Lost Spring: Social Distancing Before It Was Cool

It really is possible to stay home.

Our family proved it more than 25 years ago.

Four kids, seven and under, one mama and a tiny house survived one solid month of alone time.

Photo taken that same year. ❤

The chicken pox made its rounds in our local weekly Bible study and pretty much every kid that hadn’t had it got it. So it wasn’t long until more than half the class was home riding out the wave of itchy, blotchy skin, fever and discomfort.

We couldn’t get it all at once. Oh no!

It went through my four one at a time with a bit of overlap so we were slathering on calamine lotion by the quart, taking baking soda and oatmeal baths several times a day and watching waaaayyyy more television than any of my children had seen so far in their lives.

It took slightly over a month for us to finally be free of it and I’ll admit it tried my patience. I spent a lot of time looking through the windows at a busy world outside, longing to be part of it.

There was a wisteria vine in my across-the-street neighbor’s yard that crept up the telephone poll outside the living room window.

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I watched as it went from brown twig to wisps of green and finally dripping purple in all its glory while I was stuck inside trying to keep unwell children happy and stop them scratching themselves into infection.

I lost that spring. We all did.

But we came out the other side just fine.

I lost another spring in 2014.

And this time it was absolutely, positively NOT fine.

It’s still not fine.

April 12, 2014 Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Because of both springs, I will tell you this: If staying home means I can be part of the solution to the spread of Covid 19 and perhaps spare another family a lost spring, a lost loved one, a frightening brush with death-I’m happy to do it.

My personal comfort, sense of freedom, arrogant assumption that I am the exception to the well-intentioned and common sense advice of healthcare professionals is a tiny, tiny price to pay in order to slow down the pace of this disease so those who need extra attention, hospitalization and intervention get it.

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Losing a spring is an unfortunate happenstance.

Losing a son, a daughter, a brother, sister, mother or father is a tragedy.

Hey-I survived over a month with four itchy, irritable children and no internet, no food delivery, no grocery pick up, no online buddies-you can manage a couple weeks.

I promise.

❤

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Through The Fog And Dark

Through the fog and dark and limits of my sight

I hear birds singing

as they welcome the day

I still can’t see.

Are they better than me at knowing the edges of inky night?

Or do they simply have more faith?

Either way their hearts are boldly trusting in the sun they can’t yet prove is real.

Oh, that my own heart would always rest!

Assured.

Unmoved.

Confident.

Certain.

Even in the dark,

even in the fog,

even under the smothering blanket of sorrow,

in the Son.

The One who burst forth from the grave to prove He IS the One.

The One who promises night has limits,

that death is not the end,

that resurrection is sure.

Then I could sing for those still in the fog

and in the dark,

those whose sight is dimmed by tears.

And remind them that

morning is coming!

As sure as the sunrise.

As sure as the Son rose.

Things I Wish I’d Known

I’ve written before that I am oh, so thankful I had NO IDEA Dominic would leave us that early April morning in 2014.

It would have cast an awful shadow over all those years we were blessed with his presence.

But there are some things I wish I’d known.

I wish I had known how hard it is to conjure up his voice now that it’s been nearly six years since I heard it.

I would have taken more short videos, just to have his laugh, his sarcasm, his deep mellow “Hey!” handy on my phone for the moments when I long to hear it. I wouldn’t have erased the backlog of recorded messages on the landline just one day earlier.

I wish I had known there were so few photographs of us together.

I would have gotten over myself much sooner and stuck my fat bottom in every shot my family begged me to take. I would have made certain there was at least one of him and me on each birthday, at special occasions and when he graduated high school and college. I was always the one taking them, organizing something or just to self-conscious to be in the picture.

I wish I had saved more cards, notes and random bits of flotsam from over the years with his words, his handwriting, his childish drawings.

Just a month before he left us, I cleaned out two decades of home schooling records and carelessly tossed so many bits of him into the bed of my truck, hauling it to the dump. Back then it felt like I was unburdening myself of too much paper and too many frivolous memories. Now it feels like an incalculable loss.

I would have listened more often to the wonderful sound of his drums banging away upstairs.

I took a walk most afternoons and Dominic timed his practice for when I was out of the house because it was so very loud. It was considerate and kind. And I DID get to hear him through the windows as I made my rounds but I really, really wish I’d just stopped and fully appreciated his talent.

I could list so many more ways I’d have arranged life differently-if I had KNOWN.

But I didn’t.

So I make my way through another spring, remembering, remembering, remembering.

Always hungry for more.

Defying Fear: First Birthdays and New Memories

A year ago I was in the same city under very different circumstances.

My first grandson had been born at just over 28 weeks because his mama developed HELLP syndrome and was in mortal danger. Both he and she were in the hospital while we held our collective breath, begging for them to be OK.

We were filled with quiet but uneasy joy knowing as we do how death can come to steal it away.

This Sunday, family and friends gathered to watch this little guy grab his first birthday cake with gusto and smear his mama and daddy with blue icing.

You’d never know he got such a tentative start in life just by looking at him.

Grateful is too small a word for how we feel.

Melanie ❤


THIS YEAR:

LAST year:

Last week was a roller coaster.

My first grandchild-a boy-was born prematurely on Saturday after several days of heart stopping, breath robbing drama as his mama went back and forth to the hospital three times in as many days.

My son, his father, is deployed overseas and paddling as fast as he can to get home.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/03/11/fear-of-what-you-know/

Learning To Trust Again: Appropriate God’s Strength

My friend and fellow bereaved mom, Margaret Franklin, Ryan’s mom, shared a beautiful Dutch word with me “Sterkte” (pronounced STAIRK-tah).

It literally translates “strength” or “power” but culturally means much more.  It means bravery, strength, fortitude and endurance in the face of fear and insumountable odds through the empowering strength of God in me.

Not MY strength, but HIS.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/10/17/trust-after-loss-appropriate-gods-strength/

Learning To Trust Again: Access The Truth

I have loved Scripture as long as I can remember.  When I was in second grade I got the notion to read the whole Bible straight through-in the King James Version.  I made it to Leviticus before I threw in the towel.

By the time my kids were grown I had read and studied Scripture for decades. 

But three years before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I realized my reading had become rote-I felt like I “knew” all the stories.  So I slowed my study to a crawl-only one chapter a day-and I usually copied the whole chapter plus my notes into a journal.  I had just finished this time through the Bible in January before Dom was killed in April.

And all that truth stored in my mind and heart was what I “read” for months when my eyes were too full of tears to see print on a page.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/10/16/trust-after-loss-access-the-truth/

Learning To Trust Again: Acknowledge Doubt and Ask Questions

Grief forces me to walk Relentlessly Forward  even when I long to go back.

I can’t stop the clock or the sun or the days rolling by.

Those of us who are more than a couple months along in this journey (or any journey that involves tragedy and loss) know that it is ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE to feel worse than in the first few days.

Read the rest here:https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/10/15/trust-after-loss-acknowledge-doubt-and-ask-questions/

Learning To Trust Again: Admit the Pain

Maybe it’s the time of year or maybe I’m just more attentive to the questions of others right now.

Whatever the reason, I’ve encountered so many hurting hearts recently struggling to square their experience of devastating loss with their faith in a loving and all-powerful God.

I write about my own struggle over and over in this space but this series of posts is an orderly exploration of doubt, pain, faith and the hope I’ve found in Christ Jesus.

I pray that it helps another heart hold on.

Melanie ❤

Child loss is Unnatural-no way around it.

Out of order death is devastating.

When my perfectly healthy, strong and gifted son was killed instantly in a motorcycle accident on April 12. 2014 my world fell apart.  My heart shattered into a million pieces.  And after three and a half years, I’ve yet to even FIND all of those pieces much less put them back together.

So what does a heart do when that happens?  Because, try as I might, I cannot stop time. 

Even THAT awful day only lasted 24 hours.

When the sun rose again, the pain was still there.  And behind that pain and mixed with it was something else-disappointment, disaffection, distrust.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/10/14/trust-after-loss-admit-the-pain/

I Need To Get It Right


There are lots and lots of things in life where the distance between “good enough” and “perfect” really doesn’t matter.

I don’t aim for hospital corners while making my bed.

I cook without recipes-adding this or that until the taste suits me.

If I walk 8,567 steps or 10,291 steps I am not going to stress about it.

BUT-there is one thing I absolutely MUST get right.

My understanding of God-Who He is, Who Jesus is-matters for ever and ever.

I want to get it right.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/03/05/i-want-to-get-it-right/

Go Ahead-Yell, Scream and Throw Things!

A mom who is also coming up on her season of sorrow this spring wrote that she felt like screaming and throwing things.

I get it.

And because I live in the middle of the woods, far from neighbors or nosy passers-by, I’ve done it.

Sometimes I walk in the woods and just holler out my questions, my pain, my indignation that this is my life.

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Other times I cry as loud as I want to, not trying to hold in the sobs.

When I’m really angry that it will soon be seven years since Dominic has crossed the threshold of home, I take old eggs and toss them at trees. I work myself to a frazzle stacking sticks to burn. I use my clippers and chop away at underbrush, releasing pent up feelings with every satisfying snap of a twig.

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The longer it is since his leaving, the more I feel I need to have it together in public. Others have long moved on and my tears are inexplicable to those who have forgotten.

And while I have gotten stronger and better able to carry this load called “child loss” this time of year makes it all fresh again.

The pressure builds with no place to go.

It’s going to force its way through the weakest part of my character if I don’t release it on purpose.

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So I do.

If you need me, I’ll be outside for the next few weeks.

If you hear something, don’t worry.

I’m just letting off steam.

❤