Tag: Dominic

My Sixth Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother

When it first happened all I could think about was getting through a minute, then a day and then all the decisions and days leading up to a funeral or memorial service.  

There’s no road map.  

Even when others come alongside (and many, many did!) there’s just no easy way to navigate that part of the journey.

And then I realized that in addition to all the “regular” days that absolutely, positively  break your heart, I had to forge a path through “special” days.

It was overwhelming!

Mother’s Day was especially challenging that first year.  Our loss was fresh and we’d had to acknowledge and celebrate two graduations and a wedding was about a month away.  How in the world could I honor my living children and also safeguard my broken heart?

We muddled through by having Mother’s Day at my daughter’s apartment co-hosted by some of her sweetest and most compassionate friends.  Not a lot of fanfare, but good food, good company and a quiet acknowledgment of Dom’s absence but also my living children’s presence.

It was a gift. 

This is my sixth Mother’s Day.  Every year is different.  Every year presents new challenges and every year things change.  

Since discovering there is an International Bereaved Mother’s Day my heart has taken advantage of having a day to think about and honor Dominic and then another day to think about and honor my living children.

That helps.  

I wrote this post three years ago but can’t really improve on it so I’ll share it again.  I pray that each heart who finds Mother’s Day hard will lean in and take hold of the hem of His garment. 

It’s really the only way.  

Read the rest here:  Mother’s Day as a Bereaved Mother

 

Child Loss by Addiction

We talk about a lot of things as if they didn’t reflect a real person and a real life.  

Addiction is one of them.  And let me just tell you, every single number is a life and behind every single life is a family.  

Statistics are easy to toss around until one of those numbers represents YOUR child.

My son was killed in a single-vehicle motorcycle accident.  One of the 76 individuals who died on a motorcycle in Alabama in 2014.  If you look it up, you’ll find tables printed with clean edges and comparative data one year to the next.

But if you look at me-and hold up a photo from BEFORE-you’ll see grief etched into a mama’s face that can’t be measured, sifted or weighed.  

My son was not an addict.  He was a health nut.  But he liked his motorcycle and never saw the contradiction between spending hours at the gym then putting that beautiful body on a fast moving, unprotected engine-on-wheels.  A helmet was not enough to save him that night.  

Addicts don’t start out wanting the life so many of them end up living.  They take a puff or a pill or a drink and think it’s all in fun.  They have no way to know that the one moment of weakness or even purposeful exploration may result in a lifetime of struggle.

Once caught in the cycle of craving and crawling out and caving again they may or may not eventually find the light.  They may or may not become sober for the rest of their days.  They may or may not have the inner strength, the outside support, the medical intervention and inpatient treatment they need to conquer this demon.

And it is a demon.  

Addiction is never a choice even when the first indulgence into drugs or alcohol is.  

no idea of the battle addiction quote

Parents living with addicted children do everything they can to guide them to help.  They try tough love, abundant grace, boundaries, threats and rewards.  Some even move their families to try to escape habitual influences on their child-hoping against hope that a new place and new friends will create a safe space where addiction can’t flourish.

It rarely works.  In the end, addiction takes too many of our children.  Addiction kills.

And the wreckage left the other side of those deaths is enormous.  It’s messy and ugly and hard to sort through.  

The one thing NO parent of an addicted child needs is someone else’s misguided advice on how they could have “saved” his or her child.  They don’t need quips about “seeing it coming”.  They don’t need anyone to heap shame on them because of the choices their child made and the disease that robbed them of choice in the end.

So when we talk about addiction and numbers and treatment and responsibility and especially death, we need to remember that every single statistic is a person. 

Every single person has a family.

And that family is devastated.  

Speak gently.  Extend grace.  Offer love.  

They already know shame.  

shame for being human

International Bereaved Mother’s Day 2019

International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States.  This year it’s tomorrow, May 5, 2019.

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

Read the rest here:  International Bereaved Mother’s Day

Sleepless Nights

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.  

Eventually exhaustion won and I could fall asleep but couldn’t stay asleep.  Two or three hours in and my body had just enough rest to shake slumber and force my heart to face another day (even if the sun wasn’t up yet).

Somewhere around year three I finally settled into a pretty regular pattern of between five and six hours of solid sleep.  

back-to-sleep

But for the past several months I’ve lost the rhythm and am once again struggling.

Lots of changes, lots of stress, lots of physical discomfort and lots of lists floating in my head have landed me back in sleepless territory.

to do list

I wish there was a switch I could flip that made it easy to fall and stay asleep.  I wish there was a way to stop stray thoughts from invading my consciousness and my dreams.  I wish I could have a solid week of solid sleep.

I know it would make everything so much easier to manage.

I’d be calmer, more focused, more energetic and more optimistic.

But it’s a vicious cycle.  

I’m hoping long days of hard work in the summer sun will shift my body back to a better rhythm.  

Maybe. 

Eventually.  

sands of time

 

 

 

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.  

But I do love the idea that he’s outside time and so isn’t “waiting” on reunion the same way I am. 

No matter how many years it may be, it will be only a “blink of an eye” for him.  ❤

Blink of an eye heaven

I Didn’t Cry, But Then I Did

This past weekend was an emotional one.

My deployed son began his trek back home to his wife and newborn son.

My youngest son went on the bachelor trip with his soon to be brother-in-law and was incommunicado for almost 72  hours which always makes me nervous.

My daughter’s wedding is only a few weeks away and there is so much to do. Fun things.  Things I want to do.

My companion animal and faithful sidekick died two weeks ago and I haven’t been sleeping nearly as well as I did before

It was the fifth anniversary of Dominic’s death and funeral.

I didn’t cry, but then I did. 

And I couldn’t stop. 

I just couldn’t stop.

How in the world can it be five years?  I can’t explain it to anyone who hasn’t buried a child. But I keep trying.  The giant chasm between what I thought life would be like and what it actually turned out to be is so wide that it’s impossible to comprehend.  I’m living it and I can’t comprehend it.

dom on mountaintop

I am trying so, so hard to participate.

I’m working at keeping grief at bay and leaning into the life I have without constantly comparing it to the life I thought I would have or the life I wanted instead.  I’m purposing to keep my expectations low so I won’t be disappointed.

But it’s not working.

I think I’m just at the end of my personal resources.  I think I’ve exhausted any reserve I might have had.  I’m leaning into Truth and holding onto the hem of His garment.

I know it won’t always be this way.  

The tears will dry up.  They always do.  

Tomorrow is a new day.  

finish each day and be done with it emerson

 

 

 

 

 

You Can’t Hold It In, So Let It Out

We CAN hold some of it in.

For awhile.

In certain circumstances.

And barring additional stress.

But not forever.

your-story-could-be-the-key

So let it out.

Speak your truth and tell your story.

If others don’t understand or turn away or give you the evil eye, ignore them.

This isn’t their story-to tell or to live.

It’s yours.

owning-our-story-and-loving-ourselves-through-the-process

 

Please Don’t Ask My Kids How I Am Doing

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.

Life for us is no different than life for you except every decision, every event, every single thing requires more effort and energy because we carry the additional burden of death and loss.

It’s easy to assume children and young people-even adults in their 20’s and 30’s-are somehow more resilient than they really might be. 

They are often in seasons of activity that serve as cover for deeper, more difficult feelings.  Many beautiful celebrations typically mark these years.  Graduations, weddings, births are wonderful!   But they are complicated for grieving siblings as well as grieving parents.

So be a friend to my kids.  Love them.  Celebrate them.  

And please, please, please treat them as fellow grievers and not simply bystanders to their parents’ grief.

If you want to know about me, just ask.  

Me. 

Not them.  

Five Years of Faithfulness

For my fellow Christ followers, my early morning post may have been a disappointment.  

We’re all schooled in the “right” things to say in the midst of a trial, aren’t we?  

“God is good!”  

“I know the end of the story!”

“Death doesn’t have the last word!”

And on, and on, and on….

True. Every single one of them.  

And yet…

If we are honest (and often we are not, because spiritual honesty is absolutely underrated in the church) we will also have to admit that KNOWING all those things doesn’t minimize pain.

It only makes it tolerable.  

But I don’t want leave anyone doubting for one minute that God has been faithful these past five years. 

He most certainly HAS.  

He has been a silent Source of hope and strength and breath and grace.  He has lifted my head when I couldn’t do it myself.  He has sent His faithful flock to minister to my needs and the needs of my family.  He has held me when I would have let go.

I have wrestled and questioned and even shouted but I’ve never, ever doubted He was here.  

faith does not eliminate questions but faith knows wehre to take them

I wish I could tell you that there was some super-spiritual moment when He assured me of Dominic’s safety in Heaven, but there hasn’t been.  

I wish I could tell you of a morning when His love and assurance and Presence washed over me to take away the angst, but I can’t.  

What I can say is that the Word I hid in my heart before this awful pain was also lodged there has been enough.  That deep well of living water has been more than adequate to quench my thirsty soul.  The torch of truth has been sufficient light along even this black-as-night path.

walk by faith feet on path

My faith is still just that-faith.  

I don’t have special revelation nor an extra dose of grace.  

I’m just following my Shepherd, trusting that He will lead me Home.  

jesus the shepherd the i am

How Can It Be Five Years??!!

We all experience it from time to time-that moment when your head comprehends that life has kept going but your heart refuses to keep pace.  

So today, I’m looking at a calendar that assures me it has been five years since that deputy knocked on my door. 

It’s a fact.  

My heart says, “It cannot be true.  It cannot be that long since I saw my living, breathing son cross the threshold of our family home.  It cannot be that long since I made the phone calls that still echo in my ears.  It can. not. possibly. be. that. long.”

And yet it is.  

If folks ask me how I’m doing, how my family is doing, I usually say we are OK.

Because, all things considered, we ARE. 

beach-and-family-better

None of us find daily life unmanageable.  None of us have fallen prey to addiction or unhealthy coping mechanisms.  None of us sit inside all day, moping and mourning the loss of a life we couldn’t hold onto even if we had seen it slipping away in time to take a firmer grip.

But we are absolutely, utterly, profoundly CHANGED.  

I often think back to old Star Trek episodes that showed crew members transporting to the surface of an unknown planet.  Their bodies were broken down into the tiniest component molecules and reassembled somewhere else.

I think that’s what this life is like. 

We’ve all been disassembled and reassembled. 

But instead of everything falling back into place, there are missing bits here and there, gaps too small for others to see but very, very real to us.  Connections lost.  Memories without proper context.

dont recognize myself without one of my sons

Feelings floating free of any anchor, bubbling up at the most inconvenient moments.  

And we all just plain MISS HIM.

We miss Hector Dominic DeSimone and who he is, what he brought to the table and car rides and family gatherings.

We miss who we were before we knew loss that burrows deep in your bones.  We miss the unmitigated joy and celebration we could toss around like confetti at the slightest provocation.

So today, unlike most days, we will give in to the sorrow.  We will remember that morning.  We won’t brush away the tears or the sad memories.  

He is worth every second and every heartache.

He is never forgotten.  

He is always, always on our minds.  

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