Tag: death

The Day Before It All Fell Apart

Friday, April 11, 2014:

Julian and I went to a college honors banquet and came back to the house to find Fiona home for the weekend.  I called Hector and texted with James Michael.

I turned out the light and went to sleep.  

No warning shots across the bow of life rang out to let me know what was coming.

But that Friday was the last day I spent misunderstanding the awfulness of death and the absolute uncertainty of life.

Those were the final 24 hours when I indulged in silly chatter, playful planning and the mundane tasks that used to take up most of my time.

That Friday was the last night I fell asleep thanking God that all my family were safe and secure.

It was the last night I COULD have called Dominic, but didn’t because he was coming over Saturday morning.

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The sun rose for us, but not for him.

I will never forgive myself for not talking to him one last time.

I woke up in the still-dark morning to a deputy knocking on the door to tell me Dominic had been killed.

And my world fell apart.

dragging heartIt’s been [eleven] years and it is not yet put back together.  Pieces have been picked up and tacked into what remains of the outer shell.

I can function.

I can even laugh.

And I am so, so grateful for the family I have still with me.  Together we are working hard to make it through.

But there are no words to help those who have never buried a child understand the depth of the pain, the sorrow and the ongoing struggle to live each day.

I miss my son.

I miss the family we used to be.

I miss the old me.

I miss being blissfully ignorant of exactly how awful death is.

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I will not live long enough for this to stop hurting.

My son is gone.

He is GONE.

He is still gone.

And even [eleven] years later, I can barely stand it.

Repost: Silence Doesn’t Serve Anyone Well

One of the reasons I write is to share my grief experience with others.

I realized when tossed into the ocean of sorrow that of all the things I had heard about or read about, surviving child loss was never mentioned.

Read the rest here:  Silence Doesn’t Serve Anyone Well

Vocabulary Lesson: Learning the Language of Grief and Loss

How do you speak of the unspeakable?

How do you constrain the earth-shattering reality of child loss to a few syllables?

How do you SAY what must be said?

I remember the first hour after the news.  I had to make phone calls.  Had to confirm my son’s identity and let family know what had happened.

I used the only words I had at the time, “I have to tell you something terrible. Dominic is dead.”

Over, and over, and over.

Until others could pick up the chant and spread it to the ends of the earth.

And then silence.

Such a deep wound requires silence.  Because there are no words for the ache inside a mother’s heart, the pain that burrows into her bones, the sorrow that sucks the breath from her body.

It was some months before I found a community of bereaved parents who began to give me a vocabulary for my experience.

And it was more than helpful, it was liberating!

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As I began to speak aloud what was hidden inside, it broke chains I didn’t realize held me hostage.

As long as my feelings are secret, they trap my heart and mind in an endless cycle of regret, fear, sorrow, pain and anxiety.  When I speak them aloud, I can recognize them and fight them and overpower them.  And when I share them,  I find that I am not alone.

Others come alongside and say, “Me too!”  Validation makes me stronger. Understanding makes me brave.

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I hate the fact that my son is dead.

I hate the pain that his death has inflicted on me and on my family.

There are days I wish I could run away and hide, that I could pretend this never happened, that I could undo the broken that permeates my life.

But I can’t.

There’s no way through but through.  I have to face the awful truth, I have to consider the ways it is changing me and remaking who I am.

I need words to process the pain because that’s how I can disarm its power over me.

It’s tempting to try to ignore the hard parts of our stories thinking that we are getting away from them.

But we aren’t.

The harder the season, the more profound the wound or bitter the struggle the more time it takes to process.

The first step is learning the words and finding community in which to speak them.

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Here are links to three online communities for bereaved parents:

While We’re Waiting-Support for Bereaved Parents

Heartache and Hope: Life After Losing a Child

TCF-Loss of a Child (The Compassionate Friends)

If you have lost a child and are looking for a place to learn the language of grief and loss, a safe space to share your pain with others who understand it, see if one of these groups might be the place for you.

 

 

True That

In a family full of  young adults on the brink of life, of love, of making dreams come true, you never expect to hear these words, “It is what it is.”

But in a home where loss has taken its toll, I do.

Oh, how I long to restore the unmarred joy we used to know-when everything was possible, positive attitudes could overcome any challenge and the horizon beckoned with welcome instead of warning.

Our watchword used to be “Failure is not an option”.

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I even had a cute little magnet on the fridge that proclaimed, “Another day, another disaster”.

That was BEFORE.

Before the dawning sun brought real disaster to our doorstep.  Before the thing we had to face could not be overcome by more elbow grease, greater resolve or stronger faith.

Before death became very, very real to us.

We are not struck down in despair.  

We are not fatalists.  

But we do acknowledge the fact that this life is filled with things we cannot change.  We understand by experience that some things must simply be endured.  We embrace the truth that we depend on the mercy of God in every way.

So now we live this motto:  It is what it is.

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And we take one another’s hand and walk on, through whatever it is.  We call courage to our hearts that no matter what happens, we will survive together.  

We keep loving and living and leaning.

Because that’s what we do.

Lenten Lessons

Although I have observed Lent off and on for many, many years, it’s different for me now in a profound way.

Some of you may know that Dominic was killed the Saturday before Palm Sunday and buried the Monday after Resurrection Sunday, 2014.

Each year since then I’ve felt like I had to endure two sets of “anniversaries” because his death date and burial date are not only days of the month but also marked by moveable church celebrations.

It has been very, very hard.

As the sun rises earlier each morning in spring, the weather turns brighter and the flowers bloom, my heart grows heavier and heavier. I want to crawl in a hole and wait for the time to slide by-as if not noticing will make a difference.

But I can’t.

Life must be lived, not only endured.

So I am choosing this year to try to guide my heart gently through this hard season with purposeful action that forces me to engage with God’s Word, with God’s people and with God Himself.

I think that leaning into Lent-giving up some things, grabbing onto others-is a good way to do that.

I’m not certain what I’ll give up-as one gal commented on my wall, “I’ve already given up a child, I don’t have anything else to give”.  I will probably try to find a less-than-profitable habit to lay aside for these 40 days.

I do know what I am grabbing onto.  I am going to write 40 notes in 40 days (the idea came from this link:  Love Notes)

I am also going to be more faithful to write in my paper journal instead of only on my blog.

My goal is that I will emerge from these days free of some bad habits and bound my some new, better ones.  

Will you join me?

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No Comparison

One of the hardest parts of blogging for me is that I am committed to authenticity.  As best as I am able, I try to be honest and transparent.

This entry was tricky.

I never, ever want to minimize ANYONE’S pain-in my mind there is no hierachy of misery. But I also want to let those outside the child loss community see how much it hurts to have our loss compared by others to their very different losses. We would much rather you simply take our hand or hug us or sit silently with us on the mourning bench.

So, here it is.  I hope you receive it in the spirit in which it is intended.

It is just so hard to accept that remaining silent is often better than saying the wrong thing.

It seems like every quiet space MUST be filled with chatter-especially in our overstimulated world of screens and noise boxes.

But, I promise-if you and I are speaking, and I choose to expose my heart-I would rather you take my hand or hug my neck and say nothing than tell me, “I understand exactly how you feel.”

Unless, of course, you do.

If you have buried a child, then please, please, please tell me that!  We will cry together.

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But there is no comparison between losing an aged aunt, full of years,  and losing a child, full of promise.

There is no comparison between losing a job, a house or a dream-any of which have the potential for restoration in this life– and losing a child–whom I will not see until I reach heaven.

There is no comparison between losing a pet and losing my son.

It’s the difference between being hungry because you skipped lunch and starving to death because you don’t have access to food or water.

One is uncomfortable and the other is excruciating.

So, while I deeply appreciate your desire to empathize with me, please don’t try to stretch your limited experience with loss to include my own.

It hurts my heart and minimizes my pain.

There’s just no comparison.

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Death Is Awful

I have friends who have not only buried a child (some have buried more than one) but have also buried parents, siblings, in-laws and other people close to their hearts in a very short span of time.

And I am appalled when they recite the trite comments doled out by others meant to patch broken hearts and sweep the leftover pieces under the rug of social propriety.

Let me just say this:  Death.  Is.  Awful.

Full stop.  No easy change of subject or laughter allowed to make the hearing of it softer.

It should be hard.

It should make us pause.

We should stop in our tracks to acknowledge the passing of the breath of God from a person’s body.

Death is an unavoidable reminder that the world is not as God intended it to be.  It’s a reminder of the cost of sin.  It’s a reminder that our time is short.  And it’s a reminder that we are NOT in control.

Those are very uncomfortable truths.

My hope in Christ makes those truths bearable but it does not make facing the death of those I love hurt less.

A broken heart is a perfectly natural and reasonable response to the awfulness of death and to the absence of the presence of one I love. Great grief is the price of great love.  

There’s a scene in The Magician’s Nephew where a little boy named Digory meets Aslan. His mother is sick, and he wants to ask for Aslan’s help, but he’s afraid. Lewis writes:

Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself. “My son, my son,” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another.”

For those outside this great grief, it seems helpful to toss words like bandaids but it’s not.

I’m sure you mean well when you try to circumscribe my grief-to give limits to its expression and duration.

But unrealistic expectations make it more difficult to bear the burden I’m already carrying. Your words add to this weight of sorrow and pain that I cannot untie from my bent back.

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Presence-often SILENT presence-is the balm for my wounded soul.

But please: Don’t say it’s not really so bad. Because it is. Death is awful, demonic. If you think your task as comforter is to tell me that really, all things considered, it’s not so bad, you do not sit with me in my grief but place yourself off in the distance away from me. Over there, you are of no help. What I need to hear from you is that you recognize how painful it is. I need to hear from you that you are with me in my desperation. To comfort me, you have to come close. Come sit beside me on my mourning bench.

~Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

 

Rearview Mirror

I talk about Dominic “running ahead” but it feels like I‘m leaving him behind.

I know he’s the first to Heaven and I know I’ll join him, but my daily experience is that I am the one moving forward and he is the one stuck somewhere, unable to catch up.

I absolutely HATE that his footprint on my life grows smaller with each passing day, each new memory made without him, each event at which his smiling face makes no entrance.

I can’t stop the accumulation of bits and pieces that make it harder to spot his unique contribution to the collage of my life.

I am in no danger of forgetting him.

That’s not what I fear.

But bringing what he still is to me into a conversation, into view for others to see and appreciate is getting more difficult.

When I mention him, people don’t know whether to be sad or happy, question my sanity or rush past hoping I’ll change the subject.

There’s just no natural seque between the living and the dead.

And it hurts my heart to watch the gap grow wider.

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Can’t Fake It Forever

There’s a common bit of advice in grief circles:  Fake it until you make it.

It’s not bad as far as it goes and can be pretty useful-especially just after the initial loss and activity surrounding it.

Like when I met the acquaintance in the grocery store a month after burying Dominic and she grabbed me with a giant smile on her face, “How ARE you?!!! It’s SO good to see you out!!!”

I just smiled and stood there as if I appreciated her interest, a deer caught in headlights, silently praying she’d live up to her talkative past and soon move on to another target.

Faked it.

Boom!

BUT there comes a time when faking it is not helpful.  In fact, it’s downright dangerous.

Because if I fake it long enough and get good enough at it, I can convince myself that I have done the work grief requires.

Grief will not be ignored forever.

It bubbles up in physical symptoms and sleepless nights. It boils over in anger and impatience and anxiety and nervous habits.

There is no way through but through.  It has to be faced head on.

Life circumstances kept me distracted and busy for the first four or five months after Dominic ran ahead to heaven.

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I cried, screamed and was heartbroken-I definitely had my moments. But for the most part I functioned at a pretty high level.

It wasn’t until things slowed down that I had my come apart. And it caught me by surprise.

I was forced to sit in silence and face the feelings.  I was compelled to hear my heart shatter-over and over again.

I’ve now had 33 months of this burden of sorrow.  Almost three years to think about, work on and pray through the pain.  

I’m learning to pay attention to my own heartbeat, to my body, to my triggers, to my joy-bringers, my joy-stealers and my limitations.  I’m beginning to accept the bellycrawl progress through this tunnel of darkness by focusing on the bright light at the end.  

I still fake it sometimes-it’s not worth it to me to get into a long conversation with that person I only see every year or so.  Too much time, too much energy and too little reward.

But I’m learning to be more genuine with the people that matter most.  I’m learning to be honest about how I feel, what I need and how much I can do.

And I refuse to allow busyness to creep up on me so that I don’t have the time and energy to continue doing the work grief requires.  

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Repost: Not What I Had Planned

Every time the headlines scream death and destruction, my heart stops.  

When it’s YOUR child, husband, mother, cousin you can’t change the channel or route the conversation to lighter topics.

You just have to bear it.  

Read the rest here:  Not What I Had Planned