Hey- I love a joke as much as anyone.
But there’s a difference between a genuine joke and a mocking comment made at the expense of another.
So often we laugh off things other people endure because we are afraid-afraid of the pain and the broken heart bearing it.
Stop laughing. Start loving. 
It’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t walked this path.
Deep pain and unfathomable sorrow stripped me of any reserve, any defense, any padding between the wider world and my oh-so-fragile heart.
I was a walking nerve.
Every awkward and less-than-thoughtful word or deed by friends, family and acquaintances rubbed me raw. I was utterly incapable of extending grace even as I knew I should and understood that most often their intentions were kind.
I had suffered a grievous wound and spent most of my energy just trying to protect what was left of my heart.
All I wanted to do was retreat to the safe cocoon of my own home. I unfollowed people on social media, I screened telephone calls, I rarely ventured out for anything but the most necessary supplies. It was the only way I could provide the space and time needed for my heart to heal enough to bear even the slightest brush with folks who might say or do the wrong thing.
It helped.
Eventually I found the strength to venture beyond the safety of home, family and the few friends with whom I felt comfortable and secure.
I could scroll through Facebook once again without reacting to every single post.
I went back to church and even showed up for covered dish socials where I couldn’t be certain which way the conversation would flow or who might get me blocked into a corner and ply me with questions.
I attended a few large gatherings: graduations, weddings and a Stephen Curtis Chapman concert.
So if you are in the early days of this hard, hard journey, do what you have to and find the safe circle that gives you time, space and grace to help your heart toward healing.
It may take longer than you’d like, but resting from the constant pressure of trying to protect yourself from the hustle and bustle in a world where child loss is misunderstood and frequently ignored will make a difference.
And one day, like me, you might well wake up and realize that what once felt like personal attacks are simply folks saying and doing foolish things because they haven’t been forced to learn the wisdom of compassion through unfathomable loss.
I’m still more sensitive than I used to be.
There are times I just can’t take crowds, unpredictable settings, offhand comments about death, dying, grief and heartache.
But I’m finally able to walk in the world without feeling I have to protect my heart at every turn.
It’s liberating and I’m thankful.
Those of you who have followed the blog for a bit know that I’ve said over and over and over: there is no limit to the heartache you may have to endure in this life.
The past three years have been the most difficult since the very first year after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven in 2014.
But this memory popped up in my Facebook timeline the other day and reminded me that along with all the hard, there have been some beautiful blessings.
Two years ago around this time I was listening to day after day after day of witnesses giving first one account and then another of events that happened three years prior trying to frame facts so that the twelve jurors would vote a certain way.
Only my friends and family from miles away helped me hold onto the thin thread of hope that truth would prevail.
It was brutal and not something I ever want to repeat.
If you ever wonder if a phone call, text, card or message make a difference, just ask me.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would not have made it without them.
When your scale of awful is off the charts, there’s a tendency to dismiss anything less as merely inconvenient or inconsequential.
But that’s just not how our hearts work.
You can be shattered by child loss and still feel the slings and arrows of everyday losses, disappointments, discomfort and sadness.
It’s OK to mourn the things that don’t measure up to the pain and despair of burying a child.
It’s OK to admit that even ordinary things like an empty nest, changing circumstances, moving away from friends and family, ill health, family drama and dozens of other, smaller wounds prick your heart and make it bleed.
While child loss has helped me gain perspective on what’s truly important, irreplaceable and worth my time and energy, it has not created a protective and impenetrable barrier that guards my heart from further pain.
I am just as likely as anyone else to fall into a funk over a misunderstanding, a less-than-expected outcome, a disappointing phone call with a friend or some other everyday frustration. And, sometimes, there are truly hard and horrible things I’ve had to bear: my mother’s prolonged illness and death, my grandson’s premature birth, my son’s overseas deployment and other things I’m not at liberty to share because I’m not the main character in the story.
Child loss doesn’t mean there won’t be more pain in this life.
It doesn’t give me a pass on heartache.
And it is perfectly normal-actually perfectly and absolutely right-to be sad and mourn the smaller losses in life.
It means my heart’s still beating.
It means I’m still engaged with those around me.
It means I’m still present and invested in life.
And that’s a good thing. ❤
I’m pretty far past what I call my “season of sorrow” so I don’t really know what came over me the other day.
But somehow the stars aligned or the slant of the sunshine or the smell in the air overwhelmed my heart.
Maybe it’s because Facebook faithfully reminds me of what happened on this date years ago. I know I can adjust the settings but I don’t because it’s both bitter AND sweet to be reminded.
Maybe it’s because summers in Alabama involve fervent activity before nine in the morning with a long, hot lull until more fervent activity after five in the evening.
I really don’t know.
But that’s one of the conundrums of child loss.
I hit a wall and I had a cry and took a short nap (something I only do about five times a year) and I was better.
I try to manage my days to avoid these things but sometimes a little bit of this and a little bit of that blow winds of nostalgia and regret and longing and missing across my soul.
And all I can do is weather the storm.
I remember the early days after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven when people were still checking in often on our family.
Some days there were a dozen or more messages that really, really needed an answer.
But I just couldn’t.
“How are you?” is often a more difficult question than you might think when your world is falling apart.
I wanted to tell the truth about how hard the days were and harder still the long dark nights but it felt too personal, too frightening and too likely to be misunderstood by a heart with no frame of reference.
So most of my responses looked something like this:
Eventually I found out who the safe people were and began to share more openly.
The others-the ones who weren’t safe or who were only asking out of a sense of curiosity or obligation-simply stopped asking when they didn’t get the answers they were looking for.
I’ve learned to give hurting hearts space.
I give them permission NOT to answer.
I want them to know I care but I don’t ask penetrating questions that might require answers they aren’t prepared to give.
Because I remember how that felt. ❤
It would surprise my mama most of all that on this day I’m at a loss for words.
I regularly embarrassed her with my non-stop commentary as a child. I told stories about what I heard and saw (and what my young mind THOUGHT it heard or saw) to anyone who would listen.
But I realize now there are moments too sacred, wounds too deep, experiences too precious for words.
Either you are there and share it-or you’re not-and can’t imagine.
This is one of those times.
Dominic would be [thirty-three] years old today if he had lived.
He’d be several years out of law school, on some path toward making his mark in the world, maybe (?) married, perhaps even a dad but definitely, positively here and part of our lives.
To be honest, I wouldn’t even care what his life looked like right now as long as it was LIFE.
Something very few people know and even fewer would note is that on Dominic’s birth day, the doctor who delivered him had just the day before become a bereaved parent himself. His daughter left this world by her own hand.
Another C-section, Dominic was lifted up next to my face by this sweet and vulnerable man while the tears poured down my face. I was crying for HIM not for me. I was undone that he had shown up and delivered my child while his own laid lifeless wherever they had taken her.
I thought I understood then.
But I had no clue.
I understand now.
Sometimes you show up and do what you need to because it’s the only way for a heart to survive. Sometimes you walk on because standing still leaves too much time for the horror to take root and overwhelm you.
I miss Dominic.
I miss the future we would have had together and the family we would have been if death hadn’t invaded our reality.
I would literally give anything other than the life of one I love for Dominic to be alive right now.
But it’s not an option.
So I’ll spend his birthday thinking about what we had, lamenting what we will never have, rejoicing that his faith is made sight and I’ll cry.
Because a mama’s arms are made for holding her child, not holding his memory.
I wrote this three years ago but it still speaks my heart.
❤
I will not get used to the fact that my son is beyond my reach. I have come to a certain acceptance of it as fact, and acknowledgement of the truth that I cannot change that fact.
The pain hasn’t become less painful, only more familiar. It doesn’t surprise me as often when it pricks my heart anew.
The world goes on.
Read the rest here: True Truth
In the waiting, in the searching
In the healing and the hurting
Like a blessing buried in the broken pieces
Every minute, every moment
Where I’ve been and where I’m going
Even when I didn’t know it or couldn’t see it
There was Jesus
Jonathan Smith/ Casey Beathard/ Zach Williams -“There Was Jesus”
Songs reach places in my heart that words alone can never touch.
There is so much truth in this one.
When I couldn’t see Him, couldn’t feel Him, had no evidence of His Presence-Jesus was there.
His strength sustained me, His love protected my heart from bitterness, His grace was enough-is enough-for each day.
In the waiting, in the searching.
There was Jesus.
In the healing and the hurting.
There was Jesus.
There is a blessing buried in the broken pieces.
He is Jesus.
It’s what you do, it’s what you say.
“Please”and “thank you” are how we live in community with others.
Even when our world is crumbling and our hearts are breaking, we don’t toss these courtesies away.
You begin to realize that everyone has a tragedy, and that if he doesn’t, he will. You recognize how much is hidden beneath the small courtesies and civilities of everyday existence. Deep sorrow and traces of great loss run through everyone’s lives, and yet they let others step into the elevator first, wave them ahead in a line of traffic, smile and greet their children and inquire about their lives, and never let on for a second that they, too, have lain awake at night in longing and regret, that they, too, have cried until it seemed impossible that one person could hold so many tears, that they, too, keep a picture of someone locked in their heart and bring it out in quiet, solitary moments to caress and remember.
Roseanne Cash, Composed: A Memoir by Roseanne Cash
I remember walking down the grocery store aisle wondering if the face I smiled into was faking it like I was. I wondered if they were hiding behind pleasantries because they form a good shield.
I imagine, on some level, most were. Because nearly everyone has a secret wound.
And, like Cash said, if they haven’t yet, they will be.
thelifeididntchoose 