Tag: berreaved parent

Fifth Sunday Singings and a Mama’s Broken Heart

Fifth Sunday Singings are a tradition down South.

We gather in the evening or afternoon every time there is a fifth Sunday in a month and sing, sing, sing.

Sometimes there are featured groups but often it’s just the faithful few who enjoy picking favorite hymns that might not get much air time on Sunday mornings.

Inevitably the hymns that are chosen most often include a verse or two about “when the roll is called up yonder” or “the streets of gold” or “amazing grace”.  Because almost all of us have a hymn etched on our hearts during a time of trial or sorrow or deep suffering.

And it’s the promise that God is faithful, His word is true and this life is not all there is that gets us through.

But for this mama’s broken heart, a few choruses in and I’m in tears.  

While I am thankful, thankful, thankful that I know I will see my son again, these hymns remind me that a lifetime may lie between here and there.

The waiting is hard.  

waiting with hope water

 

 

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

It took me nearly two years to hang a wall calendar again.  It took that long, plus some, to add anything to it besides close family birthdays and doctor’s appointments.

I would record what I did AFTER the fact, but I just couldn’t let my heart make plans.

Because I had made plans–lots and lots of plans-before Dominic ran ahead to heaven unexpectedly and wrecked them all.

There’s another reason looking forward is hard on my heart:

No matter how wonderful the event, no matter how anticipated the birth, or wedding, or graduation, or party-there will always, always, always be one person missing.

I still find making plans difficult.  

I don’t make many and the ones I do make I hold lightly.  I warn friends that I may get up the “morning of” and decide that I just cannot do it.  The closest ones (the only ones I really have left) totally understand and never pressure me otherwise.

But as I have rounded the corner of three years, I am beginning to be able to look a little bit further in the distance.  

I am able to pencil in some fun things more than a week in advance.  I’ve even started looking up ideas on Pinterest again-ideas for birthday gifts months in advance, for dinner table decorations and for craft projects to occupy the hottest parts of summer days.

And I’m learning to take Dominic WITH me as I walk into tomorrow after tomorrow without his physical presence.  I’m finding ways to keep him close, to have him near, to share him with others so that the vibrant man he was (and still IS-in heaven) is remembered and honored.

The fact is that tomorrow comes whether I am dragged kicking and screaming into the new day or whether I go willingly, with purpose and with grace.

I am trying to choose purpose and grace.

Sometimes it’s really, really hard.

But when I do-it’s worth it.

sometimes helps me wake up brene brown