One of the things I’ve been forced to embrace in the wake of child loss is there are very few questions, experiences or feelings that are simple anymore.
“How many children do you have?”
A common, get-to-know-you question lobbed across tables, down pews and in the check-out line at the grocery store. But for many bereaved parents, it can be a complex question that gets a different answer depending on who is asking and where we are.
Read the rest here: It’s Complicated
I was surprised at myself.
When we cleaned out Dominic’s apartment two weeks after he left us, I couldn’t throw away a thing.
Even though it meant boxing it up, carting it down the stairs and loading and unloading it onto our trailer, I DIDN’T CARE.
If it was his, if his hands had touched it, his body worn it or he had placed it in the cabinet or fridge, it was coming with me.
The only thing I left in that space was the empty echo of his fading presence.
I brought all the rest home.
Read the rest here: They’re Not Just “Things”
There are so many competing causes it’s a wonder anyone can keep up with them.
But when one or more of them become near and dear to your heart, it’s easy.
July is Bereaved Parents Month. A designation I knew nothing about until several years into my own journey as a bereaved parent.
And while I’m unsure about the necessity for declarations like National Trivia Day or National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day I am absolutely convinced of the need for Bereaved Parents Month.
Read the rest here: Why Bereaved Parents Month?
I’m really thankful that more and more Christians are willing to shed false positivity and embrace lament.
Because the truth is lots of stories this side of eternity end in tragedy or at least unmet expectations and sorrow instead of glorious, victorious sunshine and roses.
Crops and marriages fail. Dreams come and go.
We hope for healing but don’t receive it.
Loved ones die.
Let’s just be honest about it-about ALL of it.
❤ Melanie
In the wake of burying Dominic, the most difficult spiritual discipline for me to recover has been prayer.
In part because my heart just doesn’t know what to ask for or how to talk to a God Who has allowed this pain in my life.
In part because I don’t really have a framework for placing the prayers I want to pray inside my ongoing struggle to commit my future and the future of my family to the hands of a Father Who didn’t step in to prevent Dominic’s death.
I still struggle with this.
Read the rest of this post here: The Problem of [Un]Answered Prayer
Sticking with a friend whose life is hard and is going to continue to be hard is not for the faint of heart.
Not all wounds can be healed.
Not all problems have a resolution.
Not all relationships follow a path that leads to a happy ending.
Read the rest here: To The Friends Who Stay
We are only officially a few days into summer here in Alabama but we’ve already suffered weeks of extra hot weather.
And while I can’t do a thing about the absolute temperature outside, I can make choices that help me tolerate it.
It’s the same in my grief journey.
Everyday decisions make a difference in how well I cope.❤
I walk the half-mile stretch down and back on my driveway at least four or five times a day.
In the winter I follow the sun.
In the summer I follow the shade.
The path I choose to take either adds to or subtracts from my ability to make the trek in relative comfort.
Read the rest here: Sun & Shade: Picking My Path
It’s not true for everyone but it is true for enough of us. The second year after child loss can be especially hard.
Numbness and the rhythm of all the “firsts” in the twelve months following Dominic’s death kept me both anticipating the shock and protecting me from its full impact.
The second year was when it dawned on me that I was doomed to repeat this cycle as long as I lived.
I was absolutely overwhelmed.❤ Melanie
I remember very well the morning I woke on April 12, 2015-it was one year since I’d gotten the awful news; one year since the life I thought I was going to have turned into the life I didn’t choose.
I was horrified that my heart had continued to beat for 365 days when I was sure it wouldn’t make it through the first 24 hours.
And I was terrified.
Read the rest here: Why is the Second Year SO Hard?
I first shared this years ago when I was reflecting on half a decade of living without one of my children beside me. I’ve now had nearly another half decade to think about why or IF I’ll continue to write.
Every so often I take a day or two to consider whether I want to keep posting. I have to admit sometimes that I wonder if I bang the same drum for too long it will sound loud and obnoxious to some people’s ears.
But then I get a message or a comment from someone fresh on this journey and they feel seen, heard, validated and safe.
So I write on.
And I find that writing brings clarity and comfort to my soul. I still have things to say and I hope what I say still brings some small measure of light, love, life and hope to other hearts.
❤ Melanie
I was one of those people years ago who set her sights on starting and maintaining a blog.
I thought I would post a few times a week and share anecdotes about my family and critters, insight into daily living and inspiration from Scripture and interesting quotes.
No, not THIS blog-the other two I started and quickly abandoned to who-knows-where in cyberspace.
Trouble was that the subject matter, while near and dear to my heart, wasn’t personally compelling enough to keep me disciplined and actively writing.
If someone had said, “Pick any topic to write about”, child loss wouldn’t have been in the first million choices.
No one CHOOSES child loss (Thus the name of the blog: The Life I Didn’t Choose).
But untold numbers of parents EXPERIENCE it every year. This very day, parents somewhere got a knock on the door or a phone call or sat next to a hospital bed as life slipped slowly from their child’s tired body.
Since I was already journaling and had walked this Valley for nearly a year and a half, it dawned on me that the ramblings I’d put down might be helpful to another heart. So I started THIS blog in September, 2015.
And I’ve been here ever since.
I’m not in the raw, breathless place I once was. But grief and loss are part of every breath I take, part of every moment I experience.
I miss Dominic. I still consider death an enemy. Every day I hate what was stolen and long for what was. I mourn the changes grief has wrought in my family. I wish things were different. I discover new ways loss impacts my life and new ways of coping with it.
So I keep writing.
I don’t want anyone to feel alone in this journey. I don’t want anyone to think there’s no way to survive. I don’t want a single broken heart to doubt that God is here and that He will help you hold onto hope.
I’ll spill my heart out in words until the words are exhausted.
It helps me.
I pray it helps others too.
I have known my child since before he entered the light of this world! I felt him in my womb. I experienced who he was before anyone else met him.
I never, ever expected for my life to outlast his!
I always thought there would be new experiences between us, new memories to tuck away, new adventures to look forward to.
Out of order death is unexpected, unnatural, unbelievable.
Read the rest here: Nothing New Between Us
If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.
~Julian of Norwich
Truth is this life is not easy.
There is joy.
Absolutely amazing awe-inspiring, breath-taking joy.
But there is also suffering.
Utterly devastating, heart-breaking suffering.
Read the rest here: On Suffering and Redemption
![Grief and Faith: The Problem of [Un]Answered Prayer](https://thelifeididntchoose.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/woman-praying-huff-post.jpg?w=628)
thelifeididntchoose 