I wrote this last year because I realized that even three years (now it is four) after my son’s sudden departure, I was absolutely unwilling to wipe away the evidence that he had once been here.
I could not (cannot) bring myself to put his cup in the cupboard or in a shadow box or on a high shelf like a museum piece testifying to a long ago personality that is interesting but hardly pertinent today.
Because Dominic is STILL part of my life. Every. single. moment.
Just like my living children, his heart beats inside of mine.
Always.
That place where you hung your jacket, tossed your shoes, left your backpack-it’s still here.
Foolish, really, to hold space for someone who will never need it again.
But it belongs to YOU and leaving it bare means that it is still yours.
I remember as a young mother of four working hard to keep my kids safe.
Next to fed and dry (two still in diapers!) that was each day’s goal: No one got hurt.
It never occurred to me THEN to add: No one got killed.
Because the most outlandish thing I could imagine was one of them falling or touching a hot stove and us having to rush to the emergency room.
Then I became a mother of teens and one by one they acquired a driver’s license and motored away from our home.
That’s when I began to beg God to spare their lives.
One particularly frightening test was when all four went to Louisiana-my eldest driving and the rest in the van with her. I made them call me every hour and tell me they were OK. It was the first time I realized that I could lose every one of them in a single instant should they crash-all my eggs in one basket.
I was glad when that day was over. Although the irony is they were no “safer” at the end of those 24 hours than they were at the beginning.
Because what I know now, but didn’t know then is this: There is no such thing as“safe”.
Not the way we like to think of it-not the way we add labels to devices, seat belts to cars, helmets to everything from bicycles to skateboards. Of course we should absolutely take precautions!Many lives are saved by them every single day.
But. BUT…
Life is more random than we want to admit.And there is no defense against random.
There is no way to screen for every underlying physical abnormality, no way to drive so well you can stop the drunk or inattentive driver from plowing through a stop sign, no way to anticipate every foolish choice a young person might make that ends in disaster instead of a funny story.
My first response when Dominic died driving his motorcycle was that I wanted my surviving sons to sell theirs. They did so out of respect for me. Neither of them wanted their mama to have to endure a second knock on the door and the same message delivered twice.
I receive it as a sacrifice offered in love from them.
Because it was.
Since Dominic left us almost four ( now five!) years ago, I have had to deal with my desperate need to keep my living children safe.
And it is a real struggle.
Each child is involved in a career that includes inherent risk. None of them are foolhardy, but they are exposed-perhaps more than many-to potential bad actors and dangerous circumstances.
This branch fell just minutes after my son was standing in that spot splitting logs.
How I long for those days when I could tuck everyone in, turn out the lights and sleep soundly because all my chicks were safe inside my own little coop! How I wish the only danger I thought about or knew about was a bump on the head from hitting a coffee table!
How my heart aches for one more moment of blissful ignorance!
But I can’t live in some imagined water color past. I have to live in the world as it is.
So I remind my heart that safe is an illusion-no matter where we are. Life is not living if it’s only about preserving breath and not about making a difference.
If you’ve followed the blog for long, you know I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. What you may not know is that it is not at all like the arthritis most people experience as they age. Instead of a gradual wearing out of joints due to use and, sometimes, injury, RA is the result of my body attacking itself.
I was 44 when diagnosed after both ankles suddenly swelled so that I could barely walk.
I’ve been living with it for over ten years.
It’s a chronic disease. It can be treated with greater or lesser success to modify and mediate symptoms, but it is always, always, always there. And it affects every aspect of my life-from getting dressed to driving a car.
I find that most folks just don’t understand that.
We are used to getting sick, going to the doctor and being prescribed a drug or treatment or even surgery and getting well (after some period of time).
But some things can’t be “fixed” and must simply be “managed” and endured.
Child loss is like that.
It cannot be fixed.
It cannot be healed.
It cannot be undone or ignored or sequestered so that it doesn’t impact daily life.
And that is hard for people to understand if they’ve never dealt with a chronic illness or other circumstance that defies remedy.
Every morning I walk down my stairs one step at a time like a toddler because my joints are too stiff to bend until I’ve been up for a few hours-that’s how I have to accommodate my arthritis.
Every morning I sit in my rocking chair and journal and talk to other bereaved parents before daybreak-that’s how I have to accommodate my grief.
Neither of these conditions is a choice.
Each of them happened TO me-not because of anything I did or did not do.
I do NOT blame you that my son and my sorrow have drifted down your list of “things that need attention”. Your life is as busy as mine once was and your calendar full of commitments and celebrations that require your attendance.
There is no way you would know it’s 69 days until the fourth anniversary of Dominic’s sudden absence.
There is no reason for you to be aware that as the southern landscape turns to spring, my heart and mind turn to death.
But it’s the truth.
As the rest of the world looks forward to Easter (and I do too-for the promise and hope it brings) I am dreading Holy Week. Dominic was killed the Saturday before Palm Sunday and laid to rest the Monday after Easter. So every year I relive it twice-once during Holy Week and once again (when the dates are different) according to the calendar.
And each year it feels lonelier and lonelier.
Because each year fewer and fewer people remember or if they do, they don’t know how to offer that up as a blessing because it feels awkward or stiff.
So may I suggest a few things that most bereaved parents would absolutely LOVE for friends and family to say or do-especially as the months roll into years or even decades?
Send a card, message or text indicating that you DO remember. And not just for the date of passing, but also for his or her birthday or other important milestone dates.
Send an electronic or physical copy of a photo. It feels so empty to peruse the same photos over and over. It is an invaluable gift to get one I haven’t ever seen before. Every time it feels like I get a tiny new piece of Dominic to hold close to my heart.
If you have saved voice mails or videos-send those. Not every parent can or wants to listen/watch these, but they are a gift nonetheless. Just having them brings some comfort.
Post a memory on Facebook. If the child’s timeline is still up, write something TO the child-did you share an experience, a class, a hobby-then speak to that. Tell me how Dominic is still part of your life. Because as long as his influence still lives, part of him lives also.
Speak his or her name in conversation. I know it can be awkward. But don’t shy away from mentioning my child in conversation just as you would if he were living. If you are talking about an event in which he took part, please, please, please do NOT talk around him. I remember. You aren’t shielding me. It is so good for my heart to share these memories with other people.
If I post a photo or memory on Facebook, please don’t scroll past with the attitude “there she goes again!”. I post because I will talk about Dominic just as I will talk about my living children as long as I live. Yes, it’s the same photo-but I don’t have new ones because I CAN’T TAKE THEM, not because I don’t want them. If you think it’s “too much” I challenge you to cut off all (I mean ALL) communication with one of your living children for a week. That’s just the tiniest taste of what it’s like.
If I plan some kind of memorial activity, participate if you can. Personally I haven’t done this but many parents plan balloon releases or ask people to do a Random Act of Kindness in the name of their child. If you are able, join in.
There is a common theme here: if you think about my child, let me know.
I will not forget Dominic.
I couldn’t.
But it is oh, so helpful to know that others aren’t forgetting either.
It’s absolutely normal that the space Dominic once occupied in the hearts and minds of his peers gets smaller over time.
He was only a part of their lives-lives blooming and bursting in the spring of their years.
They are moving and marrying and having children and building careers. If he were still living it may very well be they would have lost touch by now anyway.
I know all this and yet it still hurts.
Why do I find it unsettling that he is becoming just a distant memory?
With every passing month the bits of him scattered in the hearts and minds of friends and family fade just a little more.
The vibrant hue of who he was is fainter.
His light dims and is harder to see in the darkness.
I can’t possibly hope to hold all the memories myself.
I can’t preserve them forever by myself.
I depend on others who knew him to be memory boxes too.
The sun rises behind bare branches and they look beautiful.
In just the right light and at the perfect angle, anything can be lovely.
It’s true that every living thing needs rest. Every working part must be oiled.
And while winter can be hard and heartless and cold and cruel, it is also space and time for re-creation.
If I only look harder I can already see tiny buds of springtime promise on the tips of branches overhead.
Death is winter.
Cold, hard, gray. Every lovely thing fallen and dry underfoot.
A season of rest-not chosen, unwelcome, resisted.
But rest just the same.
Yet the sun still shines and spreads warmth and light on even these bare branches.
After such a long time can the sap still rise?
Is there life left here?
Will spring come again and flowers bloom?
I’m counting on it.
It will all happen so fast, in a blink, a mere flutter of the eye. The last trumpet will call, and the dead will be raised from their graves with a body that does not, cannot decay. All of us will be changed! We’ll step out of our mortal clothes and slide into immortal bodies, replacing everything that is subject to death with eternal life.And, when we are all redressed with bodies that do not, cannot decay, when we put immortality over our mortal frames, then it will be as Scripture says:
Life everlasting has victoriously swallowed death. Hey, Death! What happened to your big win? Hey, Death! What happened to your sting?
Sin came into this world, and death’s sting followed. Then sin took aim at the law and gained power over those who follow the law.Thank God, then, for our Lord Jesus, the Anointed, the Liberating King, who brought us victory over the grave.
My dear brothers and sisters, stay firmly planted—be unshakable—do many good works in the name of God, and know that all your labor is not for nothing when it is for God.
The church at Thessalonica was confused about some fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. They were frightened that they had missed Christ’s second coming and they were concerned about loved ones that had preceded them in death. So Paul wrote this letter to remind them of truth and offer comfort in their emotional distress:
And regarding the question, friends, that has come up about what happens to those already dead and buried, we don’t want you in the dark any longer. First off, you must not carry on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to, as if the grave were the last word. Since Jesus died and broke loose from the grave, God will most certainly bring back to life those who died in Jesus. I Thessalonians 4:13-14 MSG
This verse is quoted often to believers who have lost a loved one. At first, gently, sweetly–as an invitation to remember that God is in control, that He has a plan, that the grave is not victorious and that burying the body is not the end.
And, in the early days and weeks after the funeral, it IS comforting–I chanted it to myself like a mantra and it drew my heart from the brink of despair.
But at some point, this verse begins to feel like a rebuke–the well-meaning friend says, “Don’t you know, that Jesus followers don’t grieve like those who have no hope!”
And I turn, dumbfounded, to the person saying this, and wonder, “Have you buried a child?”
Even in the very first hours after the news, my brain began instructing my heart, “Now, try to be brave. Try not to disappoint people. Try to say the right thing, do the right thing and be the example you should be.”
Whatever that meant.
As I made phone calls and received concerned friends and family members I was so aware that they would take a cue from me-how much can I say, how hard can I cry, should I hug or stand back, should I talk about him or be silent lest it make the tears fall harder?
And here-almost nine years later-I still feel like I need to lead the way in conversations and social encounters.
If I don’t mention Dominic, no one else does and that disappoints me.
If I do mention Dominic, the response is often sympathy or rushing to another topic.
Which is also disappointing.
If I smile, then I’m “so much better’.
If I tear up, then I’m “not over it yet”.
The entire time I’m in the company of others (besides my family and a couple close friends) I am editing myself. Everything I say or don’t say is filtered through a grid based on how others may receive it.
No off the cuff responses here.
Past experience has taught me that what most folks want from the bereaved (after the first few months or maybe a year) is evidence that they are “moving on”, “healing”, “trusting Jesus”, “getting better” or “finding the silver lining”.
Part of me would like to participate in this ruse because it’s so much easier than trying to push, pull or drag them into the reality that bereaved parents face.
But another part of me wants to rip the blinders off and let them see that this is a lifelong journey that is bumpy, hard and doesn’t look like victory.
It looks like perseverance.
Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I cry. Some days are good. Some days are awful.
I’m stronger than I was but I’m not “better”.
I’m able to greet most days but I still struggle some mornings to get out of bed.
I enjoy my family and friends but I miss my son.
And sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could be only me.
There is something about winter mornings that invite me to linger long in my rocking chair with my cup of coffee. It’s cold and outside chores can wait a bit.
When I sit here, my mind wanders to many things-mostly days gone by when my busy household would have made these long, slow mornings impossible.
And I miss it. All of it.
Especially the beauty of an unbroken family circle.
I try to hold onto the precious moments as long as I can.
We live in a noisy world.
Music, television, voices and the hum of electricity tunnel into our brains and distract us from hard questions and painful circumstances.
We live in a busy world.
If I’m not in motion, I am getting ready to be.
It is tempting in my grief to try to stuff life full of noise and busyness so I can ignore the pain and emptiness of missing my son.
One of the things I absolutely LOVED about having four kids was the way they pinged off one another. There were evenings when the comments were flying so fast I could barely keep up. Sly looks, secret texts, funny faces and friendly punches made up most of our times together.
That’s how families are-each person is just a little “more” when surrounded by folks that love and understand him or her.
When Dominic left us, we didn’t only lose HIS companionship, we also lost the part of each of us that was reflected back from him.
And just as each one of us had a unique relationship with him in life,we have a unique relationship with him in death.
Sure he was brother to all his siblings.
But he was a younger brother to the older two and older brother to our youngest. He was a middle son but a third child. He was close to his sister who shared his love of musical instruments, bonded with his younger brother over cars and butted heads with his older brother when he felt like he was bossed around.
Dominic and I were both political junkies and loved to debate policy and current events. We listened to NPR and compared notes.
He enjoyed talking sports with his dad and trying out different guitars and sound effects pedals as they jammed to the radio.
So how we remember him, what we miss, what we long for and what we hold onto is a reflection of the different way we interacted with him.
How much and how loud we express our grief is also a combination of our relationship with him and our innate personalities.
Sometimes that is helpful-like when one of us can sit and listen to another because we are not so emotional at the moment. Sometimes it causes frustration or even conflict when one or more of us feels that we need to DO a certain thing to remember Dominic and one or more of us is uncomfortable doing that very thing.
We’ve got to respect our differences, embrace them, make room for them even in this Valley.
We ALL miss him. That’s something we can agree on.
We ALL would give anything to have him back.
And we are ALL in this together, even in our unique expressions of the same pain.
His light dims and is harder to see in the darkness.
thelifeididntchoose 