Backing up my rear tire hit the edge of a little stump and the sidewall blew out with a loud “whoosh”.
No fixing that. No way to plug it or patch it or make it work for just a little longer.
That tire was toast.
I bought a new one.
But imagine if that wasn’t an option. Imagine if I had to take the ripped apart shreds of what was left of that tire and cobble it together to make do. Imagine if it barely held air,had to be pumped up each morning and needed attention every mile or so just to keep going.
That would be exhausting and enough to make you wonder if traveling anywhere was worth it.
That’s how my heart feels these past days.
When Dominic ran ahead to heaven it was like my heart exploded into a thousand tiny bits. So many fragments with no way to put them back together.
But getting a new heart isn’t an option-I’m stuck with this broken one.
And I have to keep on going. Even when it takes every ounce of energy to hold it together, even when I can barely make two steps without feeling like it’s going to fall apart again, even when I want to give up.
So today, and maybe tomorrow too, I’m going to just sit here.
I’m going to give myself permission to acknowledge that my heart is broken, I feel deflated and defeated and pushing through is not something I have to do if I don’t feel like I can.
I’m pretty sure the feeling will pass.
I’ll gather strength and manage to glue the bits back together in a day or two, add air and travel on.
I can see her all the way down the aisle-even if she doesn’t say a word, I know.
I know.
She‘s carrying a burden wrapped in love and buried deep inside. Someone she poured life into is no longer here. The missing and the daily sorrow is etched on her face even as she smiles.
What to do? What to do?
Making a decision without her better half to help her is overwhelming. She wants to cry but holds back the tears because, “What would people think?”
So I go up to her and tell her what I think: “Would you like some help?”
That opens the floodgates.
“I’m looking for hairbands-something to match my white hair. I have so little left-losing it because of stress, you know. “
Silence while I help her look.
“My husband passed three months ago. We were married 60 years. I just can’t believe he’s gone.”
I tell her about Dominic-brief version-so she knows that I understand.
“He’s not suffering anymore and I guess I should be better. But I just miss him!”
I take her hand and look into her beautiful eyes-eyes that are full of love and compassion and sorrow-and tell her that she will miss him as long as she lives. That’s how we’re made.
Great love means great grief. A shared lifetime can’t be severed by death. We carry that sorrow because our hearts still carry the love.
And I tell her that no one has the right to rush her along. Her wounded heart is a witness to love. It’s a tribute to her husband and the life they shared. It’s testimony to the power of God in her that she can bear the wound and still remain.
We prayed, and hugged and both went away refreshed.
Walking wounded has made me much more aware that God places people in my path who are wounded too.
I want to be the person that stops, no matter what.I want to be who God created me in Christ Jesus to be. I want to walk in the good works He has laid out for me ahead of time.
It’s a way of redeeming this sorrow and weaving something beautiful from my tears.
God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us new people so that we would do good works. God had planned in advance those good works for us. He had planned for us to live our lives doing them.
I’ve lived with invisible chronic disease for a decade.
From the outside looking in, you’d hardly know that I am often in great pain. I make daily choices about what I will do and what I won’t do based on what I can doand what my body refuses to do.
I take medication. I do all the things I’m supposed to doto help my body heal.
But I cannotMAKEthe healing happen.
No matter how hard I wish it were different,no matter how carefully I manage my treatment,healing comes (or doesn’t) in its own time.
I’m pretty sure that most people have experienced something similar if they’ve broken a bone or had a bad bout of bronchitis or pneumonia.
Other than following the advice of your doctor and taking your meds on time, resting and eating well, there’s not much you can do to force your body to get well.
A broken heart is just the same.
All I can do is place myself in the path of healing. I can feed my soul with truth and drink living water from God’s Word.
I can lean in and rest in the promise that Jesus will redeem and restore.
I can do the work that grief requires.
And working on healing takes energy, effort and time–lots and lots of TIME.
I cannot hurry the healing.
Please understand that as inconvenient, uncomfortable and disconcerting it may be for YOU, it is immeasureably more so for ME.
The moment my three living children are in the family room, joking and laughing-but his voice is so obviously missing.
The moment I say to one son, “Have you texted your brother?” and don’t have to give a name, because there is only one brotherleft to text.
The moment I go down the list of who-I-have-heard-from-in-the-last-24-hours and it is short a single name. I know where Dominic is.
The moment I realize that it has been three years (!) since I bought him a present, asked him for a Christmas wish list, checked in to check his schedule so I can arrange family dinners and holiday get togethers.
The moment I count plates or cups or places at the table-always one less, always one empty chair.
Yes, there are good days.
Yes, I am so very thankful for each moment I have with the ones left.
But if counting blessings is supposed to undo my heartache I must be doing it all wrong.
If focusing on the “now” is a way to ignore the “then”I need more practice.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot get over the hurdle of wanting things to be like they were.
I am not ungrateful. I cherish every single second we are together.
I hold every farewell close to my heart.
I make a mental picture of the face, the smile, the wave-because when you learn the hard way that this time might be the last time-you don’t take anything for granted.
I cling to the promise that one day we will be reunited.
For the next few days I’m probably going to be cycling through some posts that received the most response from readers. A family member is facing serious and complex surgery Monday, October 24th and I’m going to be focused on that.
If I get a chance, I’ll add new content-but as all of us know, there’s no telling what a day will bring.
Until then, I hope that if you missed these, they will be helpful or if you’ve forgotten about them, they will be refreshing and encouraging again.
“People say, “I can’t imagine.“
But then they do.
They think that missing a dead child is like missing your kid at college or on the mission field but harder and longer.
When news that Dominic left us spread, our yard was filled with friends and family here to help bear the burden of grief and loss.
Our house was bursting with people and food and phone calls-more coming and going than our gravel lane had seen in a lifetime of living up in the woods.
It was beautiful and terrible all at the same time. Beautiful because we were not alone in our sorrow and terrible because it was due to that sorrow they were here.
In those days between the accident and the funeral I was boundary-less.
People hugged me, fed me, cleaned my house, cut my grass, tended the animals, asked me questions, told me stories and I just accepted it-whatever “it” was-because I was utterly unable to do anything else.
But in the weeks that followed, as the pain made itself more at home in my heart-as it expanded to fill every nook and crevice-I realized that I had to put up some fences.
My oldest son was getting married just a couple months after the accident.
There’s a lot of stuff to do for a wedding as most folks know. So I got a phone call one week after Dominic’s funeral and the person on the other end launched into a long saga regarding a minor detail and expected me to 1) listen attentively; 2) care as deeply as they did about something that absolutely didn’t matter; and 3) join with them in light-hearted, laughter-filled banter.
I just. couldn’t. do. it.
So I didn’t.
I politely but firmly explained that I was unable to continue the conversation and that in future they needed to contact me through my son. I promised I was 100% committed to making the wedding happen, to doing my part and to being as happy as possible on the day.
But until then, unless it was a true emergency, please leave me alone.
Drawing a boundary created space for me to DO what needed to be done without the added burden of extra emotional baggage.
Before Dominic left us I was a “yes” person.
Smiling stylish woman showing sign excellently, isolated on red
Need help with an event?Why, sure I’m available.
Need someone to take your Sunday School class? Absolutely.
Keep your toddler? Just drop him off-we’ll play with the critters all day.
Phone call counselor and Homeschool Help Hotline-that was me.
Not anymore.
I’ve learned that if I am to have the energy needed to do necessary things, I have to protect my heart. I am too weak to carry everyone else’s burdens. If I am going to survive this journey I’ve got to prioritize.
I still listen.
I still help.
But I do it in a more healthy way-with respect for myself as well as others.
It is OK to say, “No.”And I don’t have to offer a reason. It’s a complete sentence all on its own.
All of my children had urged me over the years to draw boundaries. But I had grown from a parent-pleasing first born into a people pleasing adult and I just couldn’t do it.
Dominic even crafted a wire sign that hung on my kitchen curtains in the shape of a cursive “no”.
He made me repeat the mantra: Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
He’d be proud of me for finally taking his advice.
From my friend and fellow bereaved mother, Janet Boxx.
Choosing to go THROUGH grief is frightening, and hard, and takes so very much work, energy and commitment.
I, too, would often rather think about my grief experience than feel it. But it is the only hope for healing.
“How do you feel about that?”, Ruth, my grief counselor asked. Tears filled my eyes and choked my throat as I desperately tried to prevent them from falling, to prevent a sob from escaping, while my mind grappled for words to define my feelings. For such a wordy person I find it ironic how completely […]
Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
James 2:14-17 MSG
James doesn’t mess around.
He says what a lot of people are thinking but are too timid to speak aloud.
I like that.
We could use a good dose of his brand of preaching in the church today. Let’s stop pretending that following Jesus is just about getting our theology right. Let’s stop acting like going to church, serving on committees or teaching Sunday School is the best indicator of where my heart isrelative to my Savior.
Let’s face facts: if my life does not look different than the lives of those who do not know Jesus, then either I don’t know Him or I’m not paying attention to what He’s telling me to do.
I have been blessed on this grief journey by a few dedicated friends who go out of their way to do good, be light and extend hope to my heart when I’m barely holding on. They have chosen, often sacrificially, to be the hands and feet of Jesus in my life.
And they make a difference!
Sometimes it’s a card in the mail, sometimes a text or message and sometimes a visit-but they DO something. They might not understand why God is putting me on their heart, but they obey the prompting.
So if the Spirit is nudging you to reach out to someone, don’t ignore Him or put it off. Sure, praying is important. We are commanded to do that.
But we are also commanded to be physically present and to extend practical help to hurting hearts. We are supposed to BE the hands and feet of Jesus.
Who knows,I might be the answer to my own prayer that God send encouragement to someone else.
I can choose to do good.
I can choose to shine light.
I can choose to share hope.
And my small gesture be the very thread that holds a broken heart together.
If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor – the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences — good and bad.
~Brene Brown
I grew up in the Deep South where ladies were supposed to keep silent about anything “unmentionable”.
Problem is, that included many things that SHOULD be spoken aloud.
Because a conspiracy of silence forces those who are suffering to hide. It creates huge gaps between what goes on behind closed doors and public image.
And it causes those who are wounded to question the authenticity of their own experience.
In recent years we have dragged many topics into the light. We’ve made space in the public square for discussion of things we used to pretend didn’t exist.
But life after child loss is still a hushed topic.
The long road to healing after burying a child is rarely acknowledged outside the community of bereaved parents.
The FACT that as long as I live, my son’s absence will be a shadow trailing me, the burden of sorrow will slow my steps, the heartache of missing will shape my world is glossed over and set aside.
I understand why.
It is scary to speak aloud what you hope will never happen to you. It’s unbelievably frightening to admit that we really have no control over whether, or when, we or the ones we love might leave this world.
But I am not going to keep silent.
Not because I want pity or special treatment, but because I want that parent who just buried his or her child to know that you. are. not. alone.
I want you to know that what you are experiencing is not unusual.
I want you to understand that the horrible pain you feel is absolutely normal.
And I want you to be assured that you are NOT Crazy!
I will tell my story because even though it is hard, it matters. And even though it hurts, it can help heal another. And even though it isn’t finished, it can blaze a trail for others to follow.
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.
Frozen.Broken. Horrified.
How did this happen?
How is this my life?
My head and heart explode in pain.
Months pass. The days march on.
I still don’t get to choose what sunrise brings.
But looking back I’m grateful that when my circle was whole we chose love.
That when the days were unfolding we chose faith.
That even as the night closed in and the days grew dark we continued to cling to the one Hope that proves true.
I’m thankful that my heart was full of praise songs and Scripture and that when I couldn’t lift my hand to turn the pages of my Bible the Spirit used them to whisper courage to my soul.
This Valley is deep and the sun is often hidden by the towering mountains on either side.
thelifeididntchoose 