International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States. This year it’s tomorrow, May 2, 2021.
I didn’t even know such a day existed until I was a mom that needed it.
For those of us who have children in heaven, setting aside a day to acknowledge that unique mother/child relationship is helpful.
Read the rest here: International Bereaved Mother’s Day
It’s oh, so hard to know what to do when you are watching a heart break.
You want to reach out and make it better, make the pain go away, make a difference. But it seems like nothing you can do will matter much in the face of such a huge loss.
While it’s true that you cannot “fix” the brokenness in a bereaved parent’s life, there are some very important and practical ways you can support them in their grief-especially as the weeks turn into months and then to years.
Read the rest here: Five Practical Ways to Support a Grieving Parent
It would be easier, in a way, if it happened all at once.
If the vivid memories of his voice, his laugh, his body language, his sense of humor just disappeared-POOF!-now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. Then I could make a single adjustment.
But that’s not how it is. Instead, the living proof of his existence recedes like a wave from the shoreline, only there’s no returning surge to remind me of the force that was Dominic.
Read the rest here: Slow Fade
It may seem like the easiest way to get an inside scoop on how I’m REALLY doing-but don’t do it.
Please don’t ask my kids how I’m doing.
Respect the fact that they have their own grief burden. Respect family privacy and understand you are putting them in an impossible position.
If you want to know-to REALLY know-how I’m doing, ask me.
Read the rest here: Please Don’t Ask My Kids How I Am Doing
I first shared these thoughts a year ago as the world began to shut down in an attempt to quell the pandemic.
Here we are, more than twelve months later still facing not only an uncertain future but dealing with concrete and life-altering changes that have many of us despairing of brighter days ahead.
It’s tough waking up to a world you don’t recognize and don’t like.
If you wonder how to make it through, ask a bereaved parent or sibling. They’ve learned to courageously step forward into scary and uncomfortable tomorrows.
❤
Many of you are waking up each day and facing a world you don’t recognize.
I’ve been doing this for over half a decade.
Almost seven years ago my family’s world was shaken in much the same way everyone’s world is being shaken today.
Read the rest here: Welcome To My World
One of the things I realized early on this journey was that I did not possess the vocabulary for the deep pain, unbearable sorrow and relentless longing I was experiencing.
So I sought out quotes, fellow travelers and groups of others who shared this awful path.
It helped.
It didn’t take away the pain but it gave me words to express it. It gave me courage to believe I could survive it.
I will never forget those who chose to come back with a torch in the dark and light the way.
❤
There are so many ways to describe grief.
So many ways individual hearts walk this path.
For many of us there’s a sense of being locked in time, stuck in space, unable to leave the moment one received the news or the few days before and after.
It’s maddening that the earth still turns, the sun still rises and people go on with life when in so many ways our world is frozen in place.
Read the rest here: Forest of Sorrow
I should have known. I should have been there. I should have called, texted, spoken one more warning or given one more hug.
Should. Should? Should!
I have yet to speak to a bereaved parent who does not harbor guilt of some kind over the death of his or her child.
Not one.
Read the rest here: Nagging Guilt in Child Loss
Most people are familiar with SAD-Seasonal Affective Disorder-a cluster of symptoms mimicking depression that develop in otherwise healthy folks when the shorter days and longer nights of winter limit sunshine exposure.
Fewer folks know that nearly every bereaved parent has his or her own version of SAD which has nothing to do with daylight/darkness cycles and everything to do with the calendar.
For me, it starts in February and runs through May.
Read the rest here: Child Loss and SAD: Seasonal Affective Disorder
Sometimes I write a post for other folks. A topic pops up in a group and my mind starts whirling.
Sometimes I write a post for me. My heart is so full there’s nothing left to do but release its contents.
And sometimes, like this one, it’s a combination of the two.
This post is one of my favorites even it if never touches another soul. It’s both proof of healing and proof of the limits of healing in this life.
❤ Melanie
Another bereaved mom wrote that she was better able to cope now than she had been a year ago.
And thanks to Facebook memories she had proof.
Several comments down a second mom wrote something that got me thinking-when, exactly, did Dominic’s loss move from the forefront to the background?
I’m not sure I can pinpoint a day or moment when I realized that sorrow was no longer ALL I feel and Dominic’s absence no longer ALL I see.
Read the rest here: Background Music
It hurts my heart every time I hear it or see it written at the end of a long, heartfelt post in a bereaved parents’ group: “Am I normal?”
Because in addition to bearing the weight of child loss so many mothers and fathers wonder if what they are feeling, what they are thinking and what they are doing is within the range of “normal” for those who have buried a son or daughter.
If we didn’t closet the deepest and most difficult aspects of grief and loss hearts wouldn’t have to fret about whether or not their experience was common, expected, typical, ordinary and very, very NORMAL.
❤
I just came home a couple days ago from a weekend retreat for bereaved moms and was reminded again that the range of “normal” in grief-especially child loss-is so very wide.
Still crying after a decade? Absolutely normal.
Trouble getting dinner on the table or remembering your child’s school schedule? Yep. That’s normal.
Read the rest here: Grief-So What’s Normal???
thelifeididntchoose 