Tag: healing

Child Loss: Don’t Let the Outside Fool You

From the outside-very soon after all the formal visiting, meal bringing and memorial service or funeral-most bereaved parents look “fine”.

We have to.

The world doesn’t stop turning because our world imploded.

Work, life, family duties, household chores, and all the ordinary things determined by hours and calendars keep rolling along.

But on the inside, every bit of who we are, how we feel, what we think has been devastatingly poked, prodded, ripped apart and rearranged.

Read the rest here: Don’t Let The Outside Fool You

STILL Nothing “Normal” About It

I first shared this post in 2016 when I deeply resented anyone trying to tell me there would eventually be a “new normal” to this long road of sorrow and missing.

Since then I would say that I can concede there is a kind of “normal” that eventually takes over a life-even a life shattered by loss.

No matter how tempting it might be to climb under the covers and hide away in my room, biding time until it’s MY time, I can’t.

And little by little, the ordinary (and extraordinary) habits, pressures and circumstances of walking in the world require more and more of my attention forcing me to sequester Dominic’s absence to a part (instead of the whole) of my waking existence.

But I will tell you today-over nine years later-that there is STILL absolutely, positively NOTHING “normal” about my beautiful boy being here one moment and gone the next.

❤ Melanie

❤ Melanie

Something you hear early on in this grief journey is that one day you will find a “new normal”.

I hate that phrase.

Because while I have certainly developed new routines, new ways of dealing with life, new methods for quelling the tears and the longing and the sorrow and the pain-it is NOT normal.

Read the rest here: Nothing “Normal” About It

Shattered

Years ago I heard  a young woman describe a Chinese grieving ritual on an NPR broadcast:

At her grandfather’s funeral, his oldest son was tasked with demonstrating the depth of grief and pain the father’s passing left behind. He stood before the casket, raised a clay bowl above his head and smashed it to the ground while loudly wailing.

The bowl was shattered into fragments too small and too fragile to be put back together in any semblance of what they once represented.

Read the rest here:  Fragments

Healing Is NOT Linear

I remember thinking in the early days, weeks and months of this journey that healing was impossible.

The wound was too great, too deep and too devastating to allow for that.

No amount of work or help or wishful thinking could undo the damage.

But I was wrong.

Read the rest here: Healing Is Not Linear

Why Am I Still Writing Nine Years Out?

I first shared this four years ago when I was reflecting on half a decade of living without one of my children beside me. I’ve now had nearly another half decade to think about why or IF I’ll continue to write.

Every so often I take a day or two to consider whether I want to keep posting. I have to admit sometimes that I wonder if I bang the same drum for too long it will sound loud and obnoxious to some people’s ears.

But then I get a message or a comment from someone fresh on this journey and they feel seen, heard, validated and safe.

So I write on.

And I find that writing brings clarity and comfort to my soul. I still have things to say and I hope what I say still brings some small measure of light, love, life and hope to other hearts.

❤ Melanie

I was one of those people years ago who set her sights on starting and maintaining a blog.  

I thought I would post a few times a week and share anecdotes about my family and critters, insight into daily living and inspiration from Scripture and interesting quotes. 

No, not THIS blog-the other two I started and quickly abandoned to who-knows-where in cyberspace.

Trouble was that the subject matter, while near and dear to my heart, wasn’t personally compelling enough to keep me disciplined and actively writing. 

If someone had said, “Pick any topic to write about”, child loss wouldn’t have been in the first million choices.

No one CHOOSES child loss (Thus the name of the blog:  The Life I Didn’t Choose).

But untold numbers of parents EXPERIENCE it every year.  This very day,  parents somewhere got a knock on the door or a phone call or sat next to a hospital bed as life slipped slowly from their child’s tired body.

Since I was already journaling and had walked this Valley for nearly a year and a half, it dawned on me that the ramblings I’d put down might be helpful to another heart.  So I started THIS blog in September, 2015.

And I’ve been here ever since.  

I’m not in the raw, breathless place I once was.  But grief and loss are part of every breath I take, part of every moment I experience.

whole in my heart mama

I miss Dominic.  I still consider death an enemy.  Every day I hate what was stolen and long for what was.  I mourn the changes grief has wrought in my family.  I wish things were different.  I discover new ways loss impacts my life and new ways of coping with it.

So I keep writing.  

I don’t want anyone to feel alone in this journey.  I don’t want anyone to think there’s no way to survive.   I don’t want a single broken heart to doubt that God is here and that He will help you hold onto hope. 

me too sharing the path

I’ll spill my heart out in words until the words are exhausted. 

It helps me.

I pray it helps others too. 

hope holds a breaking heart together

It’s Healing to Give Sorrow Words

Last summer, I participated in an online discussion group with others who read ATLAS OF THE HEART* by Brene Brown.

It was a helpful exercise to map, name and explore emotions so that I can create more meaningful connections to myself and others.

I think I’ve been doing some version of this my whole life. Language matters. Being able to give any emotion-especially the deep pain and sorrow of child loss-matters.

Language is our portal to meaning-making, connection, healing, learning, and self-awareness….

Language shows us that naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning.

Brene Brown, ATLAS OF THE HEART, xxi

The morning Dominic ran ahead to Heaven, after I made the awful phone calls I reached for my journal.  

I knew if I didn’t start spilling the grief onto paper my heart would explode with sorrow.  

Since I learned to hold a pencil I’ve been writing. 

It’s how I sort my thoughts, figure out my feelings and express my heart. 

Read the rest here: Give Sorrow Words.

*Warning: ATLAS OF THE HEART contains language that may offend some folks. I just don’t want anyone to be surprised. ❤

What’s Changed, What’s the Same, Nine Years Down the Road of Child Loss?

What’s changed and what is still the same nine years down the road of child loss?

I’ve thought about this a lot in the past few months as I prepared for, greeted and marked another year of unwelcome milestones since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Some things are exactly the same:

  • Whenever I focus solely on his absence, my heart still cries, “Can he REALLY be gone?” I am STILL A Mess Some Days….
  • The pain is precisely as painful as the moment I got the news.
  • It’s just as horrific today to dwell on the manner of his leaving.
  • I miss him, I miss him, I miss him. I live every day with his Tangible Absence.
  • I am thankful for his life, for the opportunity to be his mama and for the part of me shaped by who he was.
  • The absolute weight of grief has not changed. The burden remains a heavy one.
  • Daily choices are the difference between giving up and going on. I have to make Wise Choices in Grief.
  • My faith in Christ and my confidence that His promises are sure is the strength on which I rely. I have been Knocked Down But Not Destroyed.
  • I passionately look forward to the culmination of all history when every sad thing will come untrue.

Some things are very different:

  • Dominic’s absence is no longer all I see.
  • Sorrow and pain are no longer all I feel.
  • I’ve learned to live in spite of the hole in my heart-his unique place isn’t threatened by allowing myself to love others and pouring my life into the people I have left.
  • Joy and sorrow are not mutually exclusive. They live together in my heart and I can smile and laugh again while still pining for a time when things were different and easier.
  • I am Stronger because I’ve carried this burden for years. I’ve learned to shift it from side to side.
  • The darkness has receded so that I see light once more. I’m not as prone to fall as fast down the dark hole of despair.
  • My heart longs for reunion but has also learned to treasure the time I have left here on earth.

I’ve never hidden the struggle and pain of this journey.

But I don’t want those who are fresh in grief to think that how they are feeling TODAY is the way they will feel FOREVER.

By doing the work grief requires, making wise choices and holding onto hope a heart does begin to heal.

I am not as fragile today as I was on the first day.

And I am so, so thankful for that. ❤

Hope Helps, But It Doesn’t Erase the Pain

It is unhealthy to ignore pain.

heal and acknowledge

But when it comes to emotional pain, we sometimes shut people out or shut them down.

I submit that we diminish the power of the cross when we deny or minimize the presence of pain.

Believing that God is in control and Jesus lives does not undo grief’s storm-it is a lifeline that keeps my desperate and hurting heart from sinking under the waves.

Read the rest here: Heartache and Hope

Griefwork: I Must Feel ALL the Feels In Order to Begin Healing

It’s so tempting to try to run or numb the pain of child loss!

Who willingly submits to 24/7 excruciating pain?

But the truth is, unless I face my feelings, give my heart and mind time to experience them and work toward processing them, I cannot even begin to heal.

One of the most difficult and time consuming aspects of grief work is setting aside space and giving myself grace to do just this. In the first couple of years I would venture to say that the majority of my waking hours-intentionally or unintentionally-were spent on this very thing.

Even almost nine years later, I still spend some portion of every day (although now it may be fleeting) feeling, dealing and trying to work on healing part of my broken heart.

❤ Melanie

If I touch a hot stove my hand jerks away almost before my mind registers the searing pain.  It’s reflex.  Our bodies were designed to react to and protect us from things that cause pain.

Run away.  Don’t go back.  Set up barricades and warning signs so that others can be protected.

Most of the time, this reaction serves us well.

But sometimes those reflexes keep us from healing.

Read the rest here: Feel and Deal to Heal

I Would Love to Just Be Me

I first shared this post in 2018 when I was approaching the four year milestone of Dominic’s leaving for Heaven.

By that time most folks who knew me when he died had relegated that part of my story to some ancient past that surely I was over by now. I’d met others who had no clue my heart skipped a beat on a regular basis because one of my children was buried in the churchyard down the road.

And even the closest ones-the ones I thought would understand forever-were sometimes impatient with my ongoing refusal to leave Dominic behind and be “healed” of my grief.

I was reminded of it recently when several bereaved parents shared some painful grief attacks suffered around the holidays even though it has been years or even decades since their child ran ahead to Heaven.

Truth is, I will never be fully healed on earth from the awful wound of child loss. I continue to be subject to the sharp stab of missing and longing that drags my heart back to the first devastating moment.

And when that happens, I can’t fake it.

What I long for more than anything as the ninth anniversary of his departure draws near is simply this: Let me be me, whatever that looks like.

So please don’t try to fit my journey into your mold. 

❤ Melanie

Even in the very first hours after the news, my brain began instructing my heart, “Now, try to be brave.  Try not to disappoint people.  Try to say the right thing, do the right thing and be the example you should be.”

Whatever that meant.

Read the rest here: Can I Just Be Me?