“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” ~ Tuesdays with Morrie
A parent’s love doesn’t end simply because a child leaves this earth.
The relationship is not over as long as a bereaved parent’s heart beats.
Read the rest here: “Death Ends a Life, Not a Relationship”
I think it was somewhere around two months from Dominic’s departure when my heart realized life was moving forward whether I granted permission or not.
Not only folks on the fringes and the “bigger world out there” but close by-in my own family, my own circle of intimate friends-people were making plans, having birthdays, going places and doing things.
I wanted to scream.
Read the rest here: Child Loss: Finding Courage to Face the Future
There’s a kind of relational magic that happens when people who have experienced the same or similar struggle get together.
In an instant, their hearts are bound in mutual understanding as they look one to another and say, “Me too. I thought I was the only one.”
It was well into the second year after Dominic ran ahead to heaven that I found an online bereaved parent support group. After bearing this burden alone for so many months, it took awhile before I could open my heart to strangers and share more than the outline of my story.
But, oh, when I did! What relief! What beautiful support and affirmation that every. single. thing. that was happening to me and that I was feeling was normal!
Read the rest here: What I’m Learning From Other Bereaved Parents
Today is a day when we honor those who gave the last full measure in service to our country and our country’s wars.
It is a day to remember and mark with solemn gratitude the sacrifice of a life poured out.
You don’t have to agree with the reasons for a war to grieve the individuals who died fighting it.
War is far from glorious. It’s ugly and dirty and awful. For those that fight it and those on whose land it is fought.
But in this world where nation invades nation and the wicked often rule it’s sometimes necessary.
Every soldier is a mother’s child. Every soldier leaves someone behind.
Read the rest here: Why Memorial Day Matters
I’m not usually a person who sits frozen when something unexpected or even something awful happens.
But the events in Uvalde, Texas have paralyzed me.
So many parents, grandparents and siblings thrust into the horror of loss and sorrow in a mere forty-five minutes! How does a heart process that when it knows exactly the long, awful road those families are just beginning to tread?
This isn’t about me, though, it’s about them.
It’s about the dozens and hundreds of people whose lives are touched by the tragic deaths of children and teachers who woke up that morning thinking the school year was winding to a close and looking forward to a summer of freedom.
Instead those families have been circled by chains of grief and will spend the next months and YEARS trying to figure out how to live when their worldview and hearts have been shattered.
I can identify with that.
Dominic was killed weeks shy of his twenty-fourth birthday and an even shorter time shy of finishing his second year of law school.
It was supposed to be downhill from there.
It was three days short of the end of the school year for those precious souls trapped by an evil young man in a classroom with no where to go but Heaven depending on where he pointed his weapon.
How does a parent process that?
How does a mama or daddy keep from lamenting how very close his or her child was to escaping this awful end? How does anyone not count the days and hours and moments that might have meant the difference between life and death?
For those whose hearts have been spared-I am so, so thankful.
For those of us who KNOW- I am so, so sorry.
You have probably also been paralyzed and horrified. You know the long, torturous path stretching before these parents. You know that there are no shortcuts, no detours, no magic to make it less painful.
Your breath has come in gasps interwoven with prayers for grace and strength.
You’ve avoided blaring newscasts and only checked intermittently for updates.
You may have cried, like me, in the shower or in a corner because the idea of another parent joining this “club” always makes you sad.
It’s especially difficult knowing that the end of the school year was so. very. close. The opportunity to do that kind of damage was nearly out of his reach.
And yet.
Here we are.
Again.
When I have a rainy day-whether it is literally dripping water from the sky or simply dripping tears from my eyes-I try to do something that will help my heart hold on.
Often I turn to baking.
There is hardly a more satisfying moment than when I pull a perfectly formed loaf of bread or cake or muffins from the oven.
I never get tired of the magic that occurs when you mix the right amount of flour, eggs, sugar and leavening to produce a beautiful edible gift of love.
Read the rest here: Baking Hope
I, like many bereaved parents, am still processing the horrific event in Uvalde, Texas.
I have spent the past couple days enveloped in a fog of disbelief (like most folks) and utter horror (as only fellow bereaved parents can comprehend).
I’m processing. I’m mourning. I’m angry.
I’m reliving the awful reality of learning that my child will never again walk through my door, hug my neck, call my name, sit at my table or contribute to a family conversation.
Maybe tomorrow my thoughts will be organized enough to share with the rest of the world, tonight they are still disjointed and cannot be reduced to words.
But I want to share something I wrote last year because I think it’s important. It won’t be anything the parents of those precious little lives can digest right now, but it might be helpful to the rest of us.
❤ Melanie
I have written before that Grief is Not a Hammer in the Hand of God.
I do not for one minute believe that the Lord I love inflicted this pain on me for the purpose of “teaching me something”.
But I absolutely, positively believe that He can use it (and HAS used it) to make me more compassionate, kinder and more grace-filled than I was before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
Still, “becoming” is painful and requires that I submit to the hand of the Potter.
Read the rest here: Unwanted Assignment: Enrolled in the School of Suffering
I’ve kept a little notebook by my rocking chair for decades.
It’s where I jot down bits from whatever I may be reading that touch my heart.
When I was younger and focused on raising children the pages were filled with inspirational and aspirational quotes, Bible verses and poems.
Now the pages are full of laments, reminders of life’s brevity and blessings.
Here is one I really love.
❤
Sometimes I run across a poem that is absolutely perfect.
This is one of those.
Blessing for the Brokenhearted by Jan Richardson
Read the rest here: Blessing For The Brokenhearted
No one wakes up one day and just “is”. We become, over time, as our innate nature interacts with the world around us.
First our parents and siblings influence us and then school, friends, life experience either gently molds us or pounds us into shape.
Often we get so used to our own way of doing and being we never give it much thought. It’s just “how we are”. We work around our faults and try to use our strengths to our advantage.
Most of us are pretty good at it.
Then something earth shattering comes along and suddenly the cracks are exposed and we haven’t the energy to cover them over.
Read the rest here: What Can Make Grieving Harder? Things You Might Not Expect.
I was looking for it too, at first.
There had to be a secret path, a magic word, a hidden key that would make this awful child loss journey more manageable.
But there is none.
Read the rest here: No Magic
thelifeididntchoose 