As a people-pleasing first born who hates conflict, giving in has always been easy for me. It’s only later that I wish I hadn’t.
So for most of my life, setting personal boundaries has been challenging.
But in the aftermath of child loss, healthy boundaries are no longer optional, they are necessary for survival.
So what are healthy boundaries?
Read the rest here: Healthy Boundaries in Grief
I’ve often been the person who refused to go along with some group’s plan to ignore a real issue and try to talk around it.
I usually begin like this, “I know it’s hard to talk about, but let’s be honest and…”
I’m even more inclined in that direction now. If my son’s instant and untimely death has taught me anything, it’s taught me that there’s no use pretending.
So I’m not going to pretend: Western society doesn’t do grief well.
I’m not sure that was always the case but like so many other unpleasant, sad and/or uncomfortable aspects of life, we’ve sequestered grief to separate buildings and specialists. We’ve tried to clean it up and clear it away from the everyday.
Like they say, “Out of sight, out of mind.”
If we can hide it, we don’t have to deal with it.
But I’m here to tell you, you WILL have to deal with it. One day, one way or another, death will come knocking at YOUR door. No one gets out of here alive.
So let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
Let’s stop ignoring death and grief and how one person’s departure for Heaven leaves others behind trying to deal with the loss, the pain, and the hole that missing life leaves in their hearts.
I know it will take effort to learn the language of grief. It’s a lost language and it will feel strange on your tongue.
The more you use it, the more you will realize that it’s really just the language of love with a slight accent. There are a few more pauses between words, a bit more emphasis in some places and less in others.
And when you don’t know what to say, it’s fine to admit that.
Just say, “I don’t know what to say, but I want you to know I care.”
Because that means you see the elephant too.
I hate mirrors. Not because I’m ashamed of my wrinkles or my fat hips. But because the face staring back at me now is not one I recognize.
I see someone who’s supposed to be me and can’t quite place her.
There’s a vague resemblance to the person that used to look me in the eye while I was brushing my teeth or fixing my hair.
But now, she is “other”, unfamiliar, strange in a “slightly off” kind of way.
Read the rest here: No Mirrors, Please!
You wouldn’t think we need permission from total strangers, friends and extended family to grieve but many times it feels like we do.
Odd looks, questioning stares and wagging tongues can make a heart doubt whether it’s really OK to do this or that while trying not to fall apart.
Well I’m here to tell you-ignore all that!
You have permission to do whatever it takes to endure this journey as long as you are not harming yourself or others.
I have all kinds of little things I do to help my heart hold on.
Some of them are quite public and others only I know about.
Either way, it’s no one’s business but mine.
I do try not to make other people uncomfortable but I draw the line at the place my sanity outweighs their discomfort. I won’t apologize for utilizing whatever supports keep me keeping on and not giving up.
So if you are worrying more about what other people think than what helps your heart, PLEASE STOP!
You are free to be who you have to be.
You are free to do what you have to do.
You don’t need anyone’s permission to grieve.
I may risk offending some of my fellow believers in Jesus but I will take that risk.
While scripture is plain that God uses the events in our lives to help fashion our hearts, it is also equally plain that God does not act cruelly or spitefully or wantonly.
What Joseph’s brothers did to him was evil. God redeemed it.
What the crowd did to Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was evil. God redeemed it.
What Nero did to the early Christians was evil. God redeemed it.
Death is the ultimate evil, the last enemy. But Jesus overcame it and God will redeem it.
Yes, “all things work together for good for those that love the Lord” but not all things are good.
My son’s death is not a test, a lesson, a trial nor a hammer in the hand of God sent to pound me into the shape He desires for me.
It is an evil that He can and is using for good.
It will one day be absolutely, totally and irrevocably redeemed.
I can’t wait.
It’s possible to stand frozen at the corner of good intentions and helpful action.
I’ve done it dozens of times.
And every time I’ve allowed myself to swallow “but I don’t know what to do” and done nothing I’ve regretted it.
Every. Single. Time.
So I’m here to tell you that when you get that urge, feel that itch, hear that still, small voice that says, “DO something“, then do it.
You may already have a good idea of what it is you need to do, but in case you don’t know exactly how to make a difference in the life of a heart hanging on by a thread, here are some things to get you started:
Don’t ignore that voice that says, “Do something”.
Showing up and choosing to walk with a hurting heart can make the difference between a person giving up or going on.
In the end, love is what we DO and not simply what we SAY.
I wish I could write openly about the things that are going on right now in my life, but I can’t.
So you’ll just have to trust me when I say these past months-really this past year-has been the most challenging since the first 365 days after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
I have cried more in the past three weeks than I have cried in the past three years.
I am forced to crawl into that secret space inside my heart and soul over and over if I hope to not vomit all these feelings on whoever happens to be nearby.
I look like I’m walking around in the world, but I’m really just walking around in a fog-putting one foot in front of the other and hoping I don’t trip and land flat on my face.
I want to be transparent, but I can’t be. Outcomes depend upon my ability to keep it together.
If I’m transparent, they will see that I’m falling apart.
So I plant a fake smile on my face, put on my good clothes, suck it up and suck it in and do what I have to do.
But I feel so very vulnerable.
Every day I feel like I’m in one of those dreams where you show up naked to class or to a job interview or to some other important function. And everyone just stares-dumbfounded-because they don’t know whether to laugh or cry at my predicament.
And I’m scared.
I know I write a lot about learning to set anxiety aside and not trying to figure out what the future holds. I really do take my own advice.
But some days, some weeks, some months I find I’m just as unable as the next trembling heart to do that.
So I’ve spent a lot of mornings crying before the sun rises too high in the sky. Letting all that vulnerability and fear leave my body through my eyes.
Then I dry it up and get dressed. Put on my mask and get going.
It is utterly exhausting.
I’m clinging to the fact that my track record for surviving hard days is 100%.
But it is still so very hard.
It is just so hard to accept that remaining silent is often better than saying the wrong thing.
It seems like every quiet space MUST be filled with chatter-especially in our overstimulated world of screens and noise boxes.
But, I promise-if you and I are speaking, and I choose to expose my heart-I would rather you take my hand or hug my neck and say nothing than tell me, “I understand exactly how you feel.”
Unless, of course, you do.
Read the rest here: No Comparison
Raising four kids as critical thinkers and encouraging debate led to many, many long discussions about thorny theological, social and family issues.
As my children aged, grew, had more exposure to different people, places and philosophies, the discussions grew more complex and wide-ranging.
It was no longer enough for them that a particular point of view was MY opinion-they began to demand facts, figures, examples, references and consistent logic.
I remember a particularly good but also frustrating encounter with Dominic when he was about 12 or 13. As a middle child (third of four) and middle son (second of three), something happened where he felt overlooked, underrepresented and left out or cheated.
So he challenged me regarding whether or not his treatment was “fair”.
I honestly don’t even remember what he wanted to do or wanted to be excused from doing, but I do remember he was passionate about what he believed were different standards applied to HIM versus his brothers and sister.
I spent well over an hour exploring the concept of “fairness”-pulling out my best mom arguments that if we want every single thing to be exactly even then it doesn’t serve anyone well because sometimes one family member needs more grace or freedom or material resources and on another day it may be someone else.
He would not budge.
He wanted every sort of pie in our home to be measured, cut and divided in perfect portions-precisely fair regardless of need.
There was no way to convince him that while this might be good for him one day, it might be awful another day when HE was the one who needed a little extra whatever (money, grace, clothes, rest or freedom).
It ended with him deciding I was unfair and he was given the short end of the stick most, if not all, the time.
Every morning I lean over to add food to the cat’s bowl which rests precisely where he stood when he was arguing with me. So I’ve thought about that conversation often in these years since he left us.
And while I was on the side of accepting that things/life/situations are inherently unfair when arguing with Dominic, I now find myself on the side of lamenting the very thing I was willing to accept then.
Because one of the things I’m learning this side of burying my precious child is that there is no upper limit to the sorrow and pain I may have to carry in this life. And it’s no use comparing my burden to that of another-begging God to consider the differing weights and to make adjustments to lighten my load because it is heavier than that of another.
I do not get a pass on daily stress and strain.
I’m not guaranteed physical health.
I am just as likely as anyone else to get the grumpy cashier, to drop a dish or lose my keys.
I cannot point to a single stretch of more than three days when one or more minor (often major) disruptions, problems or just stinky situations weren’t piled on top of missing my son.
I can sit and soak and sour in my feeling that this is “unfair”. I can allow my heart to become bitter because “other people have it better, or easier or have more”.
But all that does is ruin MY day, hurt MY heart, stop me from living MY life.
Life is NOT fair.
Things are not doled out with measuring spoons so that each person on the planet gets the same amount of love, of opportunity, not even the same amount of food or freedom.
If they were, my burden might very well be greater instead of less.
And if I take a moment to consider the overall sweep of my life, then I have to admit that I am, in fact, blessed.
I had my son for nearly 24 years and nothing can take away those sweet memories and the light and life I carry inside my heart because of that.
So I will use my mom voice and remind myself that life isn’t fair,
but that doesn’t mean it’s not good.
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.
No matter how far or how fast you run, it all comes with you. I have to live in the black and white reality of a world that includes my dead son. I don’t have a choice if I’m going to keep my sanity.
And I think that’s another kind of invisible wall that separates those of us who walk this Valley from those that don’t: we know-deep down, surefire, gut-wrenchingly-KNOW there are things you cannot escape.
You can’t outrun them.
You can’t wish them away.
You can’t ignore them.
You have to embrace them no matter how prickly, heartbreaking or impossible that seems.
And then learn to live with them.
thelifeididntchoose 