It was a long time before I wanted to believe that I received any gifts worth keeping from this life I didn’t choose.
I knew I had tears, pain, agonizing sorrow, loss, heartache, dashed hopes, empty arms.
If I could give those back and regain my son, I would do it in less than a heartbeat.
I can’t, so I’m left here to ponder what else I’ve received from burying a child.
Read the rest here: Grace Gifts of Grief
There are so many ways child loss impacts relationships!
Some of the people you think will stand beside you for the long haul either never show up or disappear right after the funeral.
Some people you never expected to hang around not only come running but choose to stay.
And every. single. relationship. gets more complicated.
When your heart is shattered, there are lots of sharp edges that end up cutting you and everyone around you. It’s pretty much inevitable that one or more relationships will need mending at some point.
I know I said (still say!) things that wound others. Most of the time it’s because I’m distracted or hurting myself and my mouth begins speaking before my brain is fully engaged. Sometimes, though, it’s because I’m in pain and (frankly!) I want to transfer some of that pain to someone else.
Misery DOES love company!
Often other people in my life will say or do things that wound me. Some of the folks are part of my inner grief circle and I know that it’s unintentional or they are having a pain-filled day like I am.
A few are extended family members who are either blissfully unaware of the ongoing pain and drama of child loss or are too caught up in their own lives to give it a thought.
Some of them are friends who think by now I should have toughened up and are no longer willing to extend extra grace and try harder to be tender.
Sometimes it’s acquaintances or strangers who don’t have a clue.
Whenever someone pierces my armor and inflicts pain, I have a choice: Do I suck it up and take it or do I say something and try to reconcile?
There are days when I feel strong enough to just overlook it. But I know if it represents a pattern, sooner or later the pressure will build and I’m going to blow. And that’s not good for either one of us.
There are days when I absolutely, positively have to address it. That’s when I need to be careful of overloading another heart with too much information (TMI). See, it’s easy to make one person the target for all my strong feelings. It’s easy to do an emotional and informational “dump” on whoever happens to be handy or whoever is the least intimidating.
That’s unfair and unhelpful-for them and for me.
So when I decide to open my mouth and address a specific situation with a specific person, I need to keep my margins clean and only say the things that pertain to THAT instance. I can’t bring up every single thing the person has done in the past or things that they haven’t said or done but which have made me more sensitive to certain words or actions. I don’t need to burden them with all the details of MY bad day or week or month.
Instead I should talk about my own feelings in relationship to them and their actions or words.
“I feel like _________when you say________” gives vent to my emotion without accusing another heart. I need to leave room for them to share what they were/are thinking and feeling too. It can’t be one-way conversation if I hope to have a two-way relationship.
Any stressful life circumstance makes us all more vulnerable to offense. And child loss is certainly stressful. It’s stressful in ways others can’t see or comprehend. It alters the way a parent sees and experiences the world.
It makes everything harder.
Relationships included.
I want to be full of love, grace and mercy, not overrun with bitterness, anger and offense.
So I have to be mindful of what I say, how much I say and when I choose to say it.
This was shared in a bereaved parents’ group to which I belong and I really like it.
It’s a great reminder to those of us traveling this road that it is a lifelong journey.
It’s also a good explanation of why there is a gap between our experience and those who have never experienced child loss.
Read the rest here: No Way to “Fix” Child Loss
Oh, dear one who opened your eyes to the morning light carrying wounds so deep no one can see!
I am so, so sorry.
When things have gone terribly wrong it’s hard to get up and make merry.
I know.
But that first Christmas felt more like heartache and less like ho-ho-ho. So you are in good company.
You don’t have to pretend that nothing has changed but you can reach out and take hold of what remains.
You don’t have to hide your tears or your memories but you can share them with people who love you and long to help you carry the legacy of the one you miss.
Today may be long.
But it is only one day.
You can make it.
You will make it.
I promise.
May you experience the Presence of the Christ of Christmas no matter how dark and lonely and sad you feel. May your heart hold onto hope regardless of how tempted it is to give in to despair. May the Holy Spirit Who overshadowed Mary, overwhelm you and fill you with grace and mercy. May you hear the Father whisper, “Courage, My child” to your soul.
And more than all this, may you know that you are seen, you are loved and you are being carried. ❤
~Melanie DeSimone
So many ways to be reminded of how hard it is to hold on in these days and weeks around Christmas.
If your heart is barely able to beat, the pressure to be “hap-hap-happy” can send you over the edge.
If your home is empty of cheerful voices, the constant barrage of commercials touting family togetherness can leave you feeling oh, so lonely.
Read the rest here: When You Think You Can’t Hold On
I wrote this three years ago and it was probably one of the first posts where I was bold enough to bare it all.
I was afraid to hit “publish” because I was afraid it would be misunderstood or seem pushy or too raw.
But then something amazing happened-I was out shopping later that day and had an email come through from the Huffington Post.
I thought it was a joke.
It wasn’t-they wanted to publish this on their blogging website platform. And they did. (You can read it here.)
It’s still one of my favorite posts-not because it was picked up by them but because it’s been shared by many, many grieving parents in an attempt to open the door of the closet full of emotions we often keep hidden.
People say, “I can’t imagine.“
But then they do.
They think that missing a dead child is like missing your kid at college or on the mission field but harder and longer.
That’s not it at all.
It isn’t nostalgia for a time when things were different or better or you talked more: it’s a gut-wrenching, breath-robbing, knee-buckling, aching groan that lives inside you begging to be released.
Read the rest What Grieving Parents Want Others to Know.
My empty nest means I’m rarely crazy busy even around the holidays.
I no longer have to fit in shopping whenever I can manage it because little eyes might be watching or Christmas choir performances and church programs fill the calendar.
No.
Most of my shopping is online and I don’t even have to worry about whisking gifts off the porch before anyone sees them.
I’m a different kind of busy now.
I’m busy making sure I’m not overexposed to Christmas commercials, Christmas movies or Christmas carols because they are likely to open the floodgates of tears I keep behind a dam of determination.
I’m busy drawing deep breaths when I pick up the phone and it’s a relative that never calls but needs an address for a Christmas card and, since I’m apparently the Keeper of the Addresses, always calls me.
I’m busy looking away from the childhood photos lining my upstairs hallway so I can stay focused on the vacuuming that needs doing.
I’m busy pinning down fruitless thoughts of “what if” or “if only” or “I wish”.
I’m busy getting things ready for the brief time my remaining family will be gathered around the dining room table. I’m trying hard to accommodate schedules and preferences and favorite foods and treasured traditions.
I’m busy pushing back sadness that threatens to overwhelm me in the dark of the year when clouds and rain make it even darker, even earlier. I’m lighting candles, plugging in lights and adding cheerful touches here and there to drive out the shadows that come creeping.
From the outside looking in, I’m awash in free time and easy choices.
And some folks wonder why I don’t answer the phone or join in the party.
But I am very, very busy.
The human heart is a funny thing-always working hard to protect itself from grievous injury yet prone to exactly what it tries to prevent.
I honestly believe that one of the gifts of early grief is disbelief. Because if I could have understood at once what it meant that Dominic was really, truly GONE, I would have never lasted the first 24 hours.
Even now, going on seven years, my head plays games with my heart.
Missing my son is very much like bringing him home except in reverse.
I don’t know about you, but each child added to our quiver slipped in and seemed like he had always been there. It was nearly impossible to remember life before he joined us. I knew, as a matter of FACT, that months and even years had passed without him there, but it was so natural, so beautiful, so perfect now that he was here, the before faded in the background of the after.
It’s much the same way now that he’s gone.
Nature abhors a vacuum and so does the human mind and heart. The spaces I was able to keep sacred to Dominic’s memory (or maybe because some part of my heart held out hope he’d return) are slowly being filled in by people and events and things that he’s never met, participated in or touched. They crowd out the Sacred Spaces I have worked hard to maintain.
And bit by bit it’s as if it’s always been THIS way.
Only it hasn’t.
I’m not forgetting my son. That will NEVER happen. But I am losing the daily pathways that once helped me trace his fingerprints on my life, my belongings and my heart.
And that makes me sad.
I’m trying hard to find new ways to keep him current, part of everyday conversation, events and gatherings. I want his name mentioned as naturally as that of my other children. I want the funny things he used to do remembered and recounted. I want my oldest son’s child to know Uncle Dominic as well as his or her other aunts and uncles.
There are still moments, days and even a week here and there, when it feels like only yesterday that Dominic left for Heaven. The pain is as fresh, as intense, as unbelievable as it was when I got the news.
That shocks me every time.
But most days I’m digging deep to tap old memories, working hard to weave his story into our ongoing story and looking for ways to keep his legacy alive for the generation to come.
Time is a funny thing.
Yesterday AND forever.
I was utterly amazed at the questions people plied me with not long after Dominic’s accident.
They ranged from digging for details about what happened (when we ourselves were still unsure) to ridiculous requests for when I’d be returning to my previous responsibilities in a local ministry.
Since then, many of my bereaved parent friends have shared even more questions that have been lobbed at them across tables, across rooms and in the grocery store.
Recently there was a post in our group that generated so many excellent answers to these kinds of questions, I asked permission to reprint them here (without names, of course!).
So here they are, good answers to hard (or inappropriate or just plain ridiculous) questions:
When asked to do something the week or month or even year after your child left:
When asked about the details of your child’s death:
When asked, “How are you?”:
When asked if you think you’re “back to normal” or “over it”:
When asked anything at all that seems insensitive, inappropriate or just downright nosey:
I am obligated (by my profession of faith) to be as kind and polite as I can be but I am not obligated to answer every question someone asks.
I’ve found that having some of these pat answers in my pocket helps. Many of them are good for just about any question that may come my way.
I try to deflect, demur or redirect.
But when that fails I’m just as likely to tell the truth, which is often not at all what the person really wants to hear.
And then they are left scrambling for a way out of a conversation I never wanted to have in the first place.
Which is fine with me.
It’s popular in books, self-help articles and even in some grief groups for people to declare , “Child loss does not (will not, should not) define me”.
And while I will defend to the end another parent’s right to walk this path however seems best and most healing to him or her, to that statement I say, “Bah! Humbug!”
Child loss DOES define me.
It defines me in the same way that motherhood and marriage define me. It defines me as much as any other major milestone, event, choice or experience defines me.
How could it not define me and inform the person I am today?
But it does NOT circumscribe me.
Listen carefully to these next words: Child loss is a huge part of who I am but it does not draw a circle around who I am becoming. It is not a line in the sand I cannot cross. It is not a ball and chain weighing me down and preventing my forward motion.
It is not the ONLY thing I am, but it is an important part of who I am.
In many ways it has made life harder-especially in the first three years after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven. But in other ways it has made my life more open, larger, expansive and inclusive. Child loss has opened my eyes to other hurting hearts in ways I doubt I would have noticed if my own had not been broken. Child loss has taught me the language of compassion and the necessity of listening well to other people. Child loss has rearranged my schedule and my priorities.
It most certainly helps to define the woman I am today.
Would I have chosen it? Absolutely not!
But I won’t waste it.
I choose to enfold it into who I am and what I do and how I live.
I cannot set it aside and ignore it any more than I could set aside my son.
Could you?
thelifeididntchoose 