Tag: authenticity

My Child Matters. He Existed.

I hid this post in my draft folder for months before I published it the first time.

It seemed too raw, too full of all the pain inside my mama heart to put out in the wide world for everyone to see.

And then it was time (like now) to change the flowers on the place where my son’s body rests and I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, “THIS IS NOT ALL THERE IS OF MY BOY!” I wanted to stop people on the street and make them listen to his story, to give away a piece of him for others to carry in their hearts.

My son is not a number or a statistic or only a memory.

He is integral to my story, blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh–part of my life.

I rest assured he lives in heaven with Jesus but I miss him here with me. That’s selfish, I know.  But I can’t seem to help it.

Read the rest here: You Existed, You Exist

So…Here Come the Holidays

I will confess: I’m no better at this than the first set of holidays after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Every. Single. Year. has brought changes and challenges on top of the empty chairs round the family table.

Since Dominic left us we’ve had additions (two grandchildren and various significant others) and sadly, more subtractions (my mother joined Dom in 2019). We’ve dealt with distance, deployment, healthcare and retail work schedules, a pandemic and lots of other, less easily defined tensions and difficulties.

Read the rest here: So…Yeah, The Holidays.

I Can Only Live One Day at a Time

Truth is, no matter how much we may TRY to live life in weeks or months or years, we really are only able to live it one day at a time.

And as Jesus said over 2000 years ago:  “Don’t worry at all then about tomorrow. Tomorrow can take care of itself! One day’s trouble is enough for one day.” (Matthew 6:34)

If I never knew it before, I know it now. 

I am good for a single 24 hour period-one revolution of the earth. 

That’s it.  

Sure I put stuff on my calendar.  I have to.  But I never take it for granted.  I never assume that what I think is going to happen next week really will happen next week.

I know better.  

Read the rest here: One Day at a Time

I Don’t Get Points For Pretending…

Oh, sometimes I think I’m clever enough to do it.

I edit my words, costume my body and fix my face so  I can act the part.  But truth is, I never manage to fool anyone who looks closer than my plastic smile.

I can’t hide my heart.

And I don’t know why I try-I don’t get points for pretending.

There’s no prize at the end of this long road for the one who makes it with fewest tears.

Read the rest here: Zero Points for Pretending: You Can’t Hide Your Heart

What If I Don’t Feel a Thing? Sometimes Grief = Numb.

I’ve thought long and hard about that season of “un-feeling”.

Why did my heart shut down? Why the long silence when no emotion pierced my soul?

I think it was necessary.

I think a body and mind and heart can’t operate for too long at warp speed. I think that just like fainting is a response to the brain needing oxygen, numbness is a response to the soul’s need for respite and time to heal.

So if you are in the season of numb, you’re neither crazy nor alone.

Read the rest here: Why Don’t I Feel A Thing? Sometimes Grief = Numb.

Telling All One’s Heart is Courageous

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

Healing Is NOT Linear

I remember thinking in the early days, weeks and months of this journey that healing was impossible.

The wound was too great, too deep and too devastating to allow for that.

No amount of work or help or wishful thinking could undo the damage.

But I was wrong.

Read the rest here: Healing Is Not Linear

Thank You For Seven Years of Faithful Listening!

Seven (!) years ago today I shared my first post in this space.

It was a timid foray into the wider world just a year and a half after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

I was truly frightened that once I began sharing my intimate thoughts, good (and not-so-good) experiences and things I was learning in this Valley of the Shadow of Death I would either: (1) find out no one really cared and/or; (2) offend friends and family.

But what motivated me to overcome that fear was a sense that for all the information out there on grief in general, I couldn’t find nearly enough first-person experience written in bite-sized chunks on child loss in particular.

https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/06/25/why-am-i-still-writing-about-loss-five-years-out/

After Dom ran ahead, it was difficult for me to sit down and read a whole book. I needed bits I could read on a single computer screen.

I also needed someone to be upfront and honest about what it meant to continue to cling to faith even when it was hard and even when it meant acknowledging doubts and living with unanswered questions.

https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2016/02/04/debate/

It’s difficult to believe now with the plethora of popular books (both secular and religious) on “open broken” but seven years ago, there weren’t many around.

So I decided I’d just say what I had to say and let it fall on the ears that might need to hear it regardless of who didn’t like it or chose to ignore it.

And here we are seven years later.

I don’t know how long I’ll keep writing-probably as long as I feel like I have something to say, people are listening and my fingers can still tap-tap-tap the keyboard.

For now, writing is what I do.

Even when life interrupts almost everything else I will find a few moments to jot down thoughts and hit “publish”.

I know some posts are much thinner than others-maybe just a meme or two and an encouraging word. Some are just reworked posts from years gone by.

But I want to show up in case THIS morning someone’s having an especially rotten one.

https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/10/12/you-are-not-alone/

I want you to know that there IS life after child loss.

A very different life.

A harder life.

A life you didn’t want and wouldn’t ever choose, but life nonetheless.

And I appreciate every. single. heart. who joins me here and cheers me (and others!) along.

https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2016/07/20/you-are-not-crazy/

I’m Still Living With Regrets

I first shared this post seven years ago when I began writing the blog.

When I read it now, the pain of regret is precisely as sharp as it was when I wrote it. I still wish, wish, wish I had NOT tossed stuff out willy-nilly just a few months before Dominic left us.

I’ve released lots of material things since he’s been gone but it’s been done thoughtfully and with the understanding that I am letting go of one more bit of who he was.

When I was just an overwhelmed ex-homeschool mama longing to reclaim space, I was much less careful about what I threw out.

Time doesn’t always (maybe never?) erase regret.

❤ Melanie
IMG_2605

Just a few months before Dominic was killed, this hoarding homeschool mama decided that it was time to finally give up some of the thousands of pages of handwritten, color-crayoned papers stacked in the attic, the storage building and floating in corners and crevices throughout the house.

Four children and twenty-two years of teaching them at home had produced a mountain of memories.  I began to sort through the ones I deemed “most important to keep” and “everything else”.  

Several loads were taken to the dump and tossed unceremoniously onto the trash pile.

It felt like freedom.

Now it feels like regret and longing.

Read the rest here: A Life in Scraps

Goodness! What’s Wrong With You? It’s Been YEARS!

If you think that time makes a difference to a mama missing a child who ran ahead to Heaven without her, you don’t know as much as you think you know.

Time does not heal all wounds-especially the kind that shatter a heart into a million pieces.

It takes time for the wound to scar over, but it doesn’t undo the damage.

So if you are wondering why your coworker still takes the day off on his child’s birthday or the anniversary of her child’s homegoing, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Years disappear when those milestones loom large.

Read the rest here: It’s Been Years-What’s Wrong With You?