We had to put down a sick goat the other day.
I say “we” loosely because the men in my family shield me from the hard task of taking life.
But it still hurts.
I hate that life is hard and death is the end of all living things.
More than six years after Dominic left us and I still cry. I’m OK and then I’m not OK.
I don’t know what to tell you-I’m stronger but it’s not easier.
Oh the blessing of not knowing what’s coming!
This time last year much of my family had just wrapped up several days of boisterous togetherness forced upon us by Hurricane Dorian.
It was the first time Mama and Papa had seen their great-grandson and it was an unexpected blessing to ooh and aah over him, hold him and witness an infant milestone as he perfected the art of turning from his back to his stomach before our eyes.
Mama was energized and so much like her old self singing lullabyes and funny songs and absolutely delighting in him!
We had no way of knowing that in a few short weeks she would be gone.
I’m struggling a bit right now.
It seems that as the days grow shorter the light reflected in my windows mimics the springtime light that reminds my heart of when Dominic left us. The mirror image of his time of leaving and Mama’s time of leaving are not lost on this body.
He ran ahead in spring and she in fall. For those of us who live by the sun and length of day there is a corresponding physical reaction as the golden orb makes its journey through the sky.
I’ve fallen back into the pattern of going to sleep only to be awakened in the middle of the night and unable to go back to sleep. Every dream, every. single. night. has a theme of loss, impotence and deep sadness. I don’t know how to stop it.
Of course my dad has it harder.
I can’t help him any more than he could help me when Dom left us.
All I can do is listen, let him know I absolutely, positively understand and pray that each day he receives sufficient grace and strength to endure.
I know many in the child loss community express that nothing compares to burying a child. I would agree. Out of order death is uniquely traumatic. No parent births a child thinking he or she will outlive that baby brought home from the hospital.
But my mother’s death (the first significant loss since Dom died) has tossed me back on the rocks of grief.
It taps the wound and makes it fresh.
Places I thought were fairly healed are not nearly as scarred over as I thought.
So I’ll walk back through last year, remembering.
Feeling,
Crying,
Acknowledging that death is awful, whenever and however it visits us.
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.
Read the rest here: The Elephant in the Room
My world was rocked to its foundation the moment I heard the words, “He was killed in a motorcycle accident”.
The worst thing I could imagine had come true.
There was no protection from it happening again, no guarantee that THIS unbearable pain would be the ONLY unbearable pain I would have to carry.
I think my body chemistry was instantly transformed that morning to include rapid heartbeats, shallow breathing and a horrible creepy tension that climbs my spine and clenches its claws tightly at the base of my skull.
Read the rest here: Anxiety is Awful!
I have written many times of my habit of greeting each new day watching the sun come up through my east facing living room window.
It never gets old.
I cherish the reminder that despite how difficult things may be or how dark my heart might feel, God is still on His throne.
As the shadows fade and light pours through the window and illuminates the world outside, I remember that no night lasts forever and death doesn’t win.
It’s not always easy to choose life, Lord
Because then we have to struggle with who we are
and why we are, and who you are,
and what to do with who we are,
and why we are,and who you are.
We have to let you make us new, and being made anything always hurts.
Father,
Let the morning come in our hearts,
So morning can come in our lives,
And the world that needs a word of hope can hear
‘Death has lost, and life has won.”
Verdell Davis, Riches Stored in Secret Places
It IS painful to be made into anything.
And sometimes I resist.
But then the morning comes and once again I choose to yield my heart to the One who loves me best and is molding and making me more like Jesus.
❤
“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” ~ Tuesdays with Morrie
A parent’s love doesn’t end simply because a child leaves this earth.
The relationship is not over as long as a bereaved parent’s heart beats.
Read the rest here: “Death Ends a Life, Not a Relationship”
In the South I called lots of people “Aunt” and “Uncle” who weren’t related to our family by blood.
It is a beautiful custom that designates what some today call “framily”-those with whom one shares life and love and intimacy but not DNA.
It’s a wonderful gift.
Children are surrounded by adults that speak wisdom and show support and cheer them on. I was blessed to have many of these special people growing up.
Early Sunday morning one of my uncles-Uncle Ed- left this world and stepped into Heaven.
And while I know he is in a better place, healed and whole, it hurts my heart to know that another person who helped shape me is now out of reach.
I hope that after he was welcomed by Jesus he found Mama and Dominic and hugged their necks.
It brings me great pleasure to think of all the people I love that are waiting on me just as I am waiting to be with them again.
I don’t go to many funerals. It’s just too hard since looking at my own son’s body lying motionless in a casket.
But I will be at his tomorrow morning. So will my daddy and my brother.
Because these are my people.
❤
We wall off our world with words.
The ones we speak and the ones we swallow down so they don’t escape our lips.
But, as Mr. Rogers says, “Anything human is mentionable.”
Even death.
We don’t like to talk about death. It’s unpleasant and frightening and often divisive. We all know it’s coming-no one (except Enoch and Elijah) have left this world any other way. Yet the polite thing to do is pretend it doesn’t exist or at the very least, isn’t likely to happen any time soon.
But that serves no good purpose.
It stops us from having meaningful conversations with those we love as they approach the end of their days. It keeps us from making amends while there is still time, saying the things that need to be said, wrapping up loose ends and frayed relationships.
It stops us from listening to the bereaved. If we get too close and pay too much attention to the aftermath of loss then we have to think about what it really means to live on without someone we love.
And it has shaped a society in which those who grieve too loudly or too long are shushed and shamed.
Refusing to talk about death doesn’t make it disappear.
It only makes it harder to deal with.
The rest of the Mr. Rogers quote is this:
…and anything mentionable is more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.
Fred Rogers
Learning the language of loss and lament is part of the healing process in grief.
We’ve never been very good in Western society talking about or dealing with death. So many hearts are hurting and have nowhere to go, no one to talk to, no safe refuge for their pain.
If someone trusts you with his or her feelings, receive it as a gift.
Make space for them to be honest about what they are experiencing.
Remind them that “Anything human is mentionable”.
And listen. ❤
It would surprise my mama most of all that on this day I’m at a loss for words.
I regularly embarrassed her with my non-stop commentary as a child. I told stories about what I heard and saw (and what my young mind THOUGHT it heard or saw) to anyone who would listen.
But I realize now there are moments too sacred, wounds too deep, experiences too precious for words.
Either you are there and share it-or you’re not-and can’t imagine.
This is one of those times.
Dominic would be [thirty-three] years old today if he had lived.
He’d be several years out of law school, on some path toward making his mark in the world, maybe (?) married, perhaps even a dad but definitely, positively here and part of our lives.
To be honest, I wouldn’t even care what his life looked like right now as long as it was LIFE.
Something very few people know and even fewer would note is that on Dominic’s birth day, the doctor who delivered him had just the day before become a bereaved parent himself. His daughter left this world by her own hand.
Another C-section, Dominic was lifted up next to my face by this sweet and vulnerable man while the tears poured down my face. I was crying for HIM not for me. I was undone that he had shown up and delivered my child while his own laid lifeless wherever they had taken her.
I thought I understood then.
But I had no clue.
I understand now.
Sometimes you show up and do what you need to because it’s the only way for a heart to survive. Sometimes you walk on because standing still leaves too much time for the horror to take root and overwhelm you.
I miss Dominic.
I miss the future we would have had together and the family we would have been if death hadn’t invaded our reality.
I would literally give anything other than the life of one I love for Dominic to be alive right now.
But it’s not an option.
So I’ll spend his birthday thinking about what we had, lamenting what we will never have, rejoicing that his faith is made sight and I’ll cry.
Because a mama’s arms are made for holding her child, not holding his memory.
I’ll be honest.
Before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I could be awfully self-righteous.
I could not understand how some people (notice how I dehumanized them by lumping them together) couldn’t just act right, do right, pick themselves us by their bootstraps and get on with life.
Not anymore.
Now I am more apt to wonder, “What awful thing has happened to this person?” instead of “What is WRONG with them????” when I notice someone acting a bit out of character or not quite living up to their commitments or somehow missing the mark of societal expectations.
Take all this coronavirus craziness.
Some of us are being more cautious.
Some of us consider caution a sign of insecurity or fear or lack of faith.
None of us have enough information (really!) to make an informed decision.
Lack of testing, lack of research, lack of transparency and not enough time means we are all essentially guessing what is the most prudent and appropriate individual response to this threat. I’m choosing not to judge anyone’s choices even if they are different than my own.
I’ve felt judged many times in the past six years since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
People who haven’t buried a child really don’t understand how it changes EVERYTHING. But that doesn’t stop them from offering an opinion or advice or making comments on social media that are clearly intended to correct or shame me.
Now that things are opening up on the back side of blanket stay-at-home orders I’m probably going to be judged again.
What people don’t know about me-what they can’t see and can’t know unless they ask-is I suffer from an autoimmune disease. The treatment impacts my ability to fight off infections. It lowers my white blood cell count. It makes me susceptible to things that other folks never have to worry about.
I had latent (non-contagious and asymptomatic) tuberculosis a couple years ago.
I’m not part of population that would normally be considered “at risk” and only found out about it because it’s protocol to test for TB before prescribing some of the more potent medicines used in treating rheumatoid arthritis. I still have no idea where I was exposed to it.
Eight months of antibiotics with unpleasant side effects later I was disease free.
Based on first person accounts of what it feels like to have Covid19 (not even considering the most dire outcomes) that was a cakewalk.
So I’m not standing in line to try my hand at surviving this new threat.
And I have other, very real, very painful, experiences which inform my choice to be more cautious. I know that regardless of odds, of treatment and of what a heart HOPES will happen, things don’t always go as planned or as predicted.
I know the horror death leaves in its wake. I know the toll trauma takes on a life left behind.
My family has already had to deal with more than I could have imagined and I will not purposely expose them to something else if I can help it.
So regardless of local, state or national guidelines, protocol or recommendations I will be mostly staying home.
It’s not lack of faith. It’s not fear. It’s prudence based on experience.
You can make a different choice and I will absolutely positively respect that.
Agreement is not a prerequisite for kindness.
Your shoes are not my shoes.
And that’s OK.
