This came across my Facebook newsfeed and I really liked it.
Concise, it also acknowledges that most bereaved parents understand folks generally mean well, even when they say something less than helpful.
Honestly, this is great advice for what not to say to anyone going through a tough patch.
Read the rest here: Helpful Advice on What Not to Say to a Grieving Parent
You’d think that the depths of despair, the breath pressed out of your lungs would stop a brain from wondering if even here, I’m “normal”.
I’m not sure it’s the same need for affirmation junior high girls crave-am I doing/saying/being the things that will guarantee I fit in-but it’s a close cousin.
The human heart longs to know that what it feels is something other hearts feel.
I was desperate for assurance that what I was going through fell well within the range of “normal”.
So let me assure you.
If you wonder if all these crazy emotions are normal in grief, the answer is a resounding, “Yes!”.
Grief is a ball of emotions any one of which may demand more or less of your attention on a given day. It’s not just sadness or missing or sorrow or even pain.
It’s anger, frustration, rage, relief, abandonment, jealousy, rejection, inadequacy, guilt, denial, dismay, apathy, bitterness, longing, anxiety, woe, depression, vindictiveness, despair, confusion, depression, yearning and more.
Just like loving a living child is complex and complicated, loving a child that has run ahead to Heaven is just as complex.
So don’t make your journey harder by worrying that what you’re feeling is outside the range of normal.
It isn’t.
I promise. ❤
You know that scene in Forrest Gump where he starts running and just can’t stop?
I thought that was a funny way to deal with grief when I first saw the movie.
But now I understand it perfectly.
If I could have started running, walking or even crawling away from the heartache in those first days and weeks I would have.
Truth is, though, you can’t.
Read the rest here: Can’t Run Away
Those of you who have followed the blog for a bit know that I’ve said over and over and over: there is no limit to the heartache you may have to endure in this life.
The past three years have been the most difficult since the very first year after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven in 2014.
But this memory popped up in my Facebook timeline the other day and reminded me that along with all the hard, there have been some beautiful blessings.
Two years ago around this time I was listening to day after day after day of witnesses giving first one account and then another of events that happened three years prior trying to frame facts so that the twelve jurors would vote a certain way.
Only my friends and family from miles away helped me hold onto the thin thread of hope that truth would prevail.
It was brutal and not something I ever want to repeat.
If you ever wonder if a phone call, text, card or message make a difference, just ask me.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would not have made it without them. 
How long has it been? A year, two, eighteen or twenty-five?
When. are. you. going. to. move on?
Aren’t you over talking about their birth story, their childhood, their school years, their spouse, children, moves and career? How many funny stories or sad recollections do I have to listen to?????
I mean, really-it’s been soooooooooo00 long since they were BORN!
Sound’s ridiculous, doesn’t it? It IS ridiculous.
Read the rest here: Move On Already!
When your scale of awful is off the charts, there’s a tendency to dismiss anything less as merely inconvenient or inconsequential.
But that’s just not how our hearts work.
You can be shattered by child loss and still feel the slings and arrows of everyday losses, disappointments, discomfort and sadness.
It’s OK to mourn the things that don’t measure up to the pain and despair of burying a child.
It’s OK to admit that even ordinary things like an empty nest, changing circumstances, moving away from friends and family, ill health, family drama and dozens of other, smaller wounds prick your heart and make it bleed.
While child loss has helped me gain perspective on what’s truly important, irreplaceable and worth my time and energy, it has not created a protective and impenetrable barrier that guards my heart from further pain.
I am just as likely as anyone else to fall into a funk over a misunderstanding, a less-than-expected outcome, a disappointing phone call with a friend or some other everyday frustration. And, sometimes, there are truly hard and horrible things I’ve had to bear: my mother’s prolonged illness and death, my grandson’s premature birth, my son’s overseas deployment and other things I’m not at liberty to share because I’m not the main character in the story.
Child loss doesn’t mean there won’t be more pain in this life.
It doesn’t give me a pass on heartache.
And it is perfectly normal-actually perfectly and absolutely right-to be sad and mourn the smaller losses in life.
It means my heart’s still beating.
It means I’m still engaged with those around me.
It means I’m still present and invested in life.
And that’s a good thing. ❤
Thankfully our family has always turned to laughter as a way of making it through things that would otherwise bring us to tears. So it wasn’t but a couple days past when we got the news of Dom’s leaving we managed a giggle here and there as his friends shared some funny stories with us.
But it felt strange to have laughter bubbling up in my throat even as I couldn’t stop its escaping my mouth.
It wasn’t the unforced expression of joy and merriment it used to be. Instead it was a strangled, mishapen gurgling mixture of the joy I once knew and unspeakable pain I now knew.
It didn’t float airily into the atmosphere, it thudded heavy to the floor.
And then I felt like I was betraying my son.
Read the rest here: Is it OK if I Laugh?
I told the two children with me that morning that we were going to survive this awful blow.
And we have.
It has been hard and ugly and more painful than anything else we’ve ever had to do.
But we’re still standing.
And I want to encourage the hearts that are just starting down this broken road: You really CAN make it.
Some of you reading this are saying, “But I don’t want to make it. I want to lie down and give up and be out of this pain.”
I don’t blame you.
Read the rest here: Shifting The Weight, Bearing the Burden
I know I’m not the only one who carries a calendar in my head that threatens to explode like a ticking timebomb. Days that mean nothing to anyone else loom large as they approach.
The date of his death.
The date of his funeral.
His birthday.
My birthday.
The day he should have graduated from law school
On and on and on.
How can I survive these oppressive reminders of what I thought my life would look like? How can I grab hold of something, anything that will keep my heart and mind from falling down the rabbit hole of grief into a topsy-turvy land where nothing makes sense and it’s full of unfriendly creatures that threaten to gobble me whole?
Read the rest here: Surviving Grief Anniversaries
I write a lot about what bereaved parents (me!) wish others knew or understood about child loss and this Valley we are walking. And I am thankful for every person outside the child loss community who chooses to read and heed what I write.
But I want to take a minute to tell those of you who are not part of this awful “club” that I get it-I really do get it–when you need to put distance between yourself and me or other people walking a broken road.
We all love to think that life is a never-ending ascent toward bigger, better and more enjoyable moments.
Our children are born and we think only of their future, not their future deaths.
Read the rest here: I Get It-I Really DO Get It.
thelifeididntchoose 