companionship – Page 11 – thelifeididntchoose

Holding Space

We do it all the time in the physical world-leave the shopping cart in line with the admonition to the person behind us to “hold our place” while we run to get that forgotten item.

We leave a gap for that minivan to pull in just where the construction cones narrow a highway from two lanes to one.

We open a door and step aside so the elderly lady with her hands full can manage to get through without dropping the load.

But most of us are not as good at it in relationships.

I think part of the reason is because we are often unaware of the NEED to do it. We don’t have external cues like traffic cones or physical barriers or long lines waiting to check out or get in.

So we miss the opportunity to step aside, or step back or simply wait a moment for another heart to catch up or move over or step through.

Sometimes it’s because our minds are so used to multi-tasking and treating every single minute as if “time is money” that we are unwilling to slow down enough to truly HEAR another heart.

two women rear view

I find that if I’m not very, very careful, I spend a good part of the time I’m supposed to be listening, constructing my response before the person I’m “listening” to has even finished her comment.

It takes a lot of discipline not to do that.

And I don’t always exercise it.

I want to be a person that holds space for others. I want to be a heart that listens well and pays attention to the message another heart is sharing.

I believe that when I do that, I can lighten a load.

Because often what someone needs is just to know they are seen,

they are heard and

they are loved.

Pressure Relief Valves and Blowing Off Steam

I use a pressure cooker when canning some things from the garden. It’s the only way to ensure food safety for low-acid, low-sugar foods.

It took me awhile before I could work up the courage to use that contraption-when a pot comes with warning labels about “check to make sure seal is intact before every use” and “always be certain pressure cock is seated properly and working”-well, that’ll make you think twice about how much you want canned beans come winter.

I imagined all kinds of awful scenarios the first time I fired up the stove under that big cooker. But none of them came to pass. Sixty minutes later and all was well.

I’ve thought a lot about my pressure canning days recently and how that pot is uniquely created to allow just enough steam to escape to keep it from exploding. Sure, it gets mighty hot (that’s the point-to kill the bacteria) but not so hot that it bursts into lethal metal shards all over the kitchen.

I feel like so many of us (bereaved parents or not!) are like that pressure cooker-boiling and roiling with heated emotions getting hotter and hotter and threatening to explode.

Some of us do.

It’s messy or even dangerous.

I’ve thought about how critical that relief valve is to the proper function of the pressure cooker and how people need relief valves too.

Some of us find relief through hobbies or exercise or journaling or praying. But many of us can only relieve our sense of building pressure by talking to another person.

We need to be HEARD and SEEN in order to let off steam.

We need someone to be the relief valve for our pent up feelings so they don’t spew uncontrollably over everyone and everything.

So when you are thinking about what YOU can do for someone going through a tough time, here’s a thought: Offer to meet them and let them talk. Just let them say whatever they need to say without correcting them or judging them or steering them toward safer topics of conversation.

Just listen.

Offer appropriate comments now and then so they know you are paying attention but let them empty their hearts of the pent up steam of strong emotions.

Then keep all the secrets they shared in your own heart. Don’t spread them around to others and don’t use them later as ammunition or leverage.

Listening is love in action.

Providing a safe space for a heart to let go is one of the best gifts of all. ❤

Repost: Stronger Together

I’m not making a political statement.

Instead, it’s a very personal truth that I repeat often to myself: We are Stronger Together.

Read the rest here: Stronger Together

Ten Ways to Love a Mourning Heart at Thanksgiving

We are all on a journey through life and each carry some sort of load. Mine is child loss. Yours may be something else.

We can help one another if we try.

Love and grace grease the wheels and make the load lighter.

Here are ten ways to love a mourning heart at Thanksgiving:

1. Let them grieve. Give space and grace for any outward display of grief or emotion. It doesn’t require comment. Maybe an outstretched hand or a tissue or maybe not. Sometimes silence presence is best.

2. Begin conversation with statements that are true for you and then listen. I appreciate someone sharing their heart with me. It’s really OK to say, “Hey, I’ve wanted to reach out but I just didn’t know how.” I would rather hear that than excuses. ❤

3. Share a memory of their child or their pregnancy (if a child was born straight into heaven). Whenever I hear a story about Dominic I may not have heard before, it is a gift.

4. Speak their child’s name. It may make me cry. But I cry anyway. And if no one says his name I cry because I think they’ve forgotten.

5. Give them room to step away. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed and I just need a breath of fresh air or a moment to gather my strength. Don’t send the cavalry to “rescue” me and don’t make me feel bad by drawing attention to my absence when I return.

6. Find a way to commemorate their child in company with the living. Light a candle, place a photo, set an honorary place at the table, give a gift in his memory to a charity and display the card-there are many ways to make him part of the holidays.

7. Allow them to participate/ not participate as they are able. This will be our fourth set of holidays and I still don’t have a routine that feels “right”. I do enjoy and even crave cooking meals so I appreciate being asked to do that. Some other things are still hard so I appreciate not being forced to do those.

8. Don’t use this once or twice a year gathering to require an extended debrief of how they are feeling/coping/doing. Invite me to share and then respect the boundaries I establish in my sharing. It depends on the day whether I’m going to give you a brief response or a long one. Let me lead the dance.

9. Try not to make assumptions about what is best for their heart. Ask questions instead of making pronouncements. Like I said, I still don’t have any traditions that feel right after nearly four years. I need space to think about and make choices about what may work for THIS Thanksgiving.

10. Remember that all holidays are hard. When the whole family gathers, it highlights even more that my son is missing. Other times it’s easier to play a mental game with myself and pretend he’s just off somewhere. But when the chairs are drawn around the table and his is empty, there’s no denying that he is gone, gone, gone. Lots and lots of grace makes it easier for my heart.

Too Scared to Stay

How many reading this enjoy roller coasters? Or scary movies? Or action films?

My guess is that most like one or the other or all three.

Why? Because it’s fun to dip our emotional toe into deep water when we know we can take it out at any moment.

We experience a sort of “high” when the “fight or flight” adrenaline pumps through our veins but our minds know full well that we are in no real danger.

What’s much more difficult is to commit to experience in real time with real people the real emotional roller coaster of hard situations and unending sorrow or pain.

Then people tend to withdraw because they are too scared to stay.

I am so sorry that broken hearts are wounded further when friends or family just can’t bear the pain of watching us hurt and run away instead of walking with us.

They are afraid. I used to be afraid too. But I’m not afraid now.

My new bravery was purchased at great cost. And I don’t want to waste it.

This Valley is teaching my heart to reach out further, quicker, more often and to stick around longer than I was willing to before.

I want to stand with and speak courage to wounded hearts.

I want to help healed hearts that choose to be brave and commit to walk with those in pain.

And I am learning to extend grace to the hearts who choose to run away.

Fear is powerful and I can’t blame them.

But for those who remain, I am so, so grateful.

Important Reminder

It can get lonely in this life. Social media aside, most of us wonder if who we are really makes a difference at all.

But it does.

You are unique-created to make a difference only YOU can make.

The edges of your life touch the edges of others’ lives in places no one else can reach.

Don’t give up.

Don’t give in.

Repost: Of Leaking Buckets and Grief

I first wrote about this a few months back when I was pondering the FACT that no matter how wonderful the moment, how beautiful the gift, how marvelous the fellowship of family or friends, I am simply unable to feel the same overflowing abundant joy I once experienced.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about the great heroes of Scripture and studying their stories in detail.

I may be wrong, but I haven’t found one whose life did not contain pain.

Read the rest here: Of Leaking Buckets and Grief

Commanded to be Hospitable

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Lord, when one of us hungers, make it our instinct to feed.

When one of us is displaced, make it our instinct to share our home.

– Common Prayer

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Being There: No Substitute For Showing Up

I totally get it–we are ALL so busy.

Calendars crammed weeks and months in advance and no white space left over to pencil in lunch with a friend even though we desperately NEED it.

It seems impossible to make that call, write that note or stop by and visit a few minutes.

How can I meet my obligations if I use precious time doing the optional?

But when the unexpected, unimaginable and awful happens, suddenly that calendar and all those appointments don’t matter. Balls drop everywhere and I don’t care.

Because when your family or best friend needs you, you come-no questions asked.

You toss a few necessities in your carry-on, lock the door, unplug the coffee pot and RUN.

You connect that phone to the car charger and dial away as you drive down the road.

And you show up.

Because when someone needs you, REALLY needs you, there is NO SUBSTITUTE for presence.

And the world keeps spinning.

All those “important” commitments cluttering my calendar are still there. But a few phone calls later and they are easily rearranged. Medicine refills can be sent almost anywhere. Church responsibilities can be shouldered by someone else. Social dates can be rescheduled.

The only thing that matters is being exactly where your heart tells you it needs to be for exactly as long as you need to be there.

But you don’t have to wait until it’s an emergency to show up.

If it can wait if it HAD to, then it can wait.

You will not be going over a “to do” list with your last breath.

Choose to make people a priority right now-you might not get a second chance,

No Contest: There’s Enough Heartache to Go Around

I may get jeered by my fellow bereaved parents but I’m committed to honesty so here it is: there is no hierarchy of grief and loss.

Now, am I saying that losing a dog is the same as burying a child? Absolutely not! I’ve written about that here.

But what I am saying is that grief, sorrow, loss and heartbreak comes to us in all shapes and sizes. And what may be small to me may be huge to someone else.

In the past weeks I’ve been exposed to a number of people who were waiting for those magic minutes of visitation allowed for intensive care units.

Each one had a story.

Each one had a cross to bear and a complicated life they were trying to maintain outside the additional stress and strain of a loved one hooked up to tubes and heart monitors.

None of them revealed (to me at least) that they were bereaved parents.

But I could clearly see pain, sorrow, grief and weariness etched in their furrowed brows. I could hear exhaustion in their voices as they placed phone call after phone call to update people that wanted to know how things were going but couldn’t make it to the hospital. I noticed hope spring to life in each heart when the clock ticked toward the assigned visitation window and how they leaned forward willing those last seconds to fly by faster.

I knew they were hurting. It didn’t matter if they hurt as much or less than me. There’s enough pain to go around in this life.

It isn’t a contest.

And I realized that because of my great grief and sorrow, I had a gift to share. I could reach out and take a hand, listen to a story, hug a weary shoulder empathetically, gently and without judgement.

I understand the weight of hard things.

I know by experience that life can change in a single breath. I carry both the ongoing burden of missing my son and the traumatic memory of life changed instantly by a knock on the door. It’s made me stronger in ways I would not have chosen.

I will not squander that strength.

I will put my shoulder to the harness alongside my fellow humans and offer to help carry some of their burden. I will extend my hand to the stumbling, strengthen the heart of the hurting and offer a listening ear to the one who has no one to talk to.

I cannot undo what I know. I cannot undo what has brought them here or may take them to places THEY don’t want to go.

But I can be present.

I can refuse to turn away because I think their grief is small in comparison to my own.

I can choose love.

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