Tag: absence

Bereaved Parents Month 2022: Holidays and the Empty Chair

Summer time has its own way of highlighting Dominic’s absence.

Warm days and extra daylight can sometimes slow things down so that every moment hangs heavy with longing.

When we gather with family for cookouts or reunions or Fourth of July in this mama’s heart there is always an empty chair even when every available seat is full.

❤

Most people realize that the “big” holidays are painful for bereaved parents-Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day-that makes sense.  

But what most people don’t know is that every single red-letter day-even the obscure ones-can be hard on parents missing a child.

Read the rest here: The Empty Chair

It’s A Tangible Absence

Yesterday was eight long years since Dominic left for Heaven. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the distance between the last time I hugged him and now.

But I can still feel the shape of where his shoulders would fit in my arms.

I know exactly who I’m missing-and I miss him every bit as much today as the first moment I learned he wasn’t coming home.

❤

When I imagine something I’ve never actually experienced-even when I might say “I miss such and such” it’s not the same as when I’ve had something and it’s been taken away.

I can only miss the imaginary in an ephemeral, insubstantial way.  I miss what I once possessed in a tangible way.

I know exactly the size and shape and sound and substance of the person that SHOULD be here but isn’t.

Read the rest here: Tangible Absence

A Tangible Absence

In two days it will be seven long years since Dominic left for Heaven. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the distance between the last time I hugged him and now.

But I can still feel the shape of where his shoulders would fit in my arms.

I know exactly who I’m missing-and I miss him every bit as much today as the first moment I learned he wasn’t coming home.

❤

When I imagine something I’ve never actually experienced-even when I might say “I miss such and such” it’s not the same as when I’ve had something and it’s been taken away.

I can only miss the imaginary in an ephemeral, insubstantial way.  I miss what I once possessed in a tangible way.

I know exactly the size and shape and sound and substance of the person that SHOULD be here but isn’t.

Read the rest here: Tangible Absence

Standing At The Crossroads: Celebrations After Child Loss

I want to be everything my living children need me to be.  

I try hard to celebrate them, be available, listen closely and love them well.  

I never, ever want them to feel they are competing with their missing brother for my affection or my attention.  

But I’d be lying if I said it was always easy. 

Read the rest here: Crossroads: Celebrations After Child Loss

Repost: Tangible Absence

In response to something I posted in a bereaved parents’ group a friend used the term “tangible absence” to describe what I was feeling.

She is so right.

When I imagine something I’ve never actually experienced-even when I might say “I miss such and such” it’s not the same as when I’ve had something and it’s been taken away.

I can only miss the imaginary in an ephemeral, insubstantial way.  I miss what I once possessed in a tangible way.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/06/tangible-absence/

Salt In The Wound

In case you are wondering, there appears to be no limit to the depth or number of struggles one may be required to endure this side of heaven.

Sure we’ve all read Job and give mental assent to overwhelming breadth of his loss. 

But, really, how can our hearts even begin to comprehend it when devastation upon devastation is given within seven verses-everything he owned and everything he loved (except his wife) was stolen or destroyed.

It’s so easy to read it and not to FEEL it.  

job and misery

I’m here to tell you I know parents who have lost more than one child.  Parents who have lost their only child.  Parents who have lost a child and then lost their living children’s love and companionship because their family fell apart.  I know bereaved parents who are homeless because they couldn’t keep a job after burying their child.

In addition, there are the everyday struggles we all have to deal with-bad bosses, financial troubles, health issues, frustrating interpersonal relationships.

Right now our family is facing the culmination of a situation that began before Dominic ran ahead to heaven.  I’m not free to discuss it but it’s the kind of thing where you need legal advice.

And you want to know what’s harder than dragging my fanny through this nasty mess?

The salt it’s rubbing in the wound of my broken heart.

Because if Dominic were here, he’d be three years out of law school and ready to rock and roll.  I’d have a personal hot line to all the legal counsel a body could stand.  And if he didn’t know the answer, he would have access to the kinds of resources that could find it.

dominic at tims wedding

Instead we have to rely on strangers and hope that they have at least a smidgen of the commitment our own son would have were he able to represent our cause.

I hate so many things about this life.

I hate that the life I thought I would have-the life our whole family thought we would have-is not the one we are stuck with.  One of the things I hate most is every moment when Dominic SHOULD be here and he’s not.

I miss my son.

Not only for the free legal advice, but because his presence lent courage to my heart.

Every hard thing is harder now.

And that is definitely salt in this wound.

sun up not here

 

 

 

The Absence of His Presence is Everywhere

Something I’ve been learning in this grief journey is that loss is an ongoing event.

It’s not confined to the moment of death, the funeral, the burial or even the boxing up of belongings.  

I suffer loss every time there is a moment when Dominic would have been present, should have been present and isn’t here.

It happens when I need to ask him a question, get his opinion, long for his help or just want to hear his voice.   

It happens when I look at myself in the mirror and realize that the living mirror that was Dominic is gone.

There is so much more to his absence than just the hole in my heart.

I shared some of these feelings a few months ago:

A family isn’t just the sum of its parts.  It isn’t a simple equation that can be worked out on a chalkboard or around a dinner table-this person plus that person equals two persons.

A family is an organic mixture of personalities, relationships, strengths and weaknesses that exponentially influence one another. I always joked that our family was a ready-made committee.  Wherever we went we brought a fully staffed, action-ready army of six that spread out and triumphed over whatever challenge we faced.

You can read the rest here:  Minus More Than One

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