Tag: bereaved parent

Juxtaposed

Living and dead.

Loud and silent.

Together yet parted, present but absent.

Beauty of the moment contrasted with darkness that refuses to obey the light.

How to be present in the “now” with a heart that longs for the “then”?

I never expected to have to reach across time and space and heaven to touch my child.

I hate this divided life!

Imagining the worst thing possible can’t hold a candle to knowing it by experience.

I want my living children to know how fiercely they are loved!  

A lioness could not keep me from protecting them if it were possible.  

But it’s not possible.

My heart holds knowledge I would gladly give up.  

 

 

 

Repost: Hallelujah is an Exhale

You can’t hold your breath forever.

But when you first learn your child is dead you want to–oh, how you want to.

I don’t know if it was defiance or hope that made me certain that if I could just stop breathing, I could freeze time.

Read the rest here:  Hallelujah is an Exhale

Who Steps In? Who Walks Out?

I was absolutely overwhelmed in those first days.

Cars, cars, cars filled my long driveway and front yard.

People spilling out like ants scrambling after the hill is disturbed.

Oh, our hill was disturbed-knocked wide open by that deputy’s visit.  Phone calls to let others know.  Phone calls from people who couldn’t get in touch with him and were just checking “in case something had happened”.

It had happened.

It. HAD. happened.

After the customary ceremony and handshaking and food, the cards flooded in. Some with hand-written heartfelt messages of, “praying for you”, “we are so very sorry”, “we love you”. Some with pre-printed poems that absolve the sender of the need to find words for things for which there are no words.

My son is dead.  What can you say to that?

And then the silence.  The morning that I woke up to  realize I had done all I ever could do for Dominic.  My last act was to find his body a resting place and pray his soul to heaven.

He was home.

I was left in a strange country filled with landmarks I no longer recognized and a language I no longer understood.

Who comes into that?

Not many.  Only a few brave souls stick around for the after-only a few true friends keep calling and coming and caring for the long haul.

Because sitting with me in my grief, listening to me question my faith, keeping company with uncertainty and loss of control is frightening.  It takes great self-control to simply be present and not try to say something or do something to try to fix the unfixable.

If it could happen to MY family, it could happen to theirs.  And no one wants to think of that unless they have to.

So many leave.

Not immediately and not flamboyantly.  They just drift away like unmoored sailboats caught in the rising winds of life and busyness and school plays and church socials.

My personal tragedy is a footnote to their life journal-and who reads footnotes?

But there are a few who purpose to make my burden their burden.  

A few who call and write and text and message on the important dates like when he died, his birthday, Christmas, Easter.  Even fewer who call and write and text and message just because-just because they heard a song or saw a sunset or remembered for a moment that there is a mama out there who carries this grief 24/7.

I have no idea how Jesus will reward His followers when they make it Home.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that the ones who choose to run in when others run away will receive a crown. Because their faithful love in the dark places brings life and light to hurting hearts.

And isn’t that the essence of the gospel message?

You are not alone.  

You are loved.

There is a way forward.

When you have exhausted all your own resources, God has made a way where there was no way. Even when you can’t take a step on your own-especially when you can’t take a step on your own-Jesus will carry you.

The ones who stay sing the gospel song to my heart.

They remind me that Jesus hasn’t forgotten.

presence best gift

(Almost) All Together

Our family has never been the “go somewhere for the holidays” sort.  We tend to stick close to home, to what’s familiar, to routine and regular bedtimes.

But lately life has thrown us a number of curveballs. And we are learning to swing at them instead of just letting them lob past us.

So just after Christmas, the four of us that were together in Alabama took a drive down to Florida to spend time with our oldest son and his wife in their new home.

We spent New Year’s Eve on a windy dog beach enjoying waves and walks and friendly strangers whose mutts came over to sniff ours.

Seafood  and people watching at a nearby restaurant sitting outside in the breezy cool topped off a lovely day.

I’m learning to live with Dominic’s absence.

I’m (almost) used to photographs of my three surviving children documenting adventures that don’t include his smiling face and raucous antics.  I’m trying to recapture the joy of his life and not dwell as much on the fact and circumstances of his death.

I can look forward a little further on a calendar.  I can plan a bit more.  My heart finds some satisfaction again in hosting friends and family for special occasions or no occasion at all.

In a word, I’m “better”.  

Not healed-never healed (past tense)-until heaven.

But oh, so thankful for the days I have to spend with the family I have left.

I don’t know if Dominic can see us from where he is, but if he can’t, we’ll have lots to tell him when we get there.  

One day closer.  

 

 

Repost: New Year’s Resolution

The funny thing about New Year’s resolutions is that they are pretty much the same, year after year.  We all have particular struggles and the turning of the calendar seems like the perfect moment to commit to action to try to overcome them.

But most of us fail miserably and find ourselves back at precisely the point from which we started, regardless of our best efforts to change.

Read the rest here:  New Year’s Resolutions

Repost: God of the Day and God of the Night

I was afraid of the dark until I was almost forty years old.

My fear was rooted in scary childhood moments and even years of adult experience could not rip it from the soil of my psyche. I never could convince my heart what my head knew to be true: there was nothing in the dark that wasn’t also there in the light.

It was fear, not darkness, that controlled me.

There is great darkness in grief.  So many unanswerable questions, so much anquish, so much pain.

Read the rest here:  God of the Day and God of the Night

A Broken Heart

The world is stunned by the  deaths of Carrie Fisher at 60 and her mother Debbie Reynolds just one day later.

And it should be.

Carrie’s death was undoubtedly hastened by a combination of mental illness that led to addictive behavior that led to physical damage that made her a likely candidate for the early heart attack that took her life.

Each of those contributory factors run amok in our society-often undiagnosed or untreated because of the stigma attached to them.  She was rich, famous and had lots of resources available to her yet was still unable to escape the clutches of addiction until late in life.

Debbie Reynolds died of a broken heart.  The cause of death may be declared “stroke” but any mama who has buried a child knows full well that the moment they told her about Carrie, her heart gave up.

Mine did when I received the news of Dominic.  I wanted nothing more than to lie down and die and make this awful, unbearable pain disappear.

But I didn’t.  And neither do so very many other mothers and fathers-they keep going.

They sweep together the broken shards and bundle them up and choose to fight.

It’s hard.  It’s tiresome.  It’s discouraging and it takes every once of energy they can muster.

It saps the strength of the strongest among us.  

I don’t wish child loss on anyone.

But I do wish that the shock and sorrow the world feels over the deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds might raise awareness of how child loss affects parents and siblings left behind.  

Look around.  

There are people in your own life living this horror.  People who are still striving to carry on when they want to give up.

Take their hands,

encourage their hearts,

help them hold on.

forgot-to-bury-me

Healing Comes In Its Own Time

I’ve lived with invisible chronic disease for a decade.

From the outside looking in, you’d hardly know that I am often in great pain.  I make daily choices about what I will do and what I won’t do based on what I can do and what my body refuses to do.

I take medication.  I do all the things I’m supposed to do to help my body heal.

But I cannot MAKE the healing happen.

No matter how hard I wish it were different, no matter how carefully I manage my treatment, healing comes (or doesn’t) in its own time.

I’m pretty sure that most people have experienced something similar if they’ve broken a bone or had a bad bout of bronchitis or pneumonia.

Other than following the advice of your doctor and taking your meds on time, resting and eating well, there’s not much you can do to force your body to get well.

A broken heart is just the same.

All I can do is place myself in the path of healing.  I can feed my soul with truth and drink living water from God’s Word.

I can lean in and rest in the promise that Jesus will redeem and restore.

I can do the work that grief requires.

And working on healing takes energy, effort and time–lots and lots of TIME.

I cannot hurry the healing.

Please understand that as inconvenient, uncomfortable and disconcerting it may be for YOU, it is immeasureably more so for ME.

Please be patient with my heart.

I’m really trying.

grief is love unfinished

 

 

Repost: Chasing the Darkness

There are so many people struggling to find hope and light in this world.

Especially at this time of year, when it seems that everyone else is having a “holly jolly Christmas” those who can’t find even a spark of joy in their hearts feel abandoned and alone.

Read the rest here:  Chasing the Darkness

He Has Filled the Empty With Good Things

After two days of eating, eating, eating, I’m hardly hungry.  

But no matter how full my stomach gets, how snug my pants may fit, my heart longs for more than this earth can provide.  

Even before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I knew that this world was not my home.  I was well aware that nothing here could satisfy the deepest ache in my soul for a place where justice reigned and death no longer ruled.

Now that longing is magnified.  And I cling to the hope that Christ gives.

Mary didn’t understand everything about the baby she carried in her womb.  She (I pray) was unaware of exactly how He was to usher in this new kingdom of God.

But she knew enough.

She knew that because of Jesus-The LORD saves-things were going to be different.

So, like Mary, I lean in and trust.  I hang on and hope.  I reach out and reassure my heart that the Mighty One of Israel will fill the empty with good things.  

Even the empty places in a grieving mama’s heart.  

     And Mary said:

    My soul glorifies the Lord
47     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful
    of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49     for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
    holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
    from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
    remembering to be merciful
55 to Abaham and his descendants forever,
    just as he promised our ancestors.

Luke 1:46-55 NIV