I belong to several bereaved parents online communities and this question comes up again and again-it was the first thing I asked a bereaved mom just after Dominic ran ahead to heaven:
“Will this suffocating pain remain sitting on my chest, smothering the breath and life right out of me? Will I ever be able to stop crying? Will it ALWAYS feel like this?”
The short answer is, “No, it won’t.”
Read the rest here: Will It ALWAYS Feel Like This?
Dear Mama,
I know that you never-in your wildest imagination-thought that you would need a day set aside for your broken heart and your empty arms.
Who thinks when they learn a new life is growing inside that this same life might be cut short? What heart is brave enough to consider the possibility?
Yet here you are.
I’m so, so sorry.
But there are a few things I want you to know.
Read the rest here: International Bereaved Mother’s Day: An Open Letter to my Fellow Sisters in Loss
International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States. This year it’s tomorrow, May 2, 2021.
I didn’t even know such a day existed until I was a mom that needed it.
For those of us who have children in heaven, setting aside a day to acknowledge that unique mother/child relationship is helpful.
Read the rest here: International Bereaved Mother’s Day
I have been asked how I can believe in what I cannot see or touch. How I can trust a God Who allowed such pain in my life.
It is true that I can’t see God, I can’t prove His existence.
But the fact that I’m still holding onto hope gives testimony to the life of Christ in me.
Read the rest here: Then and Now: How Can Death and Life Inhabit the Same Frame?
It’s been just over seven years since Dominic left us suddenly, unexpectedly, and without warning.
Thankfully my heart has healed enough that every day is no longer filled with tears.
But there are still hard days, still challenging seasons.
And when they feel like they might last forever, I remind myself that even the worst day of my life was just twenty-four hours.
Night fell, the earth turned, and another sunrise showed up on cue.
❤
I don’t know just when I figured it out, but somewhere in this Valley it dawned on me-NO day lasts forever.
Many feel like they do.
The day I got the news stretched impossibly long in front of me as calls were made and people came to be wtih us.
But even THAT day ended. Night fell, the earth turned, and another sunrise showed up on cue.
Read the rest here: Twenty-four Hours
Bereaved parents often have several tasks before them in the days and months and years following the death of a child.
One of them is to help their surviving children navigate loss.
I have three earthbound children. And they are grieving.
Their world changed in the same instant mine did. Their hearts are broken too.
Read the rest here: Helping My Children Walk Through Grief
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-especially as the weeks turn into months and then to years.
Read the rest here: Five Practical Ways to Support a Grieving Parent
It’s kind of odd to see most of the world suddenly forced to embrace a lifestyle I’ve followed for the past seven years.
While I’ve always been an introvert, I was not nearly the homebody I’ve become since my son ran ahead to heaven.
Now staying in, carefully planning social events and obligations, leaving a few days between high-energy gatherings and just generally pacing myself is the norm.
I’m truly not anti-social. I love my people. I love seeing them and talking to them.
But since there’s only so much energy to go around I AM selectively social.
❤
Grief changes lots of things.
I am simply not able to spend energy on frivolous and marginally meaningful social activities anymore.
I’m sure that hurts some folks feelings and I am truly sorry.
But I can’t help it.
Read the rest here: Not Anti-Social. Just Selectively Social.
It would be easier, in a way, if it happened all at once.
If the vivid memories of his voice, his laugh, his body language, his sense of humor just disappeared-POOF!-now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. Then I could make a single adjustment.
But that’s not how it is. Instead, the living proof of his existence recedes like a wave from the shoreline, only there’s no returning surge to remind me of the force that was Dominic.
Read the rest here: Slow Fade
thelifeididntchoose 