It would be easier, in a way, if it happened all at once.
If the vivid memories of his voice, his laugh, his body language, his sense of humor just disappeared-POOF!-now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. Then I could make a single adjustment.
But that’s not how it is. Instead, the living proof of his existence recedes like a wave from the shoreline, only there’s no returning surge to remind me of the force that was Dominic.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2016/04/18/slow-fade/
It may seem like the easiest way to get an inside scoop on how I’m REALLY doing-but don’t do it.
Please don’t ask my kids how I’m doing.
Respect the fact that they have their own grief burden. Respect family privacy and understand you are putting them in an impossible position.
If you want to know-to REALLY know-how I’m doing, ask me.
Read the rest here: Please Don’t Ask My Kids How I Am Doing
Child loss is not a single event.
Of course the moment when the last breath leaves a body is noted and duly recorded because the law requires such. I can pull out Dominic’s death certificate (what an ugly thing to have to say about my child!) and it reads: Time of Death: 1:10 a.m. April 12, 2014.
But I didn’t know about it until 4: 15 that morning when the deputy rang the bell.
So for me, his death came then.
Read the rest here: Child Loss is Not a Single Event
Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of Dominic running ahead to Heaven. I spent a portion of the day thinking about all the people who ministered to our family in those first days and weeks.
What a difference they made!
When our hearts were full of sorrow, they helped us bear the burden. When we couldn’t think straight and make important decisions they came alongside and guided us through. When the dark closed in around us, they held our hands and held a light.
If you want to know what to do when someone you love is thrust into a life they didn’t choose, show up.
You don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be present.
❤
This weekend another family joined the ranks of the bereaved.
A beloved son left for heaven in a car accident.
The mama’s best friend messaged to ask what she could do to help this newly broken heart.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/04/05/what-can-i-do-show-up/
I used to look at tombstones in cemeteries and do the math between the dates.
I was most focused on how long this person or that person walked the earth.
I still do that sometimes. But now I do something else as well.
I look to the left and the right to see if the person who ran ahead left parents behind. My eye is drawn to the solitary stones with the same last name next to a double monument clearly honoring a married pair.
And then I do a different kind of math.
Read the rest here: For You, a Moment; For Me, a Lifetime
I think this unprecedented season of fear and uncertainty is awakening more hearts to the hard task of suspenseful waiting.
The world longs for a cure or a vaccine or something to guarantee safety against this virus making its rounds and threatening us and those we love.
In the meantime there’s not one thing we can do to make it happen.
Many of us are hiding away in our homes. Some are praying fervently for provision, for safety, for guidance, for hope while others are simply passing time until whatever happens, happens.
I imagine it’s very much like what the disciples felt when they realized no miracle would deliver Jesus from death and they might well be next.
Holy Saturday, 2020
It is tempting to forget that there were three long days and nights between the crucifixion and the resurrection because the way we observe this season rushes us past the pain to embrace the promise.
But it’s not hard for me to imagine how the disciples felt when they saw Jesus was dead. It was neither what they expected nor what they prayed for.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2016/03/26/living-between-the-crucifixion-and-the-resurrection/
Death will always be terrible.
Easter Weekend seems to be the only time we can we crawl out of this uncomfortable skin, call a dark and deadly Friday “Good” and skip to the joy of Resurrection Sunday.
Real life doesn’t let you do that.
Real life means you have to walk through the trauma of Friday and the uncertainty of Saturday, perhaps believing but not yet seeing the hope of Sunday.
Don’t crawl out.
Don’t confuse crucifixion’s pain with resurrection’s joy. It is the weight of death that changes us.
Fiona DeSimone, my daughter
Bury a child and suddenly the death of Christ becomes oh, so personal. The image of Mary at the foot of the cross is too hard to bear.
I trusted Jesus at an early age and I have lived my life beneath the shadow of the wings of the Almighty God.
But I never-not really-grasped the horror of the crucifixion until I watched as my own son’s body was lowered in the ground.
Death. is. awful.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2016/03/25/10006/
In response to something I posted in a bereaved parents’ group a friend used the term “tangible absence” to describe what I was feeling.
She is so right.
When I imagine something I’ve never actually experienced-even when I might say “I miss such and such” it’s not the same as when I’ve had something and it’s been taken away.
I can only miss the imaginary in an ephemeral, insubstantial way. I miss what I once possessed in a tangible way.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/06/tangible-absence/
I’m finding it hard to write these days.
Not because I don’t have anything to say but because I can’t find ways to say it that might make sense to anyone else.
So much is jumbled up inside me, so much is wrapped around itself and I can’t find the end of the string to unravel it.
Ever since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven, writing has been my refuge. First in my journals and now in this space.
I depend on words on the page to tell me what I think and feel.
Lately my trusty tool has let me down.
I’m sure part of it is the abrupt end to silent days and virtually unlimited alone time since the coronavirus crisis upended my routine.
Now when I come in from my walk I’m greeted by my husband (a good thing!) instead of only cats. I spend more time making meals and cleaning up after them. I don’t have the quiet moments watching the sun sink down behind the trees and dark reclaim the living room as I peck away at my keyboard.
Part of it is the time of year.
Sunday will be six years since Dominic left us and each passing day brings me closer and closer to that milestone. I should be better at facing it by now.
But I’m not.
Last year my faithful companion animal died around this time too. His death didn’t hold a candle to the death of my son but any death-every death-pricks that deep wound and reminds me the world is not as it should be.
Last year’s Facebook post:
2:53 4/7/2019 ••UPDATE•• Roosevelt died in my arms without suffering. I am so thankful for the years I had with him. ❤️.
I’m holding my precious companion animal as he dies. I want him to know that he is loved and the last thing he feels to be my hand on his fur.
So today, breathing is enough.
2:53 April 7, 2019
And this year-well-this year death is the headline everywhere.
Actual death, impending death, anticipated death. Numbers, numbers, numbers that represent real people, real lives, real families left behind.
How my heart hurts!
I try to stay away from too much news, too much social media, too much of anything besides family and close friends.
I’m still up before sunrise and spend time reading, praying, researching, thinking, waiting to hear from my heart.
I wish the words would come.
I’m afraid if they don’t my heart will burst.
Dependable routine is one of my most important coping mechanisms.
I like slipping from one familiar chore to the next without thinking.
It keeps my mind busy in an effortless way that leaves little room for random thoughts, little space for grief-inducing memories to sneak in and trip me up.
Change is really not my friend.
Still, change is upon me (and millions of others!) because of this virus. So I’m doing the best I can to cope.
Instead of a house to myself, now my husband is working from home. Instead of quiet mornings alone, conference calls echo off the walls and follow me out open windows to the yard. Instead of before dark breakfast and early lunch with the kitchen closed by noon, I eat early, he eats later, I eat lunch and he eats supper. Kitchen open til eight.
None of those are things I can’t get used to.
After all, I’m blessed he’s here, has a job and we have not only enough to eat but a wide variety . I like cooking and love finding creative uses for leftovers.
What no one but me knows about all the change is this: I’m walking places I tend not to go-in the house, in the yard, down our paths-and every place I set my foot holds memories I’ve been avoiding.
When we moved an old pen a couple weeks ago for new chickens we found a rusty chain attached to its base. While my husband and son were digging it out to use again I was transported to the day Dominic moved the pen years ago with the tractor. It was just me and him and he was a little perturbed with me that I needed it moved. I saw him in my mind’s eye plain as day on the tractor. I could hear his baritone voice above the trusty thrum of the engine and picture him hopping down from the seat, unhooking the chain and driving off to park the tractor.
It was a flash. Here and gone in an instant. But the rest of the day I suffered from a grief hangover that I just couldn’t shake.
These are challenging days.
So much of the routine I depend on to guide me through has been shredded. So many of the habits I’ve developed over years are unavailable right now.
So I’m doing the best I can.
One day and one memory at a time.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Repeat.
thelifeididntchoose 