Tag: celebrations

Birthdays Can Be Tricky…

Tomorrow I will be sixty years old.

When I celebrated my fiftieth, I had so many dreams and plans! I couldn’t have imagined that the next ten years would be filled with the heartache of child loss, along with all the hope and joy of an expanding family.

But here I am.

Definitely older and, I would like to think, a little wiser.

Wiser to the truth that no one escapes pain in this life. Wiser to the fact that joy and sorrow can coexist. Wise enough to know by experience that sometimes the very best thing you can do is shut your mouth and open your arms to a hurting heart. Wise enough to realize that birthdays for bereaved parents are often complicated.

I wrote this post several years ago but share it annually because unless you’ve sent a child ahead to Heaven, you might not realize how very tricky birthdays can be for the parents left behind.

❤ Melanie

Tomorrow is my birthday.

And while I am truly grateful for another trip around the sun, since Dominic left us it’s not a simple celebration of life lived and the hope of years to come.

The last birthday I had with an unbroken family circle was a lovely surprise party for my fiftieth held in Dom’s apartment.

Ten years later and it seems a lifetime ago.

Read the rest here: Birthdays Are…Complicated

Grief and Holidays 2023: Practical Ideas for Dealing With Holidays After Loss

It cannot be overstated:  holidays are extremely hard after loss.  Every family gathering highlights the hole where my son SHOULD be, but ISN’T.

There is no “right way” or “wrong way” to handle the holidays after losing a child.

For many, there is only survival-especially the very first year.

These days also stir great internal conflict:  I want to enjoy and celebrate my living children and my family still here while missing my son that isn’t. Emotions run high and are, oh so difficult to manage.

So I’m including some ideas from other bereaved parents on how they’ve handled the holidays.  Many of these suggestions could be adapted for any “special” day of the year.

Not all will appeal to everyone nor will they be appropriate for every family.  But they are a place to start.

Read the rest here: Practical Ideas for Dealing with the Holidays after Child Loss

Grief and Holidays 2023: What the Bereaved Need From Family and Friends

I know it is hard.  I know you don’t truly understand how I feel.  You can’t.  It wasn’t your child.

I know I may look and act like I’m “better”.  I know that you would love for things to be like they were:  BEFORE.  But they aren’t.

I know my grief interferes with your plans.  I know it is uncomfortable to make changes in traditions we have observed for years.  But I can’t help it.  I didn’t ask for this to be my life.

I know that every year I seem to need something different.  I know that’s confusing and may be frustrating.  But I’m working this out as I go.  I didn’t get a “how to” manual when I buried my son.  It’s new for me every year too.

Read the rest here: Grief and Holidays:What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

Grief and Holidays 2023: Having Hard Conversations

You don’t have to bury a child to know that changing long-standing family traditions around holidays is a hard, hard thing.

Just ask a parent trying to work out Thanksgiving and Christmas for the first time after an adult child marries.  Suddenly the way things have “always been” are no longer the way things are.

Holidays typically involve so many more people and family members than everyday get-togethers and each person brings expectations, emotions and personal history to the table.

So, that is why I decided to run this series of posts NOW.  Because one of the things I have learned over the years is that giving people time to adjust to change is a good thing.

Read the rest here: Grief, Holidays and Hard Conversations

Best Christmas Gift EVER

I’ve had plenty of beautiful Christmases.

I’ve had more than a decade of more somber ones.

But when our pastor recently asked, “What was the best Christmas gift you ever received?” I didn’t have to think hard at all.

It was my daughter, Fiona.

She wasn’t born ON Christmas but a week before-today is her birthday-and I was oh, so glad to finally hold that tiny bundle in my arms instead of in my belly.

My first successful pregnancy (I’d miscarried a year before) was a long, hard and difficult one. I never achieved that “glow” so many women enjoy while hormones guaranteeing baby’s health and safety surged through my system.

Instead I was desperately ill for the first four months as I wrapped up my college degree. (In hindsight, taking biology at six in the morning was a bad choice.) I spent many of those days in close communion with the toilet or a bowl when I couldn’t muster the energy to get to the bathroom.

I had a few short golden weeks before my body revolted once again and I developed a serious case of preeclampsia. Now my doctor visits were weekly and included fetal monitoring.

Back then there were few interventions for this condition so it was wait and see, wait and see all the while I counted days and weeks until I could reach the magic “thirty-four week” mark of likely viability.

Thankfully, we made it!

But then that little Miss decided to assert her personality and refuse to make an entrance.

So…finally…I was scheduled to deliver ten full days after her due date of December 8th.

It was a long day of pitocin, contractions, no progress and a swift trip to the OR for what ended up being an emergency C-section. Drama all the way!

She was here, safe and sound, in my arms at last.

There are lots of things I don’t remember in detail about that day or even the week that followed but I remember this: I knew in my bones that life would never be the same. This precious child made me a mama and my heart would forever be wrapped around hers.

I’m so very thankful I had the blessing of three more little ones after that.

I’m grateful for the lives they’ve lived and the ones they are living now.

I miss my third-born, Dominic. His birth story is woven just as firmly into the fabric of my being as Fiona’s and that of her other brothers.

I can’t pick out his threads without unraveling the whole cloth.

And I don’t want to.

I celebrate today the gift of motherhood and the gift of children.

Even when one of them leaves too soon.

Love is always costly, but love is always worth the price.

Please Let Me Know You Remember

As families gather around tables and in backyards to celebrate fall birthdays, Thanksgiving and (soon!) Christmas, my heart longs even harder to hear Dominic’s name.  

Of course I remember him-he’s my son-and of course others do too. 

But it is especially helpful this time of year to have friends and family speak of him aloud. 

Read the rest here: Let Me Know You Remember

Celebrations After Child Loss-Life at the Crossroads of Joy and Sorrow

I want to be everything my living children need me to be.  

I try hard to celebrate them, be available, listen closely and love them well.  

I never, ever want them to feel they are competing with their missing brother for my affection or my attention.  

But I’d be lying if I said it was always easy.  

Read the rest here: Crossroads: Celebrations After Child Loss

Grief and Jealousy: Reaching For What I Can’t Have

I thought I had at least a passing understanding of what grief is, what it feels like, how it impacts a heart before my son died.

But I was wrong.  

Until you live with it day in and day out for weeks, months, years you really just. don’t. know.

There are so many feelings wrapped up in what we call grief.  So many surprises along this path.

Who knew that the same heart that would do nearly ANYTHING to spare another parent the awful burden of child loss could also be wildly jealous of that same parent’s intact family?

Read the rest here: Jealousy-Reaching For What I Can’t Have

Standing At The Crossroads: Celebrations After Child Loss

I want to be everything my living children need me to be.  

I try hard to celebrate them, be available, listen closely and love them well.  

I never, ever want them to feel they are competing with their missing brother for my affection or my attention.  

But I’d be lying if I said it was always easy. 

Read the rest here: Crossroads: Celebrations After Child Loss

Celebrating the Good Things

Our family’s experience was a bit unusual though hardly unique.

In the two months after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven we had Easter, two graduations, a wedding, Mother’s Day and his birthday.

So we were thrust right into the uncomfortable whirlwind of celebration and mourning from the start.

I remember having to dig deep to let the happy come out through the muck and mire of sorrow.

But even then, it was there.

Six years later and it’s much easier to let laughter loose and produce a genuine smile for those Kodak camera moments.

Six years later there are a heap of things to be happy about not the least of which is the addition of this little fella to the family circle.

From frightening beginnings to a first birthday full of love, laughter, food and fun my grandson has come a long, long way.

A couple of days ago was the one year anniversary of his coming home from NICU-what a glorious day when he made that trip safely and slept the first night in his crib next to his parents’ bed!

I am still in awe of how this story (that could have had a much different ending) has a beautiful one.

Last night his dad FaceTimed us and we got to see our little Captain cutting up, laughing, taking a few tentative steps, reacting to our voices and generally having a great time.

It’s balm to my soul.

It doesn’t fill the space where Dominic should be but it has enlarged my heart once again.

If you are wondering if you will ever feel joy or gladness again, hang on.

Celebrate the good things even when it’s hard.

It’s not treason to let love and laughter back in.

❤