Tag: Dominic

Juxtaposed

Living and dead.

Loud and silent.

Together yet parted, present but absent.

Beauty of the moment contrasted with darkness that refuses to obey the light.

How to be present in the “now” with a heart that longs for the “then”?

I never expected to have to reach across time and space and heaven to touch my child.

I hate this divided life!

Imagining the worst thing possible can’t hold a candle to knowing it by experience.

I want my living children to know how fiercely they are loved!  

A lioness could not keep me from protecting them if it were possible.  

But it’s not possible.

My heart holds knowledge I would gladly give up.  

 

 

 

(Almost) All Together

Our family has never been the “go somewhere for the holidays” sort.  We tend to stick close to home, to what’s familiar, to routine and regular bedtimes.

But lately life has thrown us a number of curveballs. And we are learning to swing at them instead of just letting them lob past us.

So just after Christmas, the four of us that were together in Alabama took a drive down to Florida to spend time with our oldest son and his wife in their new home.

We spent New Year’s Eve on a windy dog beach enjoying waves and walks and friendly strangers whose mutts came over to sniff ours.

Seafood  and people watching at a nearby restaurant sitting outside in the breezy cool topped off a lovely day.

I’m learning to live with Dominic’s absence.

I’m (almost) used to photographs of my three surviving children documenting adventures that don’t include his smiling face and raucous antics.  I’m trying to recapture the joy of his life and not dwell as much on the fact and circumstances of his death.

I can look forward a little further on a calendar.  I can plan a bit more.  My heart finds some satisfaction again in hosting friends and family for special occasions or no occasion at all.

In a word, I’m “better”.  

Not healed-never healed (past tense)-until heaven.

But oh, so thankful for the days I have to spend with the family I have left.

I don’t know if Dominic can see us from where he is, but if he can’t, we’ll have lots to tell him when we get there.  

One day closer.  

 

 

Christmas Cards-Yes? No? Maybe?

Getting Christmas cards out on time was always a challenge in my busy household.  

So for the last years of kids at home, we transitioned to sending New Year’s greetings.  It was easier to get a family photo with everyone home for Christmas, there was no artificial deadline to send them and we could include a “thank you” or respond to news in their Christmas letters.

I haven’t sent anything for three years.  

What could I say?  

And a family photo was out of the question.

But faithful friends and relatives keep sending us theirs.  

As I was looking at them this past week, I decided to make a go of it one more time.  I sat down and pecked away at the computer keys until I composed something that felt right.

HERE’S WHAT I WROTE:

“Hello from the DeSimones!

For anyone counting, it has been three years since our last Christmas/New Year’s update.

I just could not figure out how to send greetings when our hearts were so very wounded and sore.  I’m still not sure how to do it-but am plunging ahead. 

We are learning to live with the absence of Dominic.  We are learning to carry the weight of grief and sorrow that burden our hearts.  We are managing the necessary tasks of life.  We are moving forward in careers and education.  We live and love and even laugh.

It’s not the same.

It will never be the same. 

And that’s a testimony to our enduring love for Dominic and his lasting impact on our lives.

We look forward to heaven, where everything that the enemy has stolen will be redeemed and restored. 

I’ve been reading The Jesus Storybook Bible-it is a remarkable way to re-imagine and re-engage with God’s Story.  My very favorite part is a paraphrase of Revelation 21:4:

‘And the King says, “Look! God and his children are together again.  No more running away.  Or hiding. No more crying or being lonely or afraid.  No more being sick or dying.  Because all those things are gone.  Yes, they are gone forever.  Everything sad has come untrue.  And see-I have wiped every tear from every eye!”‘

[Here I inserted updates on each of us under the title “newsy bits”]

We are thankful for each one who has encouraged us, loved us and stuck with us in this journey.

It’s our prayer that this Christmas season the Saviour will fill your hearts-hurting or happy-to overflowing with His love, grace and mercy.” 

You may not be ready to send Christmas cards. Maybe next year, or maybe never and that’s OK.

I’m sharing so that perhaps my words can help you find a way to tell your family’s story.  

Christmas for those of us missing a child we love will always be different.  It will always be tinged with sadness.

But we are stronger together.

We can hang on harder when others hang on with us.

I appreciate each person who reads this blog and takes time to comment.

Thank  you for encouraging, loving and sticking with me in this journey.  

May the God of all hope fill your hurting hearts with hope as we wait together for our faith to be made sight.

 

 

Waiting For Release

 

This is our third set of holidays without Dominic.

I didn’t think I’d survive the first week after he ran before us to Heaven, but here I am approaching three years since he left and I’m still breathing.

I don’t know what I expected, exactly.  

Maybe that I’d get better at this?  Maybe I figured that I would be able to work my way through the maze of emotions and arrive at some destination?  

I‘ve become proficient at pushing down the rising tide of tears and terrible thoughts.  I’m great at ducking into a bathroom or around a corner or behind a store display when that fails and the tears fall.

My heart has learned this odd rhythm-thump, thump, thump, skip a beat for where Dominic used to be–carry on.

The loss and sorrow are no longer a burden I carry, they’ve settled in my bones. 

I’ll never be rid of them.  Never be able to put them down.    

Sometimes my life feels like a kind of prison.  The freedom I once enjoyed-freedom from the knowledge of loss, freedom to hope, freedom to live with joyous abandon-has vanished.

I am powerless to change my circumstance.

Dominic is gone, gone, gone.

Like Israel, I must wait on the Lord to bring release.  

o-come-emmanueal

 

So this Christmas season I’m thinking about BOTH the birth of Jesus-the long-awaited Messiah-AND the dark and empty years of waiting that went before.

I know the end of the story.  The price has been paid and the place prepared.

I’m waiting for God to open the door.

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of advent.

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Repost: Surviving Christmas

February, 1992 I came home from the hospital with our fourth baby and woke up the next morning to a house full of children ages infant to six.

I thought that would be the most stressful and challenging season of my life.

I was wrong.

Read the rest here:  Surviving Christmas

Just Tears

No great wisdom today.  No wonderful insight.

Just tears.

woman-looking-through-rainiy-window

A day that was going pretty well ended in a conversation with someone who should have known better stomping all over my heart.

Someone who is very much aware of my loss acted like it hadn’t happened.

It really hurt.  

After all this time I was surprised by how very much it hurt.

So I cried.

IMG_2410

 

I cried because I miss Dominic.

I cried because a day that had felt victorious ended in defeat.  I cried because it feels selfish to hold people to the standard of caring about my broken heart when they are so busy with their own lives.

I cried because it feels like even those who shouldn’t forget ARE forgetting–the son that walked beside me for almost 24 years has been set aside in less than three.

My heart hurts and I don’t think I can just suck this up.  I’m not even sure that I should.

Where do I draw the line between extending grace and asking for it?

I just don’t know.

heart and wood

 

 

Christmas Decorating: Take Two

 

 

photo-35

Last week I wrote how my well-laid plans for setting up the Christmas tree and decorating had gone awry.

I thought I was ready to pull out the old ornaments with the old feelings and forge ahead.

I was wrong.

But yesterday, after gazing at the “lights only” tree for all these days, I decided to make another go at it.

I packed up the tear-inducing decorations and stored them safely away.  I pulled out the box of ornaments I used last year-mostly new things I bought or made since Dominic left for Heaven.

Each group of ornaments was chosen because it helps me hold on to hope.

I have hearts-stuffed, handsewn hearts, papier mache hearts, corrugated cardboard hearts.

Lots of hearts.  

hope-and-heart

Hearts to remind MY heart that it was Love that brought Jesus to earth.  It was Love that kept Him here.  It was Love that took Him to the cross even after He had begged His Father in the garden for another way.  And it was Love that broke the chains of death and raised Him from the grave.

 

That same Love is keeping Dominic safe until we are together again.

Stars to help me remember that Jesus brought Light into darkness.  They help me hold onto the FACT that His light will not be extinguished.  They speak truth to my spirit that even though this Valley is dark, it will not last forever.

star-ornamentI made some balls from little scrappy bits of fabric wrapped and glued in place. The pieces are useless alone-not big enough to do a thing.  But together they are beautiful and strong and have purpose.  

My life feels like it’s been ripped to shreds.  But even shreds are useful in God’s hands. I’m waiting to see what He plans to do with them.

In the meantime, I hold on.

Old Christmas cards turned decorations are strung together and hung as visual prayers. I save my cards from year to year and cut out the lovely and meaningful pictures and scriptures.

I made my own paper copies of the Names of Jesus and burned the edges.

I cling to the promises in each Name.  I may reach heaven through the fire of tribulation and trial but no power on earth, above the earth or under the earth can stand against His Name.  

names-of-jesus

I will be preserved.

Little drums hang as silent witness to Dominic.  His heartbeat lives on in mine. His rhythm that thrummed through our lives and is missing now still matters.  He is making a joyful noise in Heaven.

He is not silent.  

One day I will hear him again.

So tonight I sat in the soft glow of the lights AND the ornaments remembering…

Remembering years past when life was very different-untouched by tragedy and gut-wrenching loss and also remembering the promise that this is not the way it will always be.

mourning-to-dancing

 

Repost: Am I Normal?

 

grief not a disorder

There is so. much. pressure. on grieving parents during the holidays!

A constant tension between the world celebrating the “season of joy” and a heart that carries great sorrow.

Perhaps more than any other time of the year we may ask the question:

Am I Normal?

Dealing With Anxious Thoughts

I no longer have to imagine the worst thing that could happen in the life of a mother-I know exactly how it feels. 

And if I allow my heart to ponder that too often or too long, it consumes me.

So I am learning to take those anxious thoughts captive, learning to make them live in only a small corner of my mind instead of taking it over completely.

It takes effort and discipline, but it’s possible.  

I don’t have to live the rest of my days a quivering mess- afraid of every sunrise, every phone call, every mile my family travels:

  • I confront my fear with facts:  The absolute truth is that it is no more likely I will lose a child today than it was the day I lost Dominic.  I’m not good at determining odds-if I toss a coin ten times and it lands on “heads”-I’m convinced that next time it HAS to be “tails”.  But that’s just not true.  EVERY time the coin is tossed, it has exactly a 50/50 chance of landing on “heads” or “tails” regardless of what happened last time.  That’s not how it FEELS, but that’s how it IS.

coin_toss_11

  • I refuse to feed my fear:  I don’t linger over news stories that play up danger or magnify the possibility of catching rare diseases.  Do these things happen?  ABSOLUTELY!  But are they likely to happen to me or someone I love, probably not.  I will not fuel the fire of fear that threatens to rage through my mind.
  • I take reasonable precautions:  My family wears seatbelts.  We take our vitamins and go to the doctor when we need to.  We eat right and exercise.  We don’t walk across streets without looking both ways.  These were all things we did before Dominic’s accident and we continue to do them now.  Not one of them would have made a diference that night but they help me feel better.

 

crosswalk

  • I limit my exposure to uncertainty:  If I’m concerned about someone, I call or text.  It’s that simple.  I don’t have to live for hours wondering if they are OK.  I’m careful not to infringe on my adult children’s lives by a never-ending series of contacts, but they understand my heart.  We try to be mindful of letting each other know we arrive safely to our destination.
  • I exercise control in other areas of my life:  Anxiety is a beast that grows stronger the more out of control I feel.  I cannot keep my family absolutely safe-it’s not in my power to do so. BUT, I can control some aspects of life.  So I do.  Even cleaning out a messy junk drawer helps bolster my sense of control.  Small, easy to complete projects feed the part of my brain that says, “You can do this!”

take-control-of-your-life

  • I limit caffeine and other stimulants:  Increased heart rate, rapid breathing and sweaty palms are signs of anxiety.  Caffeine can produce these effects even when I’m not anxious. If my body is feeling this way, my mind is quick to jump on board.  

angry

  • I practice distraction:  There are times when I find myself feeling anxious despite my best efforts.  When that happens, I am learning to distract myself.  I find something to touch, smell, hear or taste that can help me regain composure.  I count backwards from ten or twenty.  I hum a song or recite a Bible verse.  I add numbers in my head or do multiplication tables.
  • I live in the present:  I have no idea what tomorrow holds.  If I allow my heart to dwell on what might happen, I will be useless for today.  So while I make marks on the calendar for appointments, I wake each morning determined to live right now.

now

Because, really, that’s all any of us has. 

Don’t Rush To Get Rid of Things

closet

It’s a common question in grief circles:  How long should I keep my child’s things?  

Should I clean out the room?  Give away the stuff?

The answer is different for each family, each circumstance, each heart.

But I would say this:  If you have a place to store them, don’t be in a rush to get rid of your child’s things.

A scrap of paper that might seem unimportant in your initial grief may be meaningful months later.

There are so many things you HAVE to decide right away.  This is one you can decide later. 

I wrote this post over a year ago, but my choice to purge our old school papers still haunts me:  A Life in Scraps