Tag: authenticity

Holidays Can Be Hard-What To Do About Mother’s Day

This will be the [twelfth] Mother’s Day since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Every year has been different because families continue to grow and change and the world turns and life marches on.

Every year presents unique challenges and particular paths that must be navigated anew. It’s always an emotional roller coaster.

The Captain, March 2019

{Six} years ago our family welcomed a first grandchild. His frightening entrance into the world made his life all the more precious and Mother’s Day gave us a chance to celebrate him, his mama and the fact that his story has a happy ending.

The Captain, April 2020.

March, 2022 we welcomed his brother-also a bit early but not nearly as perilous! Once again we give thanks that things have turned out well.

Coming home!! Big brother is so excited.

This year I’ll be a motherless child when the sun rises tomorrow. For the [sixth] time in my life, I won’t be able to see or telephone my own mother. Another light and life lost from sight.

Dominic and Mama in Heaven together.

Julian, Dominic, Mama, James Michael & Fiona

Every year my living children work hard to celebrate me even when they are unable to make it home.

I always feel loved.

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So what’s a mama to do when her heart is torn between the very great and beautiful blessings of her living children and grandchildren and the very great and devastating sorrow of missing her child in Heaven?

Since discovering there is an International Bereaved Mother’s Day my heart has taken advantage of having a day to think about and honor Dominic and then another day to think about and honor my living children.

I also rise early enough on Mother’s Day to have time alone with my thoughts and feelings.

I walk my heart through the upcoming hours and “pre-grieve” moments where I’ll be looking for Dom among the faces at the table or around the room. I remember the gift of his life and place it in context of the gift of each of my children.

I thank God for my family.

Thanksgiving years ago, when we were all younger and all here on earth. One of my favorites. 

And then I get up, get dressed and open my heart to the love I have in front of me.

I never, ever want my living children to think that their brother’s ABSENCE is more important or more precious to me than their PRESENCE.

My mama’s heart has room for all of them as it always has.

And as it always will.

Inside One Grieving Mama’s Thoughts

Ninety miles an hour-that’s how fast my mind can go from here to there.

From what’s in front of me to what’s behind me.

From laughter to swallowing sobs.

We sit in a living room surrounded by toys and playing with children, talking about life and love and plans and people.  The little brown face that turns his eyes to mine looks so much like Dominic I have to suck in my breath.

Giggles.  Squeals.  Cars running up and down my arm and around my feet.

I will never see Dominic’s children. 

Read the rest here: A Peek Inside a Grieving Mother’s Thoughts

Yep. It’s STILL Complicated.

I first shared this post six years ago after a group of bereaved parents and I were talking about how things that used to be simple and straightforward simply weren’t anymore.

Things like the question, “How many kids do you have?”

Things like going to a movie or picking a place to eat out.

So. Many. Things.

Honestly, I thought it’d be less of a minefield by now-I mean it’s been eight years already! And while there ARE some things that I find easier, most of the things I talk about in this post are still hard.

❤

One of the things I’ve been forced to embrace in the wake of child loss is that there are very few questions, experiences or feelings that are simple anymore.

“How many children do you have?”

A common, get-to-know-you question lobbed across tables, down pews and in the check-out line at the grocery store.  But for many bereaved parents, it can be a complex question that gets a different answer depending on who is asking and where we are.

Read the rest here: It’s Complicated

Walking With My Surviving Children Through Grief

One of the most challenging things I’ve had to do is walk alongside my surviving children in this Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Not only have they been forced to face and deal with death earlier than many people, they’ve also been forced to face and deal with the fallout for themselves and their family.

Sometimes I feel like an ineffectual first aid worker just trying to minimize damage and hopefully pass them off to a professional who can actually work on repairs and healing.

Other times I’m a young mama once again kissing boo-boos, applying bandages and invoking magical thinking to distract them from their oh, so very real wounds.

I’ve not done it perfectly or even adequately sometimes. But I’m trying.

❤

Bereaved parents often have several tasks before them in the days and months and years following the death of a child.

One of them is to help their surviving children navigate loss.

I have three earthbound children.  And they are grieving.

Their world changed in the same instant mine did.  Their hearts are broken too.

I found it hard to watch the pain I saw written on the faces of my kids.

Read the rest here: Helping My Children Walk Through Grief 

Ten (Plus One) Things I’ve Learned About Child Loss

The first time I shared this I was trying to distill years of walking the broken road of child loss into a relatively few, easy to think about, “lessons”.

Since then I could add a dozen more but today I’ll only add one: Being a bereaved parent is not my IDENTITY but it impacts who I am in ways I’m still figuring out.

Just as being married or being female or being from the southern United States informs how I walk in the world and interact with others so, too, does having buried a child.

There’s a lot of pressure to pretend that’s not true.

But I won’t do that.

❤

I’ve had awhile to think about this.  Eight 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.

Here’s MY list (yours might be very different):

Read the rest here: Ten Things I’ve Learned About Child Loss

I’m Remembering, Not “Dwelling”

In the past six months I’ve been invited to tell my story in print and on air.

It’s been both a blessing and a curse as I realize that I’m far enough down this road for others to see me as a guide. It’s frightening to recognize the distance between the last time I saw and spoke to Dominic and this instant.

While others may grow tired of the same old photographs, the same old social media memories and the same old stories told by this mama who wants nothing more than to have new ones, it’s all I’ve got.

Believe me, I would trade my life for more.

❤ Melanie

When Dominic ran ahead to heaven, there was a sudden, horrible and unchangeable end to new experiences, to making any more memories, to another conversation, picture or text.

All I have of my son is whatever I had saved up to the moment of his accident.  

And it is not enough. 

It will never be enough to fill up the spaces of what my heart wishes I had.

He lived for nearly 24 years.  But I can’t withdraw those memories like cash and “spend” them, day for day, for the next 24 years.

Read the rest here: “Don’t Dwell on That!”

I Wish I May, I Wish I Might, I Wish I Could Forget Tonight…

Driving home in the dark from several weeks of Mama D duty, I was listening to an old-fashioned, very tame (by today’s standards!) BBC Agatha Christie podcast.

Suddenly the previously entertaining and mindless fare took a turn that plunged me into over an hour of mental wrestling.

One of the characters commented on the face of the deceased and said something like he “looked frightened and astonished”, his last emotion etched forever on his countenance.

THAT was enough to send this mama’s thoughts down an unfruitful and completely horrifying rabbit trail.

I wish that at almost eight years I could reach for a switch to shut out unwelcome images but so far I haven’t found one. I wish I could just will myself to ignore questions about what Dom might have felt, thought or said in the last microseconds of his life. I wish I didn’t know as much as I do about what happened.

I wish I knew more about how Jesus takes His beloved to Heaven.

These intrusive thoughts don’t come as often as they once did and I am (usually) better at pinning them down, changing my thinking and forcing my heart and mind to focus on something else.

But sometimes,

in the dark

when I’m especially tired and vulnerable,

they take over once again.

Lenten Reflections: Fasting Fake

In many of Jesus’ parables, “yeast” is used as a stand-in for sin-especially the sin of hypocrisy. He called out religious leaders over and over for saying one thing and living another.

Years ago a church leader said something I’d never really considered before: “Pagans will act like pagans”.

It was a profound reminder that as a disciple of Christ, as one transformed by His grace and translated by His blood from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light I shouldn’t be surprised that those who do not yet follow Him behave as they do.

THEY do not represent Jesus. THEIR lives are not supposed to be invitations to truth and freedom through the gospel.

But MINE is.

And lest some of my church friends point to the oft-quoted fact that hypocrisy is found everywhere I want to stop you there.

Yes, hypocrisy is everywhere. But that does not make it acceptable.

It also doesn’t account for what should be the transformed life of love, truth, grace and mercy of those who genuinely follow Jesus.

One of the most challenging aspects of living life after devastating loss is to authentically represent the comfort and assurance my heart finds in the promises of God. I refuse to pretend I never doubt or waver, but I also refuse to pretend that my Savior has ever left me in despair.

He sees me.

He loves me.

He lifts me up.

So today, ask the Lord where your walk falls short of your talk. Consider the excuses you might make to cover that gap. Allow the Holy Spirit to work in your heart to make it a closer match.

**As promised, I am sharing thoughts on 40 DAYS OF DECREASE (a Lenten journal/devotional). If you choose to get and use the book yourself, I’ll be a day behind in sharing so as not to influence anyone else’s experience.**

Lenten Reflections: Letting Go of Masks and Making Space for Authenticity

Today’s fast is appearances.

When my kids were young we watched a movie in which one of the female characters worked hard to keep up a perfect appearance in hopes of “catching her man”. But all her efforts were undone by a child who saw through the fake.

“Does your face hurt?”, asked the little girl, referring to the obvious strain required to try to keep that smile exactly right.

I’ve often thought about how much energy I’ve wasted trying to pretend that I’m something I’m not.

It’s especially tempting to put on that “holy habit” when I walk through the doors of church or gather for a women’s ministry event.

Wear the right thing, say the right thing, never let my guard down or confess to struggling.

I am guilty of affirming and rewarding others who look like they have it all together while sometimes ignoring or marginalizing those who are clearly having a hard time. This only perpetuates the ongoing pressure to “measure up” lest we be found wanting.

But Jesus does not ask me to “fake it til I make it”.

He invites me to come with all my mess and lay it at His feet where He will turn ashes to beauty and bring fruit from barrenness as I abide in Him.

I love, love, love what Alicia Britt Chole says: “Our reality doesn’t frustrate Jesus. Our hypocrisy does.”

So for (at least!) one day fast facades.

Take off the mask. Be real.

He already knows. ❤

**As promised, I am sharing thoughts on 40 DAYS OF DECREASE (a Lenten journal/devotional). If you choose to get and use the book yourself, I’ll be a day behind in sharing so as not to influence anyone else’s experience.**

Lenten Reflections: Making Space For the TRULY Holy

If you’ve ever spent even a minute in an museum of art you’ve probably run across some old paintings where saints are signified with round rings of light over their heads.

Halos were meant to be a shorthand for identifying the truly righteous from ordinary folk.

Problem is, more often than not the standards applied by those making the distinction are not the true standards God reveals in His word and by the example of Jesus, His Son.

So today we are fasting halos-false definitions of holy-and making room for the TRULY holy which often makes us uncomfortable.

Jesus’ emotions and actions in the days following the Triumphal Entry were something less (far less) than placid. He wept over Jerusalem, forcefully cleared the temple, cursed a fig tree, confounded religious leaders, told pointed parables, and experienced emotional distress.

Alicia Britt Chole

It is so hard for those of us who grew up listening to simplified Bible stories to embrace the fact (the marvelous and very critical FACT) that Jesus was fully human and fully God.

He didn’t only come to sacrifice Himself as a propitiation for sin, He came to live an authentic yet perfect human life in fulfillment of the Law’s every requirement.

So when we see Him angry, sad, dismayed, lonely, agonized, grieved-those are not unholy emotions.

I can’t stand the images of Jesus that portray Him as a soft, ephemeral, other-worldly cardboard cutout of a man. I don’t know what He looked like but I’m certain it wasn’t like that.

My Shepherd King is a real Person who experienced real life and real emotions. He understands loss and love and betrayal and passion.

So I don’t have to pretend that I don’t.

I’ve always told my kids that some folks try hard to be holier than God.

And it’s true-trying to circumscribe the human experience so that it fits inside some kind of false holiness is futile.

We can bring all our emotions and experiences to the Throne of Grace where our Great High Priest can sanctify and modify them for His purposes and glory.

Today, fast the halos of false definitions of holy. Ask God where He is weeping in your life and in the world and join Him there. It is never weakness to grieve where God is grieving.

Alicia Britt Chole

**As promised, I am sharing thoughts on 40 DAYS OF DECREASE (a Lenten journal/devotional). If you choose to get and use the book yourself, I’ll be a day behind in sharing so as not to influence anyone else’s experience.**