Tag: child loss

Some Days, Getting Out of Bed is Courageous

We walk past them every Sunday.  

Those people who almost didn’t come to church.  The ones who spent thirty minutes just talking themselves into getting out of bed.

And we never know.

Life is hard.  Suffering abounds.  

Since losing Dominic I have become ever more aware of how very many people are hurting. And how very many people are truly brave.  Every. single. day.

It’s one thing to act in an instant-when adrenaline rushes through your veins and pumps extraordinary strength to your muscles and grants clarity to your mind to gather all your nerve and power to jump in and DO SOMETHING.

It is quite another when, without aid of chemical courage, you wake each day to a long list of “to do” items knowing all the while you will be dragging the heavy weight of grief and sorrow everywhere you go.

Read the rest here:  Brave

 

Love Doesn’t End

I know that others want desperately me to be “better”.  They want me to be happy and carefree and back to the Melanie they knew before child loss.

And not just for their sake, for mine too.  

It’s hard to watch someone you care about in pain.

But my reality has been forever changed.

It’s no more likely that I can revert to the person I was before Dominic left us than that I could revert to the person I was before I became a mother.

How many times have you heard, “Becoming a mother changed EVERYTHING”?

Holding my baby for the first time was truly love at first sight.  And that love never ends.

Losing my son did not end my love for him.

Great grief is the price I pay for great love.

I pay it willingly.

Watching the young mother with her infant, the older mama and her child at play in a park, the joy and pride of the even older woman as her son or daughter graduates high school, college or gets married–how could anyone think a mother’s grief could be small?

How can all the love and all the hopes and all the dreams of a mama’s heart be squeezed into days or weeks or months of tears and sorrow?

Read the rest here:

Love: The Reason I Grieve

 

Then and Now: The Morning After

April 13, 2014: The Morning After

Everyone is home-everyone except Dominic.  Quiet now that there’s just us.  How did I even manage to close my eyes last night?  How are we going to face another day? How are we going to face all the days to come?

This is the song that came first to mind even as I sat crying in disbelief:

“Alleluia!  Alleluia! For the Lord God Almighty reigns!”

You can watch it here:  Agnus Dei by Michael W. Smith

  And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll
    and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
    and with your blood you purchased for God
    persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
   You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
    and they will reign on the earth.”

   Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
    to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
    and honor and glory and praise!”

  Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
    be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”

  The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Revelation 5:9-14 NIV

Either it is true and everything will be well-or it is not true and nothing will be well.

IT IS TRUE.

HE IS TRUE.

God is on His throne.

“Melanie”-clad in black. Covered in sorrow but trusting in God.

“He who sows in tears shall reap in joy.” Psalm 126:5

eyes of the lord attentive

April 29, 2016

Today I still cling to those verses, still hold those promises close to my heart.

Some mornings I wake and cannot wrap my mind around the fact that my son is gone.

Sunrise finds me crying out to God, begging Him to make it untrue, to turn back the clock and miraculously restore my life before loss.

It is still hard and I still struggle.

But I believe,

I believe,

I believe.  

A Tribute

Dominic was an amazing man-he lived harder and braver and louder than most.  He was a unique light in this world and now he is gone.

I will never stop missing him.

There is no way to sum up a person’s life-not even a relatively short one-in the number of words allotted to a newspaper article. But I am grateful the Crimson and White gave it a shot–click here to read their tribute:

Law Student Remembered for Kindness, Selflessness

When Time Shall Be No More

Tomorrow will be two years since my life was changed forever, 731 days since my heart was shattered, 17,544 hours since Dominic’s accident.

I never dreaded time the way I do now.  Gray hair and wrinkles didn’t faze me.  My children growing from babies to toddlers to high school graduates was exciting, not sad.

But now, I am oh, so aware, of the days and months that have passed since Dominic left us.  I look back to the years we had with him and hate to see them falling further and further into the past.

I look ahead  with ambivalence to the years that may lie between now and my reunion with the son I love and miss.

The Bible describes Heaven as a place where “time will be no more” and I’ve always considered that concept in terms of an unending opportunity to enjoy Jesus and those we love for ever and ever.

But something occurred to me the other day:  timelessness itself will be a gift unimaginable.

In this body, I am bound in time.  My life is divided into “before”  and “after”.  But there will be a day when it won’t be.

There will be a day when I will also inhabit the timeless eternity where Jesus reigns and Dominic resides.

I don’t know if I will remember the details of this life, the pain and the heartache-maybe, because Scripture tells me that God will wipe away every tear-but I firmly believe that I will be able to enter fully into the “now” of heaven’s timelessness without a sense of loss.

I will be free from this body of sin and death, free from the burden of grief and pain, free of the weight of sorrow.

For ever and ever. Amen.

Nothing that has cursed mankind shall exist any longer; the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be within the city. His servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name will be upon their foreheads. Night shall be no more; they have no more need for either lamplight or sunlight, for the Lord God will shed his light upon them and they shall reign as kings for timeless ages.

Revelation 22:3-5 Phillips

Permission Granted: Please Share

I’m not the most tech savvy individual and I freely admit it.

Dominic was our resident tech advisor and among other things I lost when he was taken from us was my own personal “help” desk.  Now I muddle through the best I can.

I’m also not too excited about exploring popular Facebook posts that purport to give you insider information. But I did check out a recent post making the rounds and discovered that FB DOES hide some of my messages.

I have no idea what kind of filter they use to decide what messages I should see and what messages should be sequestered into the “filtered messages” folder, but I wish they would just stop!

I found messages from MONTHS ago from mamas trying to contact me about my blog and many asking permission to share a post or to print a post and pass it along to another grieving family.

I was heartbroken that I didn’t receive these requests in a timely way and I pray that in each case, they decided to share anyway.

So, since I have no idea how to stop FB from filtering messages, I would like to make this plain:  PERMISSION GRANTED to anyone who finds these posts helpful to share them.

As long as you make no changes, share them in entirety and cite thelifeididntchoose.com as the source, share away.

You can share one of several ways-there are buttons at the bottom of each post for FB, Twitter, and Reddit.  You can copy and paste into an email or email the link.  Or you can print them for physical distribution.

If you want to sign up to receive the posts in your own email, there is a link on the right side of each post inviting you to “follow blog via email”-this makes it easier to share a post via email.

If you have a WordPress site, you can follow through your own site as well.

Finally, at the top right corner there is a “contact” button-you are welcome to contact me anytime through email.  I try to answer within a day.

I cannot bring my son back-but I can honor his memory by sharing faithfully what God is teaching me as I make this journey.

I am thankful and humbled that others find my words helpful. 

If you know someone that might also find them helpful, please pass them along.  

 

 

 

How the Church Can Serve Grieving Parents and Other Hurting People: Loving Well Series

When I first shared this post,  I received a lot of feedback from readers and much of it went something like this:  “I wish my pastor would read this.” or “I’d love to share this on my own FaceBook page but I’m afraid someone might be offended.”

I didn’t write this post to point fingers but I did write it to drag into the light a hidden place of pain and division within churches.  

There are so many hurting people in our pews and we cannot continue to ignore our responsibility to minister to them.  So to you who are timid, I say, “Be brave!  Share! There is no shame in sharing the truth in love!”

“I am a shepherd.  My goats and sheep depend on me for food, for guidance and for their security.

And every day I am reminded that a shepherd’s heart is revealed by the way he or she cares for the weakest and most vulnerable of the flock.”

Read the rest here:  Loving Well: How the Church Can Serve Grieving Parents and Other Hurting People

Understanding Acceptance: Loving Well Series

There is a lot of misconception around the notion of “acceptance” in the grief community. Sometimes among the very people counseling those walking this valley of loss.

It’s not a once-and-done realization or commitment or decision.  It’s a process…

Sometimes those that walk alongside the bereaved are biding time, waiting for that “final” stage of grief: Acceptance.

And some therapists, counselors and armchair psychiatrists are certain that if the grieving mother can simply accept the death of her child, she can move on–that she can get back to a more “normal’ life.

But this notion is as ridiculous as imagining that welcoming a new baby into a household doesn’t change everything.

Read the rest here:  Loving well: Understanding “Acceptance”

Just Say His Name: Loving Well Series

As a bereaved mother, I long desperately to know that my son is still remembered and that he still matters.  Of course, he matters to me-but it is a great gift to know that he matters to others as well. 

Death is scary.  Even for us who trust Jesus.  And the death of a child just trashes the notion that we are in control, that we can fully protect the ones we love from all harm.

But you are frightened of what you cannot comprehend.

I am living the reality of your greatest fear.

Read the rest here:  Loving Well: Just Say His Name

Understanding the Grieving Heart: Loving Well Series

I don’t want pity.

I don’t want people passing me in the street or in the sanctuary secretly shaking their head and thinking, “poor woman”.

I would like to be understood-at least as well as anyone standing on the outside of child loss can understand…

A bereaved parent’s grief doesn’t fit an easy-to-understand narrative. And it flies in the face of the American “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality.

Read the rest here:  Loving Well: Understanding the Grieving Heart