Child loss is not a single event.
Of course the moment when the last breath leaves a body is noted and duly recorded because the law requires such. I can pull out Dominic’s death certificate (what an ugly thing to have to say about my child!) and it reads: Time of Death: 1:10 a.m. April 12, 2014.
But I didn’t know about it until 4: 15 that morning when the deputy rang the bell.
So for me, his death came then.
Read the rest here: Child Loss is Not a Single Event
It may seem like the easiest way to get an inside scoop on how I’m REALLY doing-but don’t do it.
Please don’t ask my kids how I’m doing.
Respect the fact that they have their own grief burden. Respect family privacy and understand you are putting them in an impossible position.
Read the rest here: Please Don’t Ask My Kids How I Am Doing
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
It is tempting to forget that there were three long days and nights between the crucifixion and the resurrection beause the way we observe this season rushes us past the pain to embrace the promise.
But it’s not hard for me to imagine how the disciples felt when they saw Jesus was dead. It was neither what they expected nor what they prayed for.
There were many points in the story when things could have gone a different way:
At every turn, every expectation they had for a “happy ending” was dashed to the ground.
Read the rest here: Living Between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection
On the one hand Death is the triumph of Satan, the punishment of the Fall, and the last enemy. Christ shed tears at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane: the Life of Lives that was in Him detested this penal obscenity not less than we do, but more.
On the other hand, only he who loses his life will save it. We are baptized into the death of Christ, and it is the remedy for the Fall.Death is, in fact, what some modern people call “ambivalent.” It is Satan’s great weapon and also God’s great weapon: it is holy and unholy; our supreme disgrace and our only hope; the thing Christ came to conquer and the means by which He conquered.
~C.S. Lewis, Miracles
Bury a child and suddenly the death of Christ becomes oh, so personal.
The image of Mary at the foot of the cross is too hard to bear.
Read the rest here: Remember: Why Good Friday Matters as Much as Resurrection Sunday
Today is the day on the church calendar when we pause and reflect on the Last Supper, and the last words of Jesus to His disciples.
A year’s worth of sermons is contained in John 13-17 but this week I have been drawn to just one verse:
[Jesus said] ‘Now I am giving you a new command—love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another. This is how all men will know that you are my disciples, because you have such love for one another.’
John 13:34 PHILLIPS
Read the rest here: Maundy Thursday
The first time I shared this I was trying to distill years of walking the broken road of child loss into a relatively few, easy to think about, “lessons”.
Since then I could add a dozen more but today I’ll only add one: Being a bereaved parent is not my IDENTITY but it impacts who I am in ways I’m still figuring out.
Just as being married or being female or being from the southern United States informs how I walk in the world and interact with others so, too, does having buried a child.
There’s a lot of pressure to pretend that’s not true.
But I won’t do that.
❤
I’ve had awhile to think about this. Eight years is a long time to live with loss, to live without the child I carried, raised and sent off in the world.
So I’ve considered carefully what my “top ten” might be.
Here’s MY list (yours might be very different):
Read the rest here: Ten Things I’ve Learned About Child Loss
In some liturgical Christian traditions, today is the day the church remembers and honors Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with expensive and rare perfume.
It was a beautiful act of great sacrifice as the perfume would ordinarily be a family treasure broken and used only at death for anointing a beloved body.
It’s also an expression of deep sorrow because somehow Mary knew.
Mary. Knew.
So she poured out her precious gift on the One Who loves her most.
Tears are my sacrifice.
Yesterday was eight long years since Dominic left for Heaven. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the distance between the last time I hugged him and now.
But I can still feel the shape of where his shoulders would fit in my arms.
I know exactly who I’m missing-and I miss him every bit as much today as the first moment I learned he wasn’t coming home.
❤
When I imagine something I’ve never actually experienced-even when I might say “I miss such and such” it’s not the same as when I’ve had something and it’s been taken away.
I can only miss the imaginary in an ephemeral, insubstantial way. I miss what I once possessed in a tangible way.
I know exactly the size and shape and sound and substance of the person that SHOULD be here but isn’t.
Read the rest here: Tangible Absence
We began this journey forty days ago with the idea “Decrease is only holy when its destination is love” (Alicia Britt Chole).
The aim of Lent or any other period of fasting or self-denial is not to thin our waists but to thin our self-reliance and our self-importance to make room for the power and sustaining grace of Jesus-to open our hearts and our souls to His love.
When I force myself to face my own helplessness to sweep away sin, sift through selfishness and sort out bad habits and unholy thoughts I realize how utterly dependent I am on the work Christ wrought on the cross.
Listen, I can’t explain my actions. Here’s why: I am not able to do the things I want; and at the same time, I do the things I despise. 16 If I am doing the things I have already decided not to do, I am agreeing with the law regarding what is good. 17 But now I am no longer the one acting—I’ve lost control—sin has taken up residence in me and is wreaking havoc. 18 I know that in me, that is, in my fallen human nature, there is nothing good. I can will myself to do something good, but that does not help me carry it out. 19 I can determine that I am going to do good, but I don’t do it; instead, I end up living out the evil that I decided not to do.
Romans 7: 15-19 VOICE
So today I am celebrating the fact-the historical, spiritual and eternal FACT-that everything necessary for life and liberty and hope and eternal salvation has been accomplished.
Christ has died.
Christ has risen.
Christ will come again.
Dominic is dead. His body lies a mile down the road and six feet under the earth.
But that’s not the end of his story.
His spirit is alive with Christ and one day his body will be resurrected in glory.
And one day-one glorious Day-“every sad thing will come untrue” (Child’s Storybook Bible).
I can’t wait!
thelifeididntchoose 