variety of physical problems in the wake of burying a child.
One of the magical aspects of sunflowers is how they move through the day to always face the sun.
Like other plants, they depend on light to make their food but unlike others, they seem intent on thanking the source.
I am always encouraged when I pass a patch of sunflowers standing stalwart, saluting in unison the life-giving rays. They remind me that I am just as dependent as they are.
I can’t draw breath without the light and life of Christ in me.
But I forget that sometimes.
Clouds of sadness and despair obscure my vision and I’m tempted to turn away. Life gets hard and I wonder why it has to be like that. Responsibility grows heavy and I can’t lift my head.
So I lose sight of the Son-who He is, what He’s done and how He continues to sustain me even when I can neither see it or feel it.
It’s just then I need to turn toward Him.
It’s that very moment I require extra grace to look up (which He supplies) and extra faith (which He endows) to see clearly.
When I do, He always renews my strength.
“Don’t you know? Haven’t you been listening? Yahweh is the one and only everlasting God, the Creator of all you can see and imagine! He never gets weary or worn out. His intelligence is unlimited; he is never puzzled over what to do! He empowers the feeble and infuses the powerless with increasing strength. Even young people faint and get exhausted; athletic ones may stumble and fall. But those who wait for Yahweh’s grace will experience divine strength. They will rise up on soaring wings and fly like eagles, run their race without growing weary, and walk through life without giving up.”
My goal this month is to share posts (some shared previously) that will encourage bereaved parents and also give them something to share on their own social media.
If we remain silent-shushed and shamed by those who find death uncomfortable or unmentionable-then things will never change.
The power is ours. Truly it is.
Tell your story. Tell your child’s story.
❤ Melanie
I’ve had awhile to think about this. Seven years is a long time to live with loss, to live without the child I carried, raised and sent off in the world.
So I’ve considered carefully what my “top ten” might be.
You’d think that seven YEARS would be time enough to adjust to missing my child, to the changes child loss and sibling loss have wrought in my family, to the awful, unavoidable giant HOLE left in every photo, every gathering, every holiday, every everything.
But it isn’t.
That’s largely why I’m still writing. It’s why I fill my social media profile with invitations to those who share my experience and reminders to those who do not (thankfully!!) that this continues to be the Life I Did Not Choose.
I’m not looking for sympathy, just raising awareness.
Because, really, isn’t the whole point of being human to try to make one another’s journey just a tad bit lighter?
❤ Melanie
Child loss rips through a life like a tornado-wild, unpredictable, viciously destructive.
It drops from the sky like a meteorite-no warning, no defense, just crushing weight.
There are so many competing causes it’s a wonder anyone can keep up with them.
But when one or more of them become near and dear to your heart, it’s easy.
July is Bereaved Parents Month. A designation I knew nothing about until several years into my own journey as a bereaved parent.
And while I’m unsure about the necessity for declarations like National Trivia Day or National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day I am absolutely convinced of the need for Bereaved Parents Month.
I’ve been reminded in the past few days that loss changes everything.
We often wish it didn’t-that it would last only a season and then things would return to normal. But they don’t.
When one life is yanked violently from the fabric of a family the hole simply can’t be mended. You have to learn to live with the fragility and compromised strength that remains.
I first shared this two years ago when I was reflecting on half a decade of living without one of my children beside me. I’ve now had another year to think about why or if I’ll continue to write.
Every so often I take a day or two to reflect on whether I want to keep posting. I have to admit sometimes I worry that if I bang the same drum it will sound too loud or obnoxious in some people’s ears.
But then I get a message or comment from someone fresh on this journey and they feel seen, heard, validated and safe. So I write on.
And I find that writing still brings clarity and comfort to my soul. I still have things to say and I hope what I say still brings some small measure of light, love, life and hope to other hearts.
❤ Melanie
If someone had said, “Pick any topic to write about”, child loss wouldn’t have been in the first million choices.
No one CHOOSES child loss (Thus the name of the blog: The Life I Didn’t Choose).
But untold numbers of parents EXPERIENCE it every year. This very day, parents somewhere got a knock on the door or a phone call or sat next to a hospital bed as life slipped slowly from their child’s tired body.
Since I was already journaling and had walked this Valley for nearly a year and a half, it dawned on me that the ramblings I’d put down might be helpful to another heart. So I started THIS blog in September, 2015.
I just got back home from attending the funeral of one of my parents’ very best, lifelong friends.
And even though he was full of years I’m never prepared for the way death steals from us.
As I looked around the crowd gathered near his wife I wondered how many might be offering up platitudes and quips that probably sound helpful in their heads but which fall hard on a broken heart.
So for those who feel compelled to say something, anything, in the silent space between a hug and giving way to the next person in line, here are a few things NOT to say.
❤
Humans are hard-wired to say something when silence lingers long between them.
So it’s not surprising that when death makes talking difficult, the person most susceptible to that pressure will often blurt out the first thing that pops into her head.
thelifeididntchoose 