I always like to share this post after a holiday because I never want any hurting heart to think the pain they feel “the day after” is not a normal part of the grief journey.
It is absolutely, positively NORMAL to feel more anxious, more sad, more lonely, more despair once the plates are cleared away and everyone else has returned to their respective homes.
Grief is funny that way-sometimes the very busyness and noisy conversation we dread so much BEFORE a big day turns out to be a good distraction from the quiet desperation and longing that would otherwise demand attention.
And then…in the quiet, in the stillness it all comes crashing down.
It’s a paradox really-that grieving hearts can be more anxious and more sorrowful BEFORE and AFTER a milestone day, birthday or holiday than on the day itself.
That’s not true for everyone, but it’s a frequent comment in our closed bereaved parent groups.
If you woke this morning feeling more broken than blessed, I see you.
If you could care less about the bounty on the table and can only feel the barrenness in your heart, I know how you feel.
Today doesn’t have to be any special way, my friend. Give yourself grace. Give yourself permission to feel what you feel and do what you do and not do what you can’t do.
❤ Melanie
THANKSGIVING PRAYER FOR HURTING HEARTS
Father God,
We live in a world that isn’t always (or even often) what we hope for, pray for and long for.
But here we are.
Two hands open and waiting for the blessing You have promised in our brokenness.
I am oh, so thankful for the many ways You have blessed me, continue to bless me and uphold me with Your righteous right arm. I know, know, know that if You were not walking with me in this Valley, I would have given up and given in long ago.
I am not ungrateful. I am blessed.
But I am also broken.
My heart longs desperately for what it cannot have. I am forced to walk forward but I want to turn back time. I’m grateful for every face around my table but always thinking about the one that will never sit there again.
I miss those I love who have run ahead to joyous celebration in Heaven. I long for just a taste of divine joy as I wait my turn to join them.
Thanksgiving big and loud just isn’t in my playlist anymore. Quiet gratitude that makes space for sorrowful reflection is more my style.
Make me truly thankful for the promise that no matter how often circumstances change or how dreadful those changes may be, You are the same-yesterday, today and forever!
Your steadfast love holds us fast. I rest in that truth.
Help me hold onto hope. Help me hold onto every good and perfect gift You still give me as I wait. Grease the wheels of every relationship with grace.
Greet me this morning with new mercies and fresh strength.
Give me the strength to endure, the grace to participate, the breath to speak love and the confidence that you see every tear I shed when no one is looking.
As families gather around tables and in backyards to celebrate fall birthdays, Thanksgiving and (soon!) Christmas, my heart longs even harder to hear Dominic’s name.
Of course I remember him-he’s my son-and of course others do too.
But it is especially helpful this time of year to have friends and family speak of him aloud.
When I first began writing in this space, “lament” had only just come into vogue.
Now, it’s everywhere.
If the past few years have taught hearts a single thing, I hope it is there’s no use pretending life doesn’t hurt sometimes. We were not created to carry that kind of pain alone.
And thankfully, we don’t have to.
God, in Christ, invites me to speak it, to sing it, to release it as an exhale so His grace and strength can rush in to fill that empty space.
When I celebrated my fiftieth, I had so many dreams and plans! I couldn’t have imagined that the next ten years would be filled with the heartache of child loss, along with all the hope and joy of an expanding family.
But here I am.
Definitely older and, I would like to think, a little wiser.
Wiser to the truth that no one escapes pain in this life. Wiser to the fact that joy and sorrow can coexist. Wise enough to know by experience that sometimes the very best thing you can do is shut your mouth and open your arms to a hurting heart. Wise enough to realize that birthdays for bereaved parents are often complicated.
I wrote this post several years ago but share it annually because unless you’ve sent a child ahead to Heaven, you might not realize how very tricky birthdays can be for the parents left behind.
❤ Melanie
Tomorrow is my birthday.
And while I am truly grateful for another trip around the sun, since Dominic left us it’s not a simple celebration of life lived and the hope of years to come.
The last birthday I had with an unbroken family circle was a lovely surprise party for my fiftieth held in Dom’s apartment.
I was asked awhile back to be part of a project shepherded by fellow parents-in-loss, Laura and Gary House (https://ourheartsarehome.org/).
They wanted to gather and publish stories from other child loss survivors in hopes of encouraging hearts and strengthening the faith of parents facing the unimaginable.
I don’t mind saying that in spite of all I’ve written in this space for the past ten (!) years, it was challenging to distill my thoughts about that night, the days that followed and my own faith journey since into a single chapter.
But I, and a dozen other parents, did just that.
In our own words we tell our stories. We share our struggles and our triumphs.
I’m thankful a day is set aside to focus on children’s grief because it’s so easy for their grief to be overlooked, underrated and even dismissed.
Grown ups often tout the line, “Kids are resilient. They will adapt.“
And while it’s true that from the OUTSIDEit might look like a child is OK or even thriving, on the INSIDEshe may be curled up into a ball or he may be angry and resentful.
Sometimes these feelings find unhealthy expression through addiction or risky behavior. Sometimes they simply grow into a giant overwhelming shadow that darkens the child’s whole world.
My own mother’s mama died suddenly from a stroke when she was only ten years old. Within days, Mama was whisked away from everyone and everything she knew to live with her oldest married sister.
No one understood then that children needed to grieve so Mama never really did.
At least not out loud where anyone could hear.
But that grief informed her entire life-it made her kinder to many people and made it harder for her to develop deep attachments to others. She was only able to talk about it in the last couple of years of her life when failing health, my own loss and many hours spent in hospital rooms together created safe spaces for her to share.
Children grieve whether we observe it or not.
Children need safe spaces to express that grief even when it hurts our hearts to hear the words or see the tears.
No child should have to wait until they are grown to acknowledge his pain or her brokenness.
Just like we parents, surviving siblings grieve what they’ve lostANDwhat will never be. Graduations, weddings, new babies, holidays, birthdays and other occasions mark their hearts too.
Children bear other burdens as well.
They are often targeted by those outside the grief circle for updates on the family while their own grief goes unnoticed. After five years, my kids have developed a standard answer to the question, “How’s your mom doing?”
“About as well as you’d expect.”
Next.
Sometimes children feel they must be extra good and extra quiet in an effort to make up for the sadness in a home after the death of a child. Sometimes they take on adult roles, shouldering responsibilities a depressed or grieving parent can’t manage right now. Sometimes they struggle with misplaced guilt when their hearts are jealous of all the attention focused on the missing child.
Often they just wish things were back to how they were before tragedy struck.
Your children may never tell you these things unless you ask.
thelifeididntchoose 