Dispelling Marriage Myths Surrounding Child Loss

Today my husband and I celebrate 33 years of marriage.  

Our thirtieth anniversary was a mere two months after we buried our son.

Here’s the last “before” anniversary photo (2013)-unfeigned smiles, genuine joy, excitement to have made it that far:

hector and me 29 anniversary

This is us on our thirtieth anniversary, at our oldest son’s wedding -holding one another up as best we could:

IMG_2151

This is us last Christmas:  

beach hector and me and boys in sand

We are definitely the worse for wear, but we are still here.

Together.

There are a lot of myths floating around about what happens to a marriage on the other side of child loss.  The one tossed out most often cites a “study” reporting 90 percent of marriages fail after the death of a child.  

It’s just not true.

But the danger is that if you believe it is true, you may stop trying.  You may stop reaching out across the painful abyss that threatens to keep you apart forever.  You may decide that living alone with your broken heart is better than living alongside someone who may be broken in very different ways than you are.

It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The truth is that child loss is no more likely to destroy a marriage than a list of other terrible life events-even though child loss is the most terrible.

A child’s death shakes a marriage to its foundations and reveals the weak spots. And EVERY marriage has weak spots.

So the challenge in this season of marriage-like every season of marriage-is to turn toward one another instead of away.  Choose to do the work necessary to make it:

  • Do the best you can to take care of your own emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual health so that you can come together stronger and better able to help one another.
  • Assume the best and not the worst about your spouse.
  • Allow for different grieving styles and different ways of honoring your missing child.
  • Get help from others.
  • Don’t expect your spouse to carry your load of grief as well as his or her own.

It takes energy and commitment right when we don’t have any to spare. But at least in this, we have a choice.

I have already lost so much over which I had no control.  

I will fight for what I CAN hold onto as hard as I know how.

wedding rings

 

 

Grief Lasts a Lifetime

When a child dies, everything shifts.

Every relationship is altered.  

Every pattern changed.

loss happens in a moment but lasts a lifetime

To The Friends Who Stay

Sticking with a friend whose life is hard and is going to continue to be hard is not for the faint of heart.

Not all wounds can be healed.  

Not all problems have a resolution.

Not all relationships follow a path that leads to a happy ending. 

grief lasts longer than sympathy

So here’s to the friends that don’t give up, that refuse to leave and whose presence remind me that while life is painful, it is also beautiful.  

Here’s to the ones whose commitment to love me in the dark places reminds me that love still lives.  

You’re my lifeline.  

good friends

 

What 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.

And it is often, oh, so wrong.  

Any sentence that begins with , “Just remember”, “At least”  or “I know exactly” is better left unsaid.

image of what not to say

Stages of Grief ? Nope.

Ever since Elizabeth Kubler Ross published her best-sellling book, “On Death and Dying” both professionals and laypersons have embraced her explanation of the “five stages of grief”.  

The model has been used as a faulty standard to measure grievers’ “progress” for decades.

Trouble is, she got it wrong.  

And it is especially wrong for bereaved parents or anyone who suffers traumatic or sudden death.

Grief does NOT look like this:

Kubler-Ross

It looks like this:  

 

mixed stages of grief

 

Respite

res·pite
ˈrespət,rēˈspīt/
noun
  1. a short period of rest or relief from something difficult or unpleasant.
    Synonyms:  rest, break, breathing space, interval, intermission, interlude, recess, lull, pause, time out.

I have been blogging now for nearly 20 months and creating a daily post for most of that time.

I love the connections I’ve made with bereaved parents around the world and other people whose hurting hearts beat in rhythm with my own even though I hate the reason for our coming together.

But I’m tired-my body is desperate for rest, my mind needs to be refreshed and renewed and my spirit is weak.

So for this next week I’m going to do something simple each day.  I’ll be posting a quote or meme or Bible verse that has spoken to me in some way on this journey.

I hope they will also speak to you.

No lengthy, soul-searching insights or essays.

Please stick around-regular posts will resume June 25th.

Love to all of you who encourage me and each other by sharing here and online in other safe spaces.

I hope that if you are in need of rest, you’ll find a way to take a break as well. 

rest field

 

 

 

Repost: Father’s Day for Bereaved Fathers

I can’t pretend to understand exactly what it feels like to be a father who buries a child. I’ve only been able to watch from the outside as my husband absorbed the impact of that great wound.

But I can tell you this:  for dads, like moms, each holiday is another mile marker on the road of grief.

It is another poignant reminder that things are not as they were-they are not as they should be.

Read the rest here:  Father’s Day for Bereaved Fathers

Closed For Repairs

Oh how I wish I could hang a sign for just a single day, “Closed for Repairs”!

I keep thinking that tomorrow or next week will be the little bit of respite I need to catch my breath and to do a few things I really must do for my own mental wellness.

But life has conspired to make that impossible.  

So here I am, hanging on by a thread again.  

Just barely managing to get by.  

Just barely managing to not scream in the middle of the grocery store when I can’t lift the case of Powerade bottles into the cart.  Just barely able to contain my panic when I reach for my checkbook and can’t find it in the bottom of my purse.  Just barely able to keep from crying when the bag rips putting it into the truck.

If the people around me knew how close I am to falling apart or breaking down, they would run away in fear of what might happen if I blow.  

Yes, it’s been three years.

But Dominic walked with me on this earth for nearly 24 years. Three years isn’t long enough to adjust to his absence.

I need a day off.

Or a week.  

Or a year.  

 

 

 

 

 

Missing Milestones

Another friend has a new grandchild.  

It makes my heart so happy to see families grow and prosper.  I love the fresh sweetness of newborn wrinkles and chubby fists.

If I’m honest I have to admit that for every smile that spreads wide across my face in response to posted pictures, there is a tear that slips down from the corner of my eye.

I wish I could feel unadulterated joy like I used to.

But I can’t. 

It is impossible for there to be any progeny bearing his smile, his laughter, his brown eyes and overgrown eyebrows.  The rhythm that filled his head and tapped, tapped, tapped down the bannister is buried underground.

And that is hard to bear.  

Losing a child is not a single event. 

It happens over and over and over.

future has changed

 

 

 

 

Have You Seen His Glory?

If I had been around in the intertestamental years of Israel’s history,  I think I’d have been tired of waiting for that promised Messiah the prophets kept crowing about.

I mean, really-how long was it going to take?

What was God waiting on?

What was the plan anyway?

And then, when this young woman shows up claiming to have been overcome by the power of the Holy Ghost-well, that’s a nice fairy tale but hardly how I think God would work this whole thing out.

Except that was EXACTLY how He worked it out-God Himself sent His Son to be born of a virgin and to live as a perfect man and to offer Himself as the perfect and sufficient sacrifice for sin.

Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, revealed Himself to His disciples.  He gave them a glimpse of His glory-the glory of the one and only Son of the Living God.

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

John 1;14 NIV

We no longer have to wonder what God is like or what He is up to.

He is full of grace and truth and He is up to reconciling the world to Himself through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.

THAT is glorious.

word became flesh