“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 belong to a number of closed online bereaved parent groups.
I’m not sure if it is a function of gender or not, but the moms seem to be a bit more willing to share their feelings and to respond to the feelings of others.
Every now and then, a dad speaks up. When he does, I usually pay close attention to this male perspective.
Read the rest here: What I’ve Learned About Grief: A Bereaved Dad’s Perspective
I try to share this post a couple of times each year because it discusses a question many bereaved parents desperately want to answer: Did God take my child?
These are my thoughts-ones I believe are backed by Scripture and align with what I know personally about God’s character.
They are the result of many months of wrestling. I offer them in hopes they will help another heart.
❤ Melanie
This is a question that comes up all the time in bereaved parents’ groups: Did God take my child?
Trust me, I’ve asked it myself.
How you answer this question can mean the difference between giving up or going on, between turning away or trusting.
So this is MY answer. The one I’ve worked out through study, prayer and many, many tears. You may disagree. That’s just fine. I only offer it because it might be helpful to some struggling and sorrowful soul.
Read the rest here: Did God Take My Child?
Some folks are great at it.
They find a tagline or a cause or even a certain color and it becomes shorthand for remembering and honoring their missing child.
Me, not so much.
Dominic wasn’t the kind of person you could sum up in a few words or a certain favorite anything.
He was a drummer, a social commentator, an adrenaline junkie, a fitness fanatic, a neat freak, a bargain hunter, a mechanic, an electronics aficionado, so very funny and a loyal and fierce friend.
He could be sarcastic and cutting.
He was nearly always brutally honest. His twitter feed is full of (sometimes misspelled) witty commentary on everyday irritations and observations. I can hear his voice in my head when I read them.
Dominic was also kind and compassionate.
He was often the kid that sat next to the kid that no one else wanted to sit with. His friends from law school told me tale after tale of how he helped them with one thing or another, how he went out of his way to be there for them and how his kindness made a difference.
He was a stubborn mule too.
When he’d established a position it took a heap of convincing to get him to change his mind. More than once he simply waited the other person out, trusting exhaustion to do the work of making his case.
His [thirty-third] birthday is coming up in a few days. It will be the [tenth] one without him.
If he was still here I’d do what I do for most birthdays-create a portfolio of gift cards in an amount equal to the years. I love hunting down a recipient’s favorite places to shop and filling up the envelope.
I’m still not good at figuring out what to do about birthdays down here when he’s in Heaven and probably not even marking the day.
He would hate balloons.
He’d know none of us needed any cake.
Between now and then I’m going to try to think of something.
Any ideas?
Even therapists get it wrong sometimes.
Especially therapists that only know what child loss is supposed to look like from books and lectures.
I understand how logical it seems that a parent should be able to accept his or her child is no longer alive. After all, most of us saw our child’s lifeless body and performed whatever rituals our hearts find most comforting.
We haven’t received a phone call, text, message or new photograph. Weeks, months and years pass and no word.
Of course this child is gone.
But a mama’s heart still hopes. Somewhere deep down there is a part of me that longs for connection to this child I carried, nurtured and loved.
So sometimes my heart will play tricks on me.
It started just after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
I was the one who had to make phone calls and inform the family of his passing, repeating the awful words over and over and over. So my head got it right away.
Dominic was dead. He was not coming back. There was nothing I could do about it.
Still, I found that for the first year or year and a half, every time I went somewhere we usually went together or attended a family function or celebration where we’d all be in one room, I looked for him.
Ridiculous. Maybe. But very, very real.
Now these [ten] years later that hardly ever happens. Once or twice a year, when the family is together and especially if we are together in a crowd of other people, I’ll kind of “look” for him-on the fringes, around the edges, his voice maybe mixed in with others.
I do still sit silent in the dark hours of early morning shaking my head and saying aloud, “How can Dominic really be dead?”.
But that’s not denial of the fact he is gone.
It’s acknowledgement of how hard it is to live with that truth.
I’m kind of selective in what memes I toss around.
I don’t usually share them unless I can agree wholeheartedly with them.
But sometimes a meme is the simplest and most effective way to communicate truth. And sometimes I just need a quick lift on a hard day.
So here are a few I like:
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/05/14/eight-grief-quotes-that-help-my-heart-on-hard-days/
International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States. This year it’s tomorrow, May 1, 2022
I didn’t even know such a day existed until I was a mom that needed it.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/05/06/international-bereaved-mothers-day/
I read A GRIEF OBSERVED in my 30’s as another in a long list of “Books You Should Read”. I gleaned a bit here or there that I thought might be of use later on.
But when Dominic ran ahead to heaven, it was the first book on grief I bought for myself and I read it like a starving man set down to a full table.
This passage, in particular, was helpful in understanding how my absolute trust in the FACT of ultimate redemption of my pain and sorrow did absolutely NOTHING to take away the pain and sorrow-it only made it bearable.
If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her. But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild.
C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/04/29/wisdom-from-c-s-lewis/
I know (really, I do!) that people MEAN well.
I understand the temptation to share cute little sayings like these in response to a bereaved parent’s Facebook post.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/27/why-didnt-i-think-of-that/
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.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/04/20/five-practical-ways-to-support-grieving-parent/
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