Tag: Dominic

Unafraid

I’ve never been really big on fear.

I jumped from the high dive at three years old-that belly flop hurt but I survived and it fueled my adventurous spirit.

I rode horses other people didn’t like-was bucked off a time or two but no broken bones so that didn’t slow me down.

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My dad had an open cockpit biplane and we flew aerobatics over Colorado Springs-fanny pack parachute strapped to my butt “just in case”-upside down and round and round. We never needed to jump and landed safely every time.

great lakes biplane

Never been afraid of speaking in public.

Never been afraid of strangers.

Never been afraid of heights.

UNTIL.

Until I had children and then I was afraid of nearly EVERYTHING for them.

I didn’t want any harm to befall these tiny humans carrying my heart outside my body.  I wanted to protect them, to cushion them, to wrap them in a bubble so that nothing bad ever happened to them.

As they grew, I learned to let go- a little at a time.  I learned you can’t prevent the scrapes and bruises and heartaches and disappointments of life.  And I learned that a little “harm” made them stronger.

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I forgot most of my fears and was again unafraid.

UNTIL Dominic was killed.

And all the old fears came rushing back.  I wanted to lock my surviving children in a room and slip food under the door.  I HAD to keep them safe.

Only I can’t.  It is not possible for me to keep. them. safe.

All I could possibly do is make them afraid.  I could make them afraid of choosing their hearts’ desires in an attempt to prevent more pain for mine.

I won’t do that.

I will not allow part of Dominic’s legacy to be that our family lives afraid.

NO.

I choose to release my children to make the best choices they can and to live boldly and unafraid.

 

Repost: What Grieving Parents Want Others to Know

This was one of the first posts I wrote.  It hadn’t been long since I was introduced to an online community of bereaved parents and began to see that I wasn’t the only one who had friends and family that misunderstood child loss.

I was spending a lot of time in my life trying to help others comprehend, just a little, what it felt like to bury a child.

Trying to give them a tiny taste of how this pain is so, so different than any other I had experienced.  Begging them to toss the popular ideas bandied around that grief followed “stages” and was “predictable”.

I re-share every so often because it seems to help, a little.  ❤

People say, “I can’t imagine.“

But then they do.

They think that missing a dead child is like missing your kid at college or on the mission field but harder and longer.

That’s not it at all.

It isn’t nostalgia for a time when things were different or better or you talked more: it’s a gut-wrenching, breath-robbing, knee-buckling, aching groan that lives inside you begging to be released.

Read the rest here:  What Grieving Parents Want Others to Know

Resisting Fear, Embracing Love

In my grief and sorrow it is tempting to dig a moat, draw up the bridge to my heart and wait out life like I am under siege.

But that would be wasting this pain and I won’t do that.

I won’t dishonor Dominic and dishonor Jesus by refusing to love.

fear is the opposite of love brene brown

Just a few days after Dominic ran ahead to heaven,  my youngest son wrote this:

“If you are surrounded by life you will be surrounded by death, if you feel love you will also feel pain. But never let the fear of death or pain rob you of the joy of LIFE and LOVE.”

Fear is a thief.

It sneaks in and can rule my heart before I even know it.

I will not bar the door to love, but I will barricade it against fear.

I refuse to let fear win.

fear does not prevent death it prevents life

Repost: Unnatural

All the fears I thought I knew

All the what-ifs I pondered during inky nights-

None of them-none. of. them. prepared me for this reality.

Read the rest here:  Unnatural

There’s No Place Like Home

Dominic’s Heaven Day fell right in the middle of Holy Week this year-Wednesday, April 12th marked three years since he entered Heaven and left us here.

And every day since then I’ve been homesick.  Homesick for what I used to know and homesick for what I know awaits me when I join him there.

IMG_1795I can’t say that I handled this awful anniversary any better than the previous two but I did handle it differently.  This year I was determined to create space for both mourning and dancing.

I cried a lot from Palm Sunday through his Heaven Day and into Resurrection Sunday morning.  I found new wounds that needed attention and realized some old ones weren’t as patched up as I thought.

It was costly in terms of personal and relational energy but for the first time since Dom ran ahead to heaven, I was able to reclaim a holiday gathering.

And it was beautiful.

photo (40)I missed him, of course, but things flowed and people loved one another and ministry happened and laughs floated through the air.

Everyone left with extra food and smiles on their faces.

This used to be my house every holiday, almost every Sunday.  It hasn’t been that way since Dom left.

But for a few hours it felt like home again.

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Repost: Resurrection: Reality and Reassurance

“The worst conceivable thing has happened, and it has been mended…All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” ~Julian of Norwich

I’m not sure when I first read this quote, but it came to my mind that awful morning.   And I played it over and over in my head, reassuring my broken heart that indeed, the worst had already happened, and been mended.

Read the rest here:  Resurrection: Reality and Reassurance

Repost: Remember: Why Good Friday Matters as Much as Resurrection Sunday

“On the one hand Death is the triumph of Satan, the punishment of the Fall, and the last enemy. Christ shed tears at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane: the Life of Lives that was in Him detested this penal obscenity not less than we do, but more.
On the other hand, only he who loses his life will save it. We are baptized into the death of Christ, and it is the remedy for the Fall. Death is, in fact, what some modern people call “ambivalent.” It is Satan’s great weapon and also God’s great weapon: it is holy and unholy; our supreme disgrace and our only hope; the thing Christ came to conquer and the means by which He conquered.”  C.S. Lewis,  Miracles

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.

Read the rest here:  Remember: Why Good Friday Matters as Much as Resurrection Sunday

Fragments

I recently heard  a young woman describe a Chinese grieving ritual on an NPR broadcast:

At her grandfather’s funeral, his oldest son was tasked with demonstrating the depth of grief and pain the father’s passing left behind. He stood before the casket, raised a clay bowl above his head and smashed it to the ground while loudly wailing.

The bowl was shattered into fragments too small and too fragile to be put back together in any semblance of what they once represented.

broken bowl

When I heard the story, my heart cried, “YES!!”

Why can’t we do something like that?  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?

I honestly wouldn’t change a thing about Dominic’s Homegoing Service –except for it to be unnecessary.

We had a beautiful video full of photographs provided by friends and family. There were praise songs chosen to remind us of the brevity of life and the eternal hope we have in Jesus.

He was placed under a giant Tree of Life that had been constructed in the sanctuary as part of the Palm Sunday/Easter celebrations of that week. Even as we planned the service I remember thinking, “Only a DeSimone could leave earth when some wild thing like this was available to mark his passing!”  

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And our Pastor/Shepherd/Friend who had spent many quality hours with our children gave the message.  The sanctuary was filled with people from all walks of life, all faith traditions and all ages-many hearing the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus for the first time.

It was as good as it could have been.

But if I could go back-I’d add this element:

I would raise a clay bowl over my head as high as I could and I would smash it with a loud wail.

Because in the end, that’s what child loss does to a mama’s heart.  It shatters it into pieces so tiny and so fragile that simply to gather them into a pile takes oh, so much time.

And the pieces never fit again.  They never make a whole.  There are always gaps and the vessel remains fragile and easily broken.

I am still gathering pieces.  

Still looking for the ones that slid under this edge out of sight or got kicked farther away than I thought they could be.

I’m placing the ones I recognize back into what seems the proper setting.

I’m finding some that look like they don’t belong anywhere and will have to wait to see if I ever figure out where they should go.

I’m beginning to look more and more like I’m whole.  

And in some ways, I am.  But in many ways it is an illusion-a trick of the eye-a turning of the ugly broken toward the wall where you can’t see it.

I’m still missing so, so much.

dickens quote rainbow

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: More Time

The other day I needed to get something in the room where we have Dominic’s things stored-not the boxed-up-not-dealing-with-them-now things-but the personal things that bear his scent, his mark, his personality.

And the warm spring air had concentrated the odor that is him just behind the doorway.  It caught me by surprise-that I could still smell him, still feel his presence, still be so certain that he had just passed by this very spot.

My mama heart cried, “More time!”

Read the rest here:  More Time