Dominic – Page 194 – thelifeididntchoose

Not a State But a Process

C. S. Lewis gave voice to so much of human experience in ways that help us understand ourselves and one another.

His book, Mere Christianity, began as a series of radio talks that were later compiled, published and sold millions and millions of copies.

I think Lewis managed to use a conversational, inviting voice in all his works.

When I read them I feel like I’m chatting with a friend (granted, an extremely erudite friend!). He and I are discussing a thing, reasoning through it together.

He’s not teaching me something, he’s guiding me to learn it for myself.

When he experienced the loss of his beloved wife, this giant of the faith struggled like all us mortals. His grief journal was eventually published as the book, A Grief Observed, and has helped many of us who sorrow describe our feelings and find our way.

I particularly love this quote:

I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process … There is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape … Not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago.
~C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Lewis understood that grief was not a state which could be changed like ice to water through the application of heat.

There is no quick fix for a broken heart. No remedy for missing someone you love.

Instead, grief is a process.

It’s a lifelong journey of remaking a relationship that can no longer depend on physical presence and new memories. It circles back again and again, asking the same questions, sometimes finding new answers but often having to settle for the old ones.

It’s almost five years since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven and while I have forged new paths in that time, much of my travel has been over well-worn ruts that bring me to the same watering holes.

I’m often surprised that life after loss is not linear at all.

I do feel (as I’ve shared before) that the circles progress ever upward.

I’m not standing still.

But I’m not free to escape the valley.

Repost: “Don’t Dwell On That!

Why is it “dwelling” in one instance and “remembering” in another?

Who gets to decide whether I’m taking out a cherished memory, holding it, stroking it and reliving it because it’s all I have left or I’m clutching the past, refusing to let go?

I will be the first to admit that mulling over past offenses is probably the last thing I need to do. Especially if I’m trying to forgive them. That’s not helpful nor is it healthy.

But there’s a difference between THAT kind of thinking and the kind of thinking every bereaved parent does about his or her missing child.

Read the rest here: “Don’t Dwell on That!”

I Don’t Want To Remember My Son

I don’t want to remember my son.

I want to make memories with him.

I want him to watch me grow old, to watch him get married and have children and to hear his voice mingled with his siblings at my table.

I’ve tried dozens of times to write a post that describes the abyss that divides the life I thought I would live and what it’s turned out to be.

I can’t do it.

A twenty-three year old isn’t planning his legacy. A mom of a twenty-three year old isn’t carefully preserving daily moments in the event he suddenly disappears.

Whatever legacy Dominic has left behind is a function of his huge personality rather than careful planning. And all I have left of his life are bits and pieces I’m trying to string together so he’s not forgotten.

I was not prepared to wake up one morning and learn that his earthly story ended.

I didn’t get to say good-bye, didn’t get to look him in the eye and tell him how very much I love him, didn’t even get to hold his hand as he left this life and entered Heaven.

I know he is just fine. He’s full of joy and perfectly content.

But I’m not.

I don’t want Dominic to be a memory.

I want him to be here.

Repost: Just Plain Hard

I wrote this last year about this time but it suits me this year too.

So many big stressors combined with dozens of small ones have me begging God for relief. The end is not in sight but I DO know how the story ends.

If I can hold onto hope -which I manage to do most days-and make space for my heart on the days I just can’t, it will be alright.

Maybe not soon and certainly not in this lifetime. But it WILL be alright. ❤

Today is full of tears.

No real reason-other than the obvious one-but so many things coming together to remind me this life is hard, hard, hard.

I find on this side of burying Dominic that when two or three other stressful events pile one atop the other I crumble. Sometimes it’s other family members doing the best they can to muddle through and sometimes it’s physical pain or disappointment or the random “ya-ya” stuff of life in community with other people Whatever it is, the weight-in addition to grief-just absolutely overwhelms me.

I used to be stronger.

Or at least I thought I was stronger.

Read the rest here: Just Plain Hard

Meltdown

One of the blessings (although I didn’t realize it at the time) of the early days of this journey was the immediacy of my response to triggers.

Something would upset me and I would react right away.

Nearly five years in and I’ve developed such excellent coping skills that I am rarely caught off guard, cry in public or respond dramatically regardless of what happens.

So this past couple weeks of on again/off again stress has been met, for the most part, with a calm demeanor and a “can do” attitude.

But it caught up to me last night.

All the pent-up, piled-up stress and grief poured out of my heart and dripped down my face.

I had a good, old-fashioned meltdown.

Smack dab in the middle of overwhelming thankfulness that my grandson is doing well, my heart reminded me that Dominic is not here the enjoy it. I remembered that Ryker will grow up and never see Dom’s amazing dexterity on the drums or hear his witty remarks or be caught up in his powerful hands and held overhead until he squeals to be released.

And I realized once again that while I love, love, love the blessings God sends my way, there’s no cosmic scale where those blessings eventually counter-balance the desperate longing I have for my son.

I have so appreciated the messages from other bereaved parents who “get it”. They know that I am absolutely overjoyed my son and his wife are spared the horror of child loss. But they also know that my mama heart still yearns for my own son even while rejoicing in the birth of theirs.

I’ll be OK.

A few tears, a quiet evening, reflection on truth and my heart will manage to find a way.

Repost: It’s Been YEARS, When Should I Mention My Missing Child?

This came up in a bereaved parents’ support group and I thought it was a great question: “When you meet someone for the first time, do you tell them about your missing child?”

It’s one of those practical life skills bereaved parents have to figure out.

I remember when it dawned on me a few months after Dominic left us that I would meet people who wouldn’t know he was part of my story unless I told them.

It was a devastating thought.

I had no idea how I would face the first time it happened.

Read the rest here: It’s Been YEARS, When Should I Mention My Missing Child?

Repost: Breathe In. Breathe Out. Repeat.

Almost four years and I still have those moments.

I know from other grieving mamas that I always will.

But sometimes they catch me by surprise.

Motoring home from Walmart, a campaign sign catches my eye. The candidate is young and running for District Judge in our county. That could have been Dominic.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.

Read the rest here: Breathe In. Breathe Out. Repeat.

Child Loss and SAD: Seasonal Affective Disorder

Most people are familiar with SAD-Seasonal Affective Disorder-a cluster of symptoms mimicking depression that develop in otherwise healthy folks when the shorter days and longer nights of winter limit sunshine exposure.

Fewer folks know that nearly every bereaved parent has his or her own version of SAD which has nothing to do with daylight/darkness cycles and everything to do with the calendar.

For me, it starts in February and runs through May.

The last time all my children were together was mid-February 2014 as we celebrated the youngest’s birthday. I remember sitting outside on the unusually warm day and chatting about random things. There were two upcoming graduations and my oldest son’s wedding.

Someone said, “Hey, we should get a picture.” Someone else said, “Nah-we’ll be making lots of pictures this spring.”

So we didn’t take one.

Every year that’s the day my heart marks the beginning of the end.

The beginning of a march toward the most awful thing that has ever happened to our family.

Then there’s the day Dominic came out to the farm to fix a friend’s car. They needed the tools and shed to do the job. We joked and talked and shared a meal.

Then I hugged him and he went on his way.

That grease-stained jacket is still hanging on a peg in the downstairs bathroom.

Spring Break. I thought I’d see him again before classes resumed but a trip that lasted a day longer than it was going to meant he drove directly to his apartment. So a couple of weeks passed before he was able to plan another weekend trek out to the house.

I had just exchanged a series of messages with him, sharing photos of the heavy rains that ran our creek out of the banks and almost into the elevated roadway.

We ended our texts with “I love you. See you Saturday!”

My heart still accuses me for neglecting the days between the last time I saw Dominic and the last time he drew breath. If I had known then what I know now…

But we don’t, do we?

So on my season goes.

From February and all the “lasts” to April twelfth and the devastating news that my son would never come home again.

Then my heart marks the funeral, cleaning out his apartment and the first family celebration of which one of my children was not a part.

A few weeks later is Dominic’s birthday on May twenty-eighth when he doesn’t get any older but I get further away from the last time I hugged his neck.

A long sad season indeed.

Every parent who is missing a child has their own. A time when he or she wishes the world would both stop to take notice and spin faster to make the days pass.

My heart and body respond even if my mind tries to pretend these weeks are really no different than the rest of the year.

My son is still missing.

My heart is still yearning.

This is still the life I didn’t choose.

Background Music

Another bereaved mom wrote that she was better able to cope now than she had been a year ago.

And thanks to Facebook memories she had proof.

Several comments down a second mom wrote something that got me thinking-when, exactly, did Dominic’s loss move from the forefront to the background?

I’m not sure I can pinpoint a day or moment when I realized that sorrow was no longer ALL I feel and Dominic’s absence no longer ALL I see.

I remember when more experienced loss moms posted and talked about grief being gentler and quieter I thought that they were out of their minds.

How in the world would this breath-robbing, heart-stopping, crippling pain ever be anything close to “gentle”?

How could the pulsating, blasting, all-consuming noise of loss become softer?

In the first days, months and even years, everything about loss was so loud it was all I could hear.

Rock concert, standing-next-to-the-giant-speakers-loud.

So loud it shook my body and made me want to cover my ears. There was no way to block the sound, no silent corner where I could retreat and hide. Just relentless pounding noise and pain.

But little by little, in imperceptible increments the volume decreased.

Now, missing Dominic is the background music to everything. A quiet tune I hum in my head that keeps me company all day and invades my dreams at night.

If I take a moment and pay attention or when other things quiet down, it moves again to the forefront.

My head and heart are never free of the music Dominic brings to my life. He is the soundtrack to my days, the lullaby as I fall asleep.

No longer an ear-piercing scream demanding attention, grief is now mostly a quiet song in a minor key.

Never silent.

Always playing.

Repost: “Why Am I Robbed, And Who Is Benefited?” Mark Twain on Child Loss

I only recently came across this quote by Mark Twain.

It’s from a letter he wrote to a close friend after his favorite daughter, Susy, aged 24, died of meningitis while her parents were abroad.

It is heartbreaking and utterly perfect.

Read the rest here: “Why Am I Robbed, And Who is Benefited?” Mark Twain on Child Loss

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: