Tag: child loss

Bereaved Parents Month 2021: Grief Brain Is Real

Grief brain is a real thing. And it’s scary.

In addition to everything else that falls heavy on a bereaved parent when they find out their child isn’t coming home, many (probably most) realize something is terribly, terribly wrong with their memory, their ability to concentrate, and their ability to navigate what used to be simple daily tasks.

I had experienced brain fog due to illness before Dom ran ahead to Heaven but that didn’t hold a candle to what I suffered when he left us.

I really thought I was going crazy.

I wasn’t.

❤ Melanie

I know her.  In fact, I’ve known her for years.  But please don’t ask me her name.

I have no idea.

It happens to all of us-meet someone in the store or at the Post Office and you just know you know them, but cannot-for the life of you-remember a name.

file-cabinet

Chatting on, you search mental files desperately trying to make a connection you can hold onto.  Five minutes after she walks away it pops up-oh, yes!  That’s so-and-so from such-and-such.

Imagine if instead of searching mental files without success you can’t even find the file cabinet and start to wonder if one ever existed.

That’s what “grief brain” does to you.

Here are a few more examples of things that actually happened: 

Read the rest here: Grief Brain: It’s a Real Thing!

Why I Keep On Keeping On

The months roll by, the calendar pages turn, soon school will be back in session and you are still not here.

Sometimes I think I have figured out how to do these days that remain between now and when we will be together again.  

And sometimes I realize that I haven’t.

Read the rest here: Keep On Keeping On

Bereaved Parents Month 2021: But I Had All Those Things BEFORE!

I absolutely understand that when people say things like, “Just think of all the wonderful memories you have” or “He brought you so much joy” they mean well.

Because it’s true-I have beautiful memories of Dominic.  And he DID bring me great joy.

But I had those things BEFORE he was beyond my reach.

Read the rest here: But I Had All That BEFORE!

Bereaved Parents Month 2021: I STILL Need Grace and Space

It took me a little while to realize that if I was going to survive this lifelong journey I had to make some changes in how and when I responded to requests to do something, be somewhere or participate in outside events.   

Because no matter how worthy the request, there was only so much of me to go around and I was forced to spend nearly all my energy and time and effort on figuring out how this great wound was impacting me and my family.

I cannot overemphasize how much strength and energy is needed to do the work grief requires.

Read the rest here: Grace and Space

Will Suffering Be Redeemed?

I have doubts some days too.  

There are moments when suffering washes over me like a flood and I am swept under with the tide.  

It’s then I cling tenaciously to the promise that my wounds, like Christ’s, will one day not only be proof of pain but also evidence of God’s redemptive power. 

Read the rest here: On Suffering and Redemption

Bereaved Parents Month 2021: Grief Is Like Glitter

I’ll never forget one Christmas when I and some other moms organized a craft day for our preschool kids at a local church.

In our youthful enthusiasm, we thought doing homemade cards accented by glitter was a good idea. Boy, were we wrong!

Those bits of metallic bliss went everywhere-in hair, on clothes, in the carpet…we spent twice as much time trying to clean up as we spent making memories with the children. Never again!

So this quote about grief and glitter really struck home in my heart.

❤ Melanie

Every now and then I run across a quote or a meme that is perfect. 

This is one of them. 

Read the rest here: Grief Glitter, Tucked In Every Corner

Digging Up Memories, Laying Down Dreams

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only bereaved parent who has boxed up things post loss and left them untouched for years.

Life kept moving at a fast pace after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven and it’s only been in the last couple of years that I’ve had the time to even consider going through his stuff.

Time alone was not enough to push me toward doing the hard work of deciding what to keep, what to give away and (most painfully!) what to throw away. But various circumstances forced my hand and I’ve spent much of the last year digging through stuff and digging up memories.

To be sure, not everything has a direct connection to Dominic. I have a giant pile of craft materials that needed sorting and organizing.

Even then, as I put like items together I remembered pushing two littles in a buggy with two older children on either side through the craft store or Walmart. I knew where this tidbit was purchased and what school or church project prompted buying dozens of a certain sticker or wooden cut out.

This past week I’ve been working on “my” side of our two-car garage.

It’s never been used as a garage but instead as a catch-all for a house that has no basement. My side is where I store pantry overflow and all kinds of supplies from toilet paper to party goods.

It’s also where I put some things from Dominic’s kitchen when we had to hurriedly empty his apartment over seven years ago.

Seven years. How can it be seven years?

I finally had to do the hard work of deciding what I should REALLY keep and what it was time to let go of. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one little bit. But it is necessary.

I’m taking it in small doses-two or three hours a day-and trying to give myself grace when even that amount of time doesn’t seem to make a dent.

It’s grueling labor to dig up memories and lay down dreams.

Unrelenting emotional work.

Every bit tossed in the trash is a declaration that he isn’t coming back to claim it. I can’t ask him if he deems it worthy of saving because I can’t ask him anything.

That in itself is a kind of concession to defeat.

Where he is he doesn’t need or miss this stuff but it represents hopes and dreams to me.

I have to lay them down.

And that hurts.

Bereaved Parents Month 2021: Grief is a Tangled Ball of Emotions

Someone posted this image yesterday on Facebook-they had received a copy in a therapy session and found it a helpful way to picture grief.  

I wanted to share it because perhaps you may find it helpful as well.  

Read the rest here: Grief-A Tangled Ball of Emotions

Am I Trying to Put God in a Box?

I first shared this some years ago as I was beginning to work through the theological implications of a God who did not intervene to save my son.

I thought I understood who God was and how He worked in the world because nothing that had happened to me challenged those assumptions. Things were neat and tidy with clear edges that demarcated “those who love God” and “those who refuse Him”.

But God is not confined to a box I or any other human can construct. He is GOD.

That’s a hard, hard truth to digest but it is truth.

❤ Melanie

It’s possible that you haven’t thought of it this way, but if you are a believer in Christ and have yet to walk through faith-shattering trials, you may have placed God in a box.

I know I had.

I thought that after decades of walking with Jesus, reading and studying Scripture and wading through some fairly significant trials I had God pretty well figured out.

I could quote verses for every occasion, open my Bible to any book without looking in the Table of Contents, and had something sprirtual to say about everything.

But now, like Job, I cover my mouth.

Read the rest here: God in a Box

Life Grows Around Grief

When days become months and months become years it’s hard to explain to others how grief is both always present but not always in focus.

I’ve struggled to help those outside the loss community understand that the absolute weight of the burden is precisely the same as when it fell on me without warning that dark morning.

Dominic’s absence, if anything, has seeped into more places, changed more relationships and influences more choices than it did [ten] years ago when I was only just beginning to comprehend what a world without him would look like.

But I, and my family, have continued to live.

We’ve added family members through marriage and birth. We’ve gone places, made memories and made career moves. We’ve gotten older. My husband retired. Children moved away.

All these things and more mean that life is simply bigger than it was when Dom left us.

I really like this graphic that puts this in perspective.

It’s a slow, gradual process. And for some hearts who are forced to endure multiple losses in a short time the circle may never get very large because the grief is so great.

I remember when I realized that sorrow was not ALL I felt nor Dominic’s absence ALL I saw. It was a bit frightening to be honest.

Did that mean my love for him was waning or that his importance in our family was forgotten? Was I a bad mother because I no longer cried every day for the child not here? Had my heart grown cold?

But then I realized none of those things were true. What allowed me to feel joy again, to participate fully in family outings or gatherings, to plan holidays and birthdays once more was instead that my heart had found a way to hold both sorrow and gladness at the same time.

There are still days when grief looms large and my world seems too small to contain it. But those don’t come as often as they once did.

Life will march on, regardless of how hard we might wish it wouldn’t.

And, in large measure, life after loss is what we choose to make of it.

I’m not abandoning Dom by embracing my life now.

In fact, I’m sure he’d approve.