Sometimes it’s hard to gauge effectively and objectively how I’m really doing.
Living inside my own head often obscures tell-tale signs that maybe I’m not coping as well as I think I am.
So I depend on feedback from friends and family as an early warning safety system.
But many of us are physically isolated from others who might otherwise help us discern when we need help. A heart can fall fast into a deep pit of despair without realizing it.
Read the rest here: So…How ARE You Doing?
I love candles-always have.
I especially love them as the days get shorter and we creep toward the longest night of the year.
I love them more since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
Every time I light a candle, I remind my heart that even the smallest light can chase the darkness.
When hundreds, thousands and even millions of candles are lighted together, it does more than chases darkness, it undoes it.
Sunday, December 8, 2024 is the Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service (WCL) sponsored by The Compassionate Friends (TCF).
Read the rest here: Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service: Second Sunday in December
Dominic left us in April, 2014.
At the time all I could manage (barely!) was the twenty-four hours of each long, lonely and pain-wracked day.
After nine-plus years I’ve learned to look ahead, plan ahead and forge ahead to birthdays, holidays, special days and not-so-special days.
But it takes a great deal of effort and often uncomfortable conversations because no matter how long it’s been, I’m still dragging loss and its after affects behind me.
I wrote this in 2016 when I was desperate to communicate how hard it is to try to marry joy and sorrow, celebration and commemoration, light, love, life and darkness, grief and death.
It remains (I think) my most useful post: Grief and Holidays: What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family
*This is now available on my ministry website (http://heartacheandhope.org) as a downloadable resource:
https://www.heartacheandhope.org/_files/ugd/fc3456_0100d55e210d4ffa8cffa6f113eef48a.pdf
I confess that I am already exhausted and we are barely into December!I haven’t yet brought the tree down from the attic but plan to do it early next week.
I’m looking forward to the opportunity to sit and savor the twinkling lights that remind me that darkness doesn’t win.
❤ Melanie
It’s a question every hurting heart has to answer if you celebrate a traditional western Christmas: Will I put up a tree this year?
I had a few months of lonely travel through the Valley of the Shadow of Death before I had to answer that one.
Dominic left us at Easter, so by December I had learned that wishing didn’t make anything better nor did it make decisions disappear.
As Christmas drew near, I just could not bring down the usual decorations from the attic.
So I didn’t.
Read the rest here: Why I Still Put Up a Christmas Tree
It comes up again and again-and not just for the parents facing their year of “firsts”: How do I survive December with a broken heart?
There’s no single answer or list of things to do that will suit every family.
But there are some general principles that can make even this awful reality a little easier…
Read the rest here: How To Survive December With a Broken Heart
Most parents feel a little stressed during the holidays.
For bereaved parents, the rush toward the “Season of Joy” is doubly frightening.
Constant reminders that this is the “most wonderful time of the year” make our broken hearts just that much more out of place. Who cares what you get for Christmas when the one thing your heart desires–your child, alive and whole–is unavailable…
It is so hard to find a way to trudge through the tinsel when what you really want to do is climb into bed and wake up when it’s all over.
Here are some practical ways family and friends can help grieving parents during the holidays:
I know that life goes on, the calendar pages keep turning and I can’t stop time in its tracks. I greet each day with as much faith and courage as I can muster. This season requires a little more-and I will need help to make it through.
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.
Read the rest here: Post Holiday Blues: When The Grief Comes Crashing Down
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
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.
Amen
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.
You’re invited too.
❤ Melanie
Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday.
I loved everything about it,
Read the rest here: The Power of Lament to Make Room for Thanksgiving
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.
Read the rest here: Let Me Know You Remember
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