Tag: Dominic

Struggling With Sleepless Nights

I first shared this post about a year ago.

I was planning my daughter’s wedding and juggling a number of other pressing responsibilities. I managed to keep my composure most days when talking with caterers, family members and vendors but all that pent up stress kept me from falling asleep when I finally put my head down at night.

I had just begun to settle back into a decent sleep pattern when my mother suffered a stroke and died a few days later in September.

That threw me right back into the sleepless cycle that plagued me for years after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven in 2014. I couldn’t fall asleep or when I fell asleep I couldn’t stay asleep. What sleep I managed to get was filled with terrible and terribly vivid dreams.

I’m not sure I will ever enjoy the blissfully ignorant and pleasant slumber I knew as a young girl.

My heart won’t let me.

❤

For the first couple of weeks after Dominic left us, I couldn’t fall asleep.  

It was impossible to close my eyes without a dozen awful scenes flashing behind the lids. 

Silent darkness was not my friend. 

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/05/02/sleepless-nights/

An Open Letter To My Fellow Sisters In Loss On International Bereaved Mother’s Day

Dear Mama,

I know that you never-in your wildest imagination-thought that you would need a day set aside for your broken heart and your empty arms.  

Who thinks when they learn a new life is growing inside that this same life might be cut short?  What heart is brave enough to consider the possibility? 

Yet here you are.  

I’m so, so sorry.  

But there are a few things I want you to know.  There are some important truths to remember on this broken road-truths that can help you hold onto hope and finish strong.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/05/06/international-bereaved-mothers-day-an-open-letter-to-my-fellow-sisters-in-loss/

International Bereaved Mother’s Day 2020

International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States. This year it’s tomorrow, May 1, 2022

I didn’t even know such a day existed until I was a mom that needed it.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/05/06/international-bereaved-mothers-day/

In The Blink Of An Eye


It’s just not comforting for my heart to think my son is looking down on me from Heaven.

I can’t reconcile the idea that he might be watching my sorrow with what the Bible says about Heaven being a place of joy and peace.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/05/01/blink-of-an-eye/

Future Denied

I read A GRIEF OBSERVED in my 30’s as another in a long list of “Books You Should Read”.  I gleaned a bit here or there that I thought might be of use later on.

But when Dominic ran ahead to heaven, it was the first book on grief I bought for myself and I read it like a starving man set down to a full table.  

This passage, in particular, was helpful in understanding how my absolute trust in the FACT of ultimate redemption of my pain and sorrow did absolutely NOTHING to take away the pain and sorrow-it only made it bearable.

If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her. But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild.

C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/04/29/wisdom-from-c-s-lewis/

My Story Scares You. I Know Why.


At first all I could feel was pain.

Pain of abandonment, of being misunderstood, of being pushed to the outside edges of groups that used to welcome me with open arms.

But as time passed, I began to understand.

My story scares you.  You are utterly afraid that if child loss can happen to ME, it can happen to YOU.

You’re right.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/25/i-know-why-my-story-scares-you/

Is There A Cure For Our Broken Hearts?

Healing and curing are not the same thing.

Healing is a process that takes as long as it takes and may never be complete this side of eternity.  It’s a folding in of the hard parts of my story, an acknowledgement of the way I am changed because of the wounds I’ve received.  It involves scar tissue and sore spots and ongoing pain.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/04/08/healing-curing-same-thing/

Only Twenty-four Hours


I remember the first summer after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

The days stretched interminably before me. I woke with a sigh and not a few tears as I realized I had to wait out another cycle of the sun before sleep (if it came!) would grant respite from the memories, the feelings, the ache in my heart.

Sometimes it was nearly unbearable.

But then I had a moment when I realized no day lasts forever. No matter how hard, no matter how long it seemed, it would end.

Even the worst day of my life only lasted twenty-four hours.

I had survived THAT day. I could survive any day.

❤

I don’t know just when I figured it out, but somewhere in this Valley it dawned on me-NO day lasts forever.

Many feel like they do.  

The day I got the news stretched impossibly long in front of me as calls were made and people came to be wtih us.

But even THAT day ended. 

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/04/22/twenty-four-hours/

Selectively Social, Not Anti-Social

It’s kind of odd to see most of the world suddenly forced to embrace a lifestyle I’ve followed for the past six years.

While I’ve always been an introvert, I was not nearly the homebody I’ve become since my son ran ahead to heaven.

Now staying in, carefully planning social events and obligations, leaving a few days between high-energy gatherings and just generally pacing myself is the norm.

I’m truly not anti-social. I love my people. I love seeing them and talking to them.

But since there’s only so much energy to go around I AM selectively social.

❤

Grief changes lots of things.  

I am simply not able to spend energy on frivolous and marginally meaningful social activities anymore. 

I’m sure that hurts some folks feelings and I am truly sorry.

But I can’t help it.  

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/04/22/not-anti-social-just-selectively-social/

A Thousand Fragments

We buried the earthly remains of my son six years ago today.

I still have no idea how I walked away from that deep pit where his body would be lowered never to see daylight again.

But I did.

Western society doesn’t like to acknowledge the horror of death. We don’t like to be too dramatic, cry too loudly, wail and weep throwing our bodies over a casket.

But maybe we should.

Why can’t we have a dramatic outburst at the edge of death that burns an unforgettable image in the hearts and minds of those who join us to say good-bye?

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/04/12/fragments/