Tag: friends

Father’s Day 2022: Bereaved Dads Need Support Too!

I’ve written often about how important friends are to our grief journey. They can encourage, provide practical help and simply by their presence remind a heart that darkness and despair is not all there is.

Men need friends who will step up and step in. They need masculine examples of sharing and caring.

Men Can Have Better Friendships. Here's How : NPR

They need grace and space to unlock the chest of emotions that they sometimes keep tucked away and hidden from their family because they think it’s their job to “be strong”.

So if you know a dad whose child has left for Heaven, reach out in the next couple of days before Father’s Day.

Read the rest here: Don’t Forget Dads!

Good Friends Are Shelters In Grief’s Storm

If you’ve never been caught short in the midst of an unexpected downpour you might not know how important refuge under the boughs of a cedar or oak tree can be.

Living in the middle of woods, punctuated by open pastures, I’ve retreated more than once to the safety of thick boughs which limit the rain’s ability to soak me through.

I have memorized every safe haven between the road and the middle of my 34 acres.

Faithful friends are like those sheltering trees-offering respite to a weary heart, providing a safe space to take a breath, granting protection when we are pursued by the enemy of our souls.

Read the rest here: We All Need Sheltering Trees

Seriously-Just SAY It.

I try not to pull the “life’s short” or “you never know” card on people very often.

But there are lots of times I want to.

When you’ve said a casual good-bye to a loved one thinking it’s not that big of a deal only to find out the last time was The LAST Time, you learn not to let things go unsaid or unmended.

It’s never too late to begin the habit of speaking love, blessing and encouragement to important people in your life.

Even if it makes them (or you!) uncomfortable.

Maybe especially then.

❤

I’m not sure when I began practicing this but I make a habit of telling people I love them even if it makes them uncomfortable.

promise me something tell them you love them

Read the rest here: Just. Say. It.

If You Can’t Say Anything Nice (Well, You Know the Rest).

I’ll be the first to admit I’m sassy and sometimes salty.

Popping off a quick one-liner (sometimes at the expense of another) was a dinner table past time when our family included four teens.

But it’s one thing to have inside jokes with those I know well and quite another to blast a stranger or a social media only “friend” because they *dare* to post something that goes against my pet opinion or viewpoint.

One of the things I adore about the online bereaved parent community is how individuals overwhelmingly respond with grace, kindness, thoughtfulness and space for different experiences and opinions.

I wish the rest of the world operated the same way! Maybe we need to revive that old saying: If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

❤

There may be some mamas that don’t drill this into their children but if there are, they don’t live south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Every time there was back and forth in the back seat or on the front porch and Mama overheard, we were told, “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.”

Read the rest here: If You Can’t Say Anything Nice….

Five Ways You Can Support a Grieving Parent and Their Family

In yesterday’s post I confessed I can look for excuses not to reach out.

When I feel like what I may say or do might make things worse instead of better it’s particularly intimidating.

Child loss is a uniquely challenging event for friends and family and even when someone longs to “be there” for the bereaved parents or siblings, they are often afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing.

So here are five very practical, very helpful ways to support a grieving parent and their family.

❤ Melanie

It’s oh, so hard to know what to do when you are watching a heart break.

You want to reach out and make it better, make the pain go away, make a difference.  But it seems like nothing you can do will matter much in the face of such a huge loss.

While it’s true that you cannot “fix”  the brokenness in a bereaved parent’s life, there are some very important and practical ways you can support them in their grief.

Read the rest here: Five Practical Ways to Support a Grieving Parent

Lessons in Loss: Learning to Listen

I admit it:  I’m a fixer.

It’s probably genetic (won’t mention any names!) but it has been reinforced by training and life experience.

When faced with a difficult or messy situation, my mind instantly rolls through an inventory of available resources and possible solutions.

And I tended to cut people off mid-sentence with my brilliant (?) plan to save the day.

But there are things you just can’t fix.

I knew that before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven but I mostly ignored it.

I can’t do that anymore.

Read the rest here: Lessons in Grief: Learning to Listen

Oh, How I Need Friends! Two ARE Better Than One.

I’ve thought a great deal about friendship since losing Dominic.  I’ve been blessed by those who have chosen to walk with me and dismayed by some who have walked away.

It takes great courage to sit in silence with those who suffer. We must fight the urge to ward off their pain with chatter.

Quiet companionship requires that we allow our hearts to suffer too.

❤ Melanie

For fifty years I was on the “other side”-the one where I looked on, sad and sometimes horror-stricken- at the pain and sorrow friends or family had to bear.

Read the rest here: Loving Well: Being a Friend

Grief is a Family Affair: Tips for Interacting With Bereaved Families

I think the mama is often the first person others think about when they hear a child has run ahead to Heaven.

But child loss affects dads too.

And it’s often sibling loss as well.

Grief is truly a family affair-each member is changed by the experience and they ALL need support.

❤

I firmly believe that our friends and extended family want to reach out, want to help, want to walk alongside as we grieve the death of our child

 I am also convinced that many of them don’t because they don’t know how.  

It may seem unfair that in addition to experiencing our loss, we also have to educate others on how to help us as we experience it, but that’s just how it is.

The alternative is to feel frustrated and abandoned or worse.  

Read the rest here: Child Loss: Helpful Tips for Interacting With Bereaved Families

How to Transition from “Good-bye” to Grief

A funeral or memorial service seems like a final chapter.  We close the coffin, close the doors and everyone goes home.

But for bereaved parents and their surviving children, it’s not an end, it is a beginning.

Much like a wedding or birth serves as the threshold to a new way of life, a new commitment, a new understanding of who you are, burying a child does the same.

Read the rest here: Loving Well: Transitioning From “Good-bye” to Grief

The Greatest Gift: Say His Name!

It’s nearly impossible for anyone who has not lost the earthly companionship of a child to know how desperately I long to hear Dominic’s name spoken aloud.

There are days I walk around my home and think silently and even whisper quietly, “You existed! You exist!” just to remind my heart he is real.

You may hesitate to bring him up because you fear my tears. But any tears his name might evoke will be tears of gratitude as well as those of longing.

Please say his name!

❤

I know you are afraid.

You think that speaking his name or sharing a memory or sending me a photo will add to my sorrow.

I understand.

But even when it costs me a split second of sharp pain, it is truly a gift to know that Dominic lives on in the hearts and minds of others.

Read the rest here: Loving Well: Just Say His Name