child loss – Page 243 – thelifeididntchoose

Bereaved Parents Month: Courage is a Heart Word

You know what breaks my heart all over again?

The fact that so many bereaved parents tell me they don’t feel they can share their experience on their own FaceBook or other social media pages.

That’s just WRONG!

They have been shushed to silent suffering because when they break open the vault of emotions and let others see what’s inside, most people turn away-or worse, they condemn that wounded heart for sharing.

SHAME on you if you are one of those people.

I’ve written about this before here:

In recent years we have dragged many topics into the light. We’ve made space in the public square for discussion of things we used to pretend didn’t exist.

But life after child loss is still a hushed topic.

The long road to healing after burying a child is rarely acknowledged outside the community of bereaved parents.

We have splashed all kinds of garbage across the Internet because in one way or another it makes us feel good (yep, admit it-it feeds some place in your soul) but we will not tolerate someone being utterly honest about how impossibly hard some things are to bear in this life.

Because THAT makes us uncomfortable.

Not every hurting heart is brave enough to risk negative public opinion. I understand that completely. This post is not for THEM, it’s for the hundreds and thousands who want to shut them down and shut them out.

This may be for you, if you have ever scrolled past a plaintive post or made some glib comment like, “God has a purpose in this for you” or worse, written a private message scolding someone and telling them they are begging for attention, refusing to “move on” or hanging on to hurt.

Think for one minute-literally 60 full seconds-how it would feel to hold the cold hand of your dead child, bury your child, go home to his empty room and then live the rest. of. your. life. without the earthly companionship of the child of your heart.

Then think again about censoring your friend who’s grieving.

Instead, speak courage to his or her heart.

Strengthen their hold on hope don’t destroy it.

Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor – the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences — good and bad.

~Brene Brown

Repost: Bereaved Parents Month

Before Dominic ran ahead to heaven I knew only a handful of bereaved parents, all of whom I met after their bereavement.

I had never walked with anyone through this Valley.

Now I am friends with dozens of them and there are hundreds more I “know” online through private groups and blogs.

Until this was MY life, I would have dismissed “Bereaved Parents Month” as another random and narrowly applicable declaration by some group trying to muster support for their own agenda.

Read the rest here: Bereaved Parents Month

Only Love is Eternal

I’ve read I Corinthians chapter 13 dozens of times.

It was one of the Scriptures read at my wedding.

And while I thought I understood what Paul meant when he wrote, “Love never fails” and “the greatest of these is love” I was oh, so wrong.

It took the death of my son for my heart to fully embrace the eternal power of love.

I have lost many things since Dominic ran ahead to heaven: my sense of control, any certainty that tomorrow will necessarily be better than today, the life I thought I would have here on earth, and foolish confidence in my own ability to discern how God works in this world.

But I have gained this: Absolute unshakable rock-solid assurance that LOVE lives forever.

Only love can help a heart hold onto hope when all evidence screams, “Let go!”

Only love can overcome despair when darkness clouds my vision and obscures the light.

Only love can weave a golden cord that keeps me connected to my child in heaven.

Only love is strong enough to drive the God of creation to send HIS Son to pay for MY sins.

Love is the strongest force in the universe.

Ask any bereaved parent.

When all else dies,

love lives.

Mind the Gap

My youngest son worked hard to retrieve some precious digital photos from an old laptop.

Being very kind, he didn’t tell me that we might have lost them until he was certain he had figured out a way to get them back.

So he and I had a trip down memory lane the other evening.

It was a bumpy ride.

Because for every sweet remembrance there was an equally painful realization that Dominic would never again be lined up alongside the rest of us in family pictures.

The British have a saying, “mind the gap” used to warn rail passengers to pay attention to the space between the train door and the platform. It’s a dangerous opening that one must step over to avoid tripping, or worse.

I was reminded of that when I looked at those old pictures-my children are stair steps-averaging two years apart in age.

But now there will always be a gap between my second and fourth child-a space that threatens to undo me every time we line up for a picture.

I cannot forget that Dominic SHOULD be there. I will never, ever be OK with the fact that he is missing.

To be honest, I miss him most when the rest of us are all together. The space where he should be is highlighted because all the others are filled in.

No one else may notice, but I have to step carefully to keep from falling into a dark hole.

Mind the gap.

Be careful.

Don’t fall.

Repost: No Words

Some days there are just no words for this journey.

Sometimes I can only feel what I feel

and do what I do

and cry when I cry.

Read the rest here: No Words

Why is the Second Year SO Hard?

I remember very well the morning I woke on April 12, 2015-it was one year since I’d gotten the awful news; one year since the life I thought I was going to have turned into the life I didn’t choose.

I was horrified that my heart had continued to beat for 365 days when I was sure it wouldn’t make it through the first 24 hours.

And I was terrified.

During that first year there were multiple punctuated stops along the way-the first major and minor holidays scattered throughout the year, a family wedding, two graduations, Dominic’s birthday and on and on. I’d muddle through and then turn my face forward towards the next one looming in the future.

There was so much emotional upheaval, so many things to process that I was unbalanced, focused only on survival without a thought to anything beyond the next hill.

But when I realized that I’d made it through one year, was still standing, was still breathing and was (apparently) going to survive this horrible blow, I began to think about living this way for the rest of my days.

And it was overwhelming.

Facing something for a defined period of time-even an awful something-is doable. There’s an end in sight, relief on the way, endurance will be rewarded-just hang on.

But when a heart can’t lay hold of the finish line-well, that’s enough to undo even the bravest among us.

All the things I muddled through the first year were just going to circle back around over and over and over for decades!

My grief took on a new dimension-it wasn’t something that was going away-it was life long.

I spent the entire second year and most of the third just wrapping my mind and heart around that FACT and trying to develop tools to carry this burden for the long haul.

Every heart is different, every family unique.

The second year is NOT harder for everyone. I’m not even sure it was HARDER for me. But it was definitely different and full of new challenges.

It forced me to dig deeper than the first year when I was mainly in survival mode.

The crying tapered off but the reality of my son’s absence loomed larger. The breathless agony of his death really did grow more manageable but the prospect of this being a life sentence weighed more heavily on my heart.

But God’s grace has been sufficient in every season of my grief. He has sustained me, strengthened me and carried me.

Here I am-six weeks into year [ten]-still standing, still fighting and still holding on to hope.

God is faithful.

What He did for me,

He will do for you.

No Straight Lines in Grief

Grief is unlike anything else I’ve experienced.

There’s no pattern, no clear path, no steps a heart can follow to get from broken to healed.

And that adds to the burden. Because there is so much pressure on bereaved parents to “get better” (whatever that means!).

I wonder sometimes who imagines that if there was a way to be free of this sorrow I wouldn’t jump on it?

All I can do is go where the grief takes me.

No shortcuts.

No detours.

How Do I DO This? The Question Every Bereaved Parent Longs to Ask

After the flurry of activity surrounding the funeral, our house was so, so quiet.

Even with the five of us still here, it felt empty.

Because Dominic was gone, gone, gone and he was not coming back.

And the silence pounded into my head and heart until it became a scream:

How do I DO this?

How do I keep on living when all I want to do is give up and give in? How does a body carry this pain-is it even possible?

When I dared look past the moment to the days, weeks, months, DECADES that stretched before me, I was undone.

Even now, if I look too far ahead, my heart pounds and my head explodes.

So I don’t.

Honestly, THAT’S how you do it.

One day at a time.

One moment at a time.

One breath at a time.

I keep reminding my heart that the only thing I have to do is right now. I hold my attention to this very moment and refuse to let my thoughts wander.

Sure I mark dates on the calendar and am even able to plan ahead a bit now. But it was nearly three years until I could do that without shaking as I wrote them down.

So dear mama, dear daddy, give yourself permission not to try to figure out what a parent’s heart was never meant to calculate-how to live without the earthly companionship of the child you love-and just breathe.

One day at a time.

One moment at a time.

One breath at a time.

Repost: Dispelling Marriage Myths Surrounding Child loss

I wrote this last year for our anniversary. It is still true.

We are battered and torn but hanging in and hanging on to one another.

Don’t believe the myth that a marriage cannot survive child loss. It can and many do.

Today my husband and I celebrate 33 years of marriage.

Our thirtieth anniversary wars a mere two months after we buried our son.

Here’s the last “before” anniversary photo (2013)-unfeigned smiles, genuine joy, excitement to have made it that far…

Read the rest here: Dispelling Marriage Myths Surrounding Child Loss

Not Funny Anymore

Dominic had a habit of managing to travel on his birthday and often into the summer months.

He’d jump at every opportunity to go here, there and everywhere.

He had the heart of an adventurer and life on our little farm in the middle of rural Alabama didn’t often offer the excitement his heart craved.

So just after his first year in Law School, he chose to study abroad for a short semester in the spring of 2013.

The rest of us gathered for the traditional Father’s Day photo with my husband and I thought it would be funny (and probably irritate Dom a bit) if I held up a photo of him as a two-year-old since he wasn’t there.

It WAS funny at the time.

And he saw it half way around the world and thought so too.

It popped up in my Facebook memories yesterday.

It’s not funny anymore.

Those broad smiles have been wiped right off our faces.

Because the ONLY way we can include Dominic in ANY family pictures anymore is with a photograph.

And while we’ve yet to have as many years between us as in the picture I held up that day, they’re coming (if we live and the Lord tarries).

I hate that.

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