I will not get used to the fact that my son is beyond my reach. I have come to a certain acceptance of it as fact, and acknowledgement of the truth that I cannot change that fact.
The pain hasn’t become less painful, only more familiar.
Read the rest here: True Truth
We all know how it is-you move, you lose an address or phone number, you lose touch.
But sometimes friendships end more abruptly-not because lives drifted apart but because one person became so uncomfortable she chose to walk the other way.
That’s what happens so often the other side of child loss. Friends disappear because loss makes them profoundly uncomfortable.
I get it-I’m a walking reminder that if it happened to me, it can happen to you.
You don’t know what to say when the tears flow. You feel helpless in the face of my helplessness. You are afraid my questions might weaken your faith.
And after months of avoiding me you feel guilty.
But may I tell you something? I still need you.
It doesn’t matter if you have the perfect words. Your presence is what lifts my spirits.
I won’t chastise you for your absence.
I admit I’m not much of a gatherer.
Oh, I love my Sunday School class and my church family. I enjoy the occasional family reunion or wedding. But, on the whole, I tend to stick to small groups instead of large crowds.
And that tendency has been amplified since Dominic ran ahead to heaven.
So I totally understand why a bereaved parent might be reluctant to come to a CONFERENCE full of STRANGERS.
But please listen to my heart, not just my words: this is NOT your average gathering.
April Wendland (a bereaved mother herself) and a very special team of people have worked hard to put together a two-day event that will speak courage to broken hearts.
You won’t be surrounded by people who glance sideways when the tears roll. You won’t feel out of place when the tears turn to sobs.
Because we’ve all been there-we are STILL there.
There is no substitute for hearing (perhaps for the first time), “Me too! I feel that way too!”
If you have never had the blessing of sharing space with other hearts that know exactly how you feel, then please, please, please try to come!
And it’s FREE!
Courage is going to flow through the building. Love will overwhelm your heart. Grace and mercy will spill forth like water from a fountain.
Come be encouraged, strengthened and filled with hope for this journey. ❤ ❤ ❤
Here’s the link: Through This Valley Bereaved Parents’ Conference
Friday, October 6th-Saturday, October 7th
Legacy Church, 3540 Central Ave., Hot Springs, Arkansas
Last week I wrote a post titled They Don’t Know What They Don’t Know and made the case that often folks say insensitive things but truly don’t mean harm. Many are walking in the dark and step on our toes because they can’t see.
But there are some people who make it a habit to be insensitive.
They are the ones who delight in speaking their mind regardless of how it hurts another heart. They pride themselves on “telling it like it is” and justify the fallout as a necessary consequence of “opening the eyes” of people they consider “blind to the truth”.
And while I believe that it is my duty as a Christ follower to forgive these folks when they hurt my feelings, I do not believe that I am required to continue to offer my heart to them to be tossed to the ground and trampled.
I do not have to welcome them with open arms and invite their untimely and unkind comments.
I do not have to engage with them on social media-I can unfollow, unfriend or simply ignore their posts. I can delete inappropriate comments made on my own posts and untag myself when they try to draw my attention to an article or meme that they think “helps” when it only wounds me.
If the person is a family member, I can choose to be polite when we meet at gatherings but I do not have to sit next to them at the table. I can excuse myself early from birthday parties, Sunday dinners or holiday meals. I can simply refuse an invitation and stay home instead.
If the person is someone tightly woven into the fabric of my friendships, I can do the same thing-choosing not to be alone with them so I’m not an easy target for their “helpful” monologues.
If the person is a casual acquaintance then I can choose not to engage them at all. It’s OK to scoot around the next aisle in the grocery store so that I’m not caught like a deer in headlights when they see me and exclaim, “How ARE you???”
In other words, it is perfectly acceptable to have boundaries around my heart so I can survive this journey.
It is healthy.
It is necessary.
I’m not required to be someone else’s punching bag.
I can see her all the way down the aisle-even if she doesn’t say a word, I know.
I know.
She‘s carrying a burden wrapped in love and buried deep inside. Someone she poured life into is no longer here. The missing and the daily sorrow is etched on her face even as she smiles.
What to do? What to do?
Read the rest here: Choosing to See Wounded Hearts
I remember the first couple times I ventured out in public after Dominic left us and the flurry of activity surrounding his funeral was over.
I felt naked, afraid and oh, so vulnerable.
The tiniest misplaced word or random glance could undo me and I burst into tears.
And I remember the phone calls, cards, texts and Facebook messages from friends and family who truly wanted to encourage my heart but often chose the wrong words and pierced it instead.
I took offense. Often.
But about a month or so into this journey, as I explored the edges of my pain and had time to think about how utterly different and unknowable it was without experiencing it, I realized that all those barbs were completely unintentional.
No one was aiming to hurt me. They were walking in the dark and stepping on my toes because they couldn’t SEE, not because they desired to cause me pain.
I was just as clueless before it was ME who buried a child.
So I learned to extend grace-to look behind the words to the heart offering them.
Because they don’t know what they don’t know.
And I hope to God they never do.
I’ve struggled since the beginning of this journey to convey others the ongoing open-ended emptiness of burying a child.
There is simply no way to fill the void left by my son’s leaving.
No job, no hobby, no ministry, no person, no exercise regimen, dietary discipline or medical intervention can fix this pain.
So when people think I will
“get over”,
or
“move past”
my son’s death,
they profoundly misunderstand my experience.
It’s funny-or maybe not-that God will weave a theme through a day or week or month.
He will put the same word in front of me in multiple places, speak it through different people, sometimes even (literally) plaster it across a billboard.
This morning it is grace.
Abundant, sufficient, enduring grace.
Read the rest here: Grace for Right Now
My fellow bereaved mother and blogger, Kathleen Duncan, recently wrote that she felt she was done writing about grief.
It’s been a little over four years since her son Andrew ran ahead to heaven and, as she explains:
I think I’m done.
I think I’m done writing about death. Writing and thinking about death, grief, and pain doesn’t help me anymore. And it may be detrimental for me to spend time writing about those topics. ~ Kathleen B. Duncan
Both our sons were killed instantly in an accident (although the details are different) and both were vibrant young men pursuing what they loved when they left this life.
That got me to thinking since I’m only a few months behind her in my own grief journey.
Because my experience seems to be very different from hers.
I still find writing not only helpful, but healing. And while I think of many things in addition to grief, I still think about grief often-not only my own, but that of others. Not only the grief of bereaved parents, but of all the suffering, broken people I meet or hear about each day.
The feeling is different, but it remains.
At first my grief was so overwhelming and the sorrow loomed so large that it was constantly before my eyes. Everything I saw, heard, experienced or felt was filtered through tears. The world was a blurry place and life was unbearably hard. Every day I labored to lift my head from the pillow and roll my body from the bed. Every morning I remembered afresh that Dominic was not here, that my family circle was broken, that another 24 hours loomed large and lonely before me.
It’s definitely not like that anymore.
But, for me, what’s changed is the location of my sorrow and sadness, not the FACT of it.
Now, instead of being in front of me, my sorrow has bored its way into my bones. It rests deep inside the core of who I am, woven into the fabric of me.
I think of it like I think of being a mother.
My “baby” is 25 years old. But if I hear a plaintive “Mama!” in a store, I instinctively turn to see where the desperate or needy child may be. I can’t resist even when my head tells me that whoever it is, isn’t MY responsibility.
My heart responds because “Mama” is an unchangeable part of my identity.
I don’t cry every day. I don’t only see, feel or hear things through a veil of tears anymore. But bereavement has changed me forever. It remains part of the way I experience the world.
I appreciate Kathleen. I hate that we are part of the same “club” where the dues are higher than anyone would willingly pay but I love the precious community of loving parents who are willing to share their journeys through blogs, closed groups and published books.
And I am blessed by honesty, transparency and authenticity-whatever that looks like.
For me, that’s to continue writing about my grief journey. For someone else, maybe not.
There’s room for everyone because what calls courage to MY heart might not call courage to yours.
I suspect that just as our children are unique, the circumstances surrounding their deaths unique and we are unique, so will be our grief experience. 
No days are easy when you are this side of child loss.
There is the constant burden of sorrow and pain bearing down on my heart and mind 24/7. Then there are the little (and not so little!) everyday bumps along the road of life.
But sometimes it’s not a bump, but a mountain that looms large. Or it may be a sinkhole that opens up and swallows days and weeks before you even realize how much time has passed since you last drew a calm breath.
These past weeks have been like that.
From the night my mother was lifeflighted to the hospital until today, we spent a week and a half in hospital plus these past few days at home trying to get her stable, better and transitioned to a new regimen that will hopefully keep her reasonably well.
While every medical professional gave great care, the majority of responsibility is falling on my dad and myself. And it’s a huge adjustment for everyone. No more in and out to the field on the tractor. No more quick trips into town-at 2 litres of oxygen per hour it will take one portable tank just for the round trip.
Doctor appointments need to be carefully scheduled and routed to minimize time away from home where there is an unlimited supply of oxygen.
I am learning that elder care is a huge challenge-one I thought I knew (in principle, though not by experience).
I was dreadfully wrong.
Just like child loss, until a single call or event takes your world from “I’m in control” to “I have lost all control”, it’s impossible to understand.
There is so much to keep track of, to manage, to watch for, and to do that I honestly feel like my head is about to pop off.
Add random phone calls, doctor appointments, home health visits and (oh yes!) Hurricane Irma-well, you get the picture.
So here’s to all my fellow sandwich generation peers.
And here’s a special shout-out to the ones whose broken hearts already limp along because they are missing a child they love and are now caring for ailing parents as well.
May we all reach out to the only One Who can strengthen us for this journey.
May we speak courage to one another.
May we extend grace to ourselves because no matter how hard we try to pretend otherwise, we are human.
thelifeididntchoose 