Tag: grief

I’m Still Living With Regrets

I first shared this post seven years ago when I began writing the blog.

When I read it now, the pain of regret is precisely as sharp as it was when I wrote it. I still wish, wish, wish I had NOT tossed stuff out willy-nilly just a few months before Dominic left us.

I’ve released lots of material things since he’s been gone but it’s been done thoughtfully and with the understanding that I am letting go of one more bit of who he was.

When I was just an overwhelmed ex-homeschool mama longing to reclaim space, I was much less careful about what I threw out.

Time doesn’t always (maybe never?) erase regret.

❤ Melanie
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Just a few months before Dominic was killed, this hoarding homeschool mama decided that it was time to finally give up some of the thousands of pages of handwritten, color-crayoned papers stacked in the attic, the storage building and floating in corners and crevices throughout the house.

Four children and twenty-two years of teaching them at home had produced a mountain of memories.  I began to sort through the ones I deemed “most important to keep” and “everything else”.  

Several loads were taken to the dump and tossed unceremoniously onto the trash pile.

It felt like freedom.

Now it feels like regret and longing.

Read the rest here: A Life in Scraps

Bitterness Will Bear Poisonous Fruit

I believe the root of bitterness is turning away from the truth that God is faithful, loving, gracious and good.

Once a heart denies THAT, it is easily led away from the grace of God and the mercy of God.

The bitter root bears bitter fruit and has the potential to defile everyone around us and beyond.

Because when a heart embraces bitterness, it is never content to be bitter alone. It offers up the wretched fruit to anyone who will taste it.

Read the rest here: Bitterness Bears Poisonous Fruit

Goodness! What’s Wrong With You? It’s Been YEARS!

If you think that time makes a difference to a mama missing a child who ran ahead to Heaven without her, you don’t know as much as you think you know.

Time does not heal all wounds-especially the kind that shatter a heart into a million pieces.

It takes time for the wound to scar over, but it doesn’t undo the damage.

So if you are wondering why your coworker still takes the day off on his child’s birthday or the anniversary of her child’s homegoing, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Years disappear when those milestones loom large.

Read the rest here: It’s Been Years-What’s Wrong With You?

Piece by Piece: We Don’t Lose Them All at Once

I cannot speak for others but in my case, it seems that I did not lose Dominic all at once.

In fact, I’m still losing him.

Bit by bit, a little at a time, nearly molecule by molecule, his mark on my life, my walls, my world grows smaller.

Read the rest here: Bit By Bit: We Don’t Lose Them All at Once

HOW Do I Live With Unanswered Questions?

I share some version of this every year on 9/11 because while it has been decades since this tragedy, it continues to reverberate in the hearts and lives of those who experienced it.

When you lose someone you love suddenly and unexpectedly your world is turned upside down.

Those who were taken on this day twenty-three years ago are rightfully mourned and marked by nations.

Those of us who quietly said good-bye in hospitals or on roadside accident sites or in our living rooms when we were brought the news often mourn alone.

But know this: Regardless of how death steals your loved one, it takes great courage to live every day knowing by experience that a single moment can change everything.

We should honor the survivors too.

❤ Melanie

It’s been twenty-three years since the Towers fell.  Hard to believe-no matter how great the tragedy, life goes on.  

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Like many, I was watching things as they happened that day.

My husband, an architect and engineer, saw the wobble in the first tower and knew- he KNEW- it was going to collapse.  Horrified I began to understand that whoever was still in that building was running out of time.

And I cried, oh, how I cried.  

It was awful.

Since then I’ve lived my own tragedy.

Read the rest here: Learning To Live With Unanswered Questions

This Is NOT What I Had Planned

I don’t get to choose.

I don’t get to plan the way life is going to be.

Oh, I bring out the calendar and mark down the days:  birthdays, holidays, special events and obligations.

But then one dark morning a knock stops the clock and makes the world spin faster all at once.

I’m suspended and plunged under in the same breath.

Read the rest here: Not What I Had Planned

Some Days Are “Hard Stops”-When I Can’t Ignore the Missing

Most of the time I’m just kind of rolling along.

There are things to do, places to go, people to see, animals to feed.

I get up, get going and get on with it.

But there are some days that are what I call “Hard Stops” on this journey.  They are the days that force my heart to take special notice of the fact that Dominic isn’t here.

Read the rest here: Hard Stops: When You Can’t Ignore the Missing

It’s SO Important To Speak Truth

I’m here to tell you:  don’t drown your important relationships in unsaid words, unshared feelings, unacknowledged wounds.  

All that does is guarantee distance grows between your hearts.  

If you let the distance become too vast, or the pile of unsaid truth get too high, you might just find you can’t reach that far or that high to reconnect.

It takes a bit of brave to say what’s important and uncomfortable. 

Read the rest here: Speaking Truth

Know What? Life Happens.

I confess. 

When I used to drive by an unkempt yard, a run down house or bumped into an untidy person, I would think, “Goodness!  Don’t they care about their yard, home or appearance?  They need to do better!  I would NEVER let my (fill in the blank) look like that.”

I don’t do that anymore.  

Because I’ve learned that there are all kinds of reasons a body may not be busy mowing a lawn,  painting a porch or even putting on matching socks.

Read the rest here: Life Happens

It Can’t Be Both Ways

Grief is the price we pay for love.  

Grief is an appropriate and proportionate response to the death (the end of earthly companionship) of someone we love.

If grief is small, what does that say about love?

It can’t be both ways. 

Read the rest here: Can’t Have it Both Ways…