loss – thelifeididntchoose

Christmas 2025: Surviving Siblings and Christmas

I first shared this post in 2016 when we had muddled through the first two holiday seasons after Dominic left us and were headed for a third.

Now facing our twelfth, there are some things that have changed a lot (adding grandchildren and losing my mama) and some things that remain the same (the ongoing struggle to balance everyone’s needs and expectations with the reality of sorrow).

I still find the principles I outlined years ago to be the best way to approach the season. We certainly don’t always get it right but we continue to strive to honor one another, to honor the true meaning of Christmas and to honor Dominic.

❤ Melanie

How do I honor the child for whom memories are all I have and love well the children with whom I am still making memories?

That’s a question I ask myself often.

And it is especially difficult to answer for celebrations and holidays, special events and birthdays.

I’ve probably had it a bit easier than many bereaved parents.

My children were all adults when Dominic left us for Heaven.

We have strong relationships and a track record of talking things through. So I can ask them about what is helpful to them and tell them what is hard for me. We all acknowledge that we are finding our way in the dark and that changing circumstances make it important to keep the lines of communication open.

We are experiencing our ninth set of holidays this year and have yet to establish a pattern or routine that works every time.

But here are some things we are learning together-some things my children are teaching me about surviving siblings and Christmas:

Parents shouldn’t try to hide their grief. This one is hard. As moms and dads we want so badly to create a safe world for our children-even our adult children! Yet we know by painful experience that it is impossible. When I try to hide my grief (which I cannot do successfully) I’m adding stress to an already stress-filled situation. That grief is going to escape somewhere-if not in tears, then in raised voices, impatient looks and short tempers. Children (even very young children) know that you are sad. Let them know by your example that it’s OK to be sad. Share your heart (in age-appropriate ways) and by doing so, give them permission to grieve as well.
Don’t force your child to grieve the same way you do. Some children find it easier to be open about emotions than others. The outward emotional expression of grief is different in each person. For some it looks like what we expect: tears, sadness, sorrow. For others it may look like anger or denial or an unwavering commitment to “keep everything the same”. Some children become very anxious about the safety of other family members. Some may remain stoic-don’t force emotional responses. Do some reading/research on grief in children and be prepared for the different ways a child may express their pain.
Ask you child(ren) how they feel about certain events/traditions/remembrance ideas. Even young children may have strong opinions about what feels good and what feels awful. It’s tough to find a balance among competing needs but at least knowing how different family members are experiencing the holiday gives parents an idea of how it might be accomplished. Sometimes surviving siblings can help parents find a creative solution to the quandary of how to honor the missing child and how to bless surviving children.
Don’t require that your child(ren) participate in every event or gathering. This is especially helpful for older children-but parents should be sensitive to the young ones as well. Give your child(ren) permission to say, “no” if they don’t want to be part of a particular event. Some parents want to do balloon releases or light candles at a special service for their missing child. What’s healing for the parent may not be healing for a surviving sibling. That’s OK. Do the same for family gatherings. Don’t force a sibling to contribute a “favorite memory” or “story” during a family memorial time.
Grant space and remain flexible. Things that sound like a good idea while still far off on the calendar can feel overwhelming as the day approaches. Sometimes no matter how much I WANT to do something, I. just. can’t. It’s the same for surviving siblings. Be gracious and allow for changing feelings/circumstances. They may truly wish they could commit or participate but realize that when the day is here, they just don’t have the emotional energy to do it.
On the other hand, be alert if a child withdraws completely. Withdrawal may be a silent scream for help. The pain may have become too great to process but the child doesn’t know how to ask for help. You are the parent. You can’t “fix” your child. But you can take him or her by the hand and lead them to someone who can discern the best way to give them the skills to cope with the loss of their sibling.
Affirm your living child(ren). Let them know that you love them in ways that are most meaningful to them. Every person has a unique “love language”-a preferred way to be loved. Learning what speaks to your child(ren)’s heart helps to ensure that they don’t feel forgotten or overlooked even as you grieve the child that is missing from your family circle.
Express appreciation for your child(ren)’s continued support for your own grief. My kids are a vital part of my grief support system-just as I am for them. We all love Dominic and our hearts all hurt and miss him. I am thankful every minute of every day that they listen to me, let me cry and love me through hard moments.
Understand that sometimes your surviving child(ren) might need to leave the missing sibling behind or set him or her aside for an event or celebration. It’s hard to remain in the shadow of “the one gone before”. They may not want that special day to be referenced as “so many days/months/years since we lost ______”. Of course our mama or daddy hearts can’t help but think of it that way! BUT-this is THEIR day, THEIR moment. Let them have it. It takes nothing away from your love for the missing child to affirm and lavish love on the child you can still hold.
Remember, that just like for you-each year may be different. What works one time may not work this time. Extend, and be willing to receive, grace

I am trying hard to love and honor and support the children still with me and also make room for Dominic, who lives in our hearts.

It’s a delicate balancing act on a spiderweb of intersecting strings-I’m still learning and it’s hard.

But love is ALWAYS worth the cost.

Celebrating Life and Loss: Insights on Birthdays

Tomorrow I will be sixty-two years old.

When I celebrated my fiftieth, I had so many dreams and plans! I couldn’t have imagined that the next ten years would be filled with the heartache of child loss, along with all the hope and joy of an expanding family.

But here I am.

Definitely older and, I would like to think, a little wiser.

Wiser to the truth that no one escapes pain in this life. Wiser to the fact that joy and sorrow can coexist. Wise enough to know by experience that sometimes the very best thing you can do is shut your mouth and open your arms to a hurting heart. Wise enough to realize that birthdays for bereaved parents are often complicated.

I wrote this post several years ago but share it annually because unless you’ve sent a child ahead to Heaven, you might not realize how very tricky birthdays can be for the parents left behind.

❤ Melanie

Tomorrow is my birthday.

And while I am truly grateful for another trip around the sun, since Dominic left us it’s not a simple celebration of life lived and the hope of years to come.

The last birthday I had with an unbroken family circle was a lovely surprise party for my fiftieth held in Dom’s apartment.

Eleven years later and it seems a lifetime ago.

Read the rest here: Birthdays Are…Complicated

Grief Work 2025: Learning the Language of Loss

Child loss is lonely.

But you don’t have to be alone.

An isolated heart is especially vulnerable to discouragement and despair.

When I first found myself on this path, I only knew a handful of moms who were walking it too. They were kind and helpful but they weren’t close enough (by relationship or physical distance) to make sharing my daily ups and downs easy or comfortable. I had so many questions. I had so many fears.

And I really didn’t have anyone to ask.

Someone suggested I look for a grief group meeting in my area. But I live in a rural county and there were none. Someone else suggested I start one. But I was in no position to shepherd other hearts or facilitate discussion when I could barely form words around my own feelings.

So I turned to social media. I searched Facebook for bereaved parent groups.

And it’s there I learned the language of loss and experienced the blessing of community.

❤ Melanie

How do you speak of the unspeakable?

How do you constrain the earth-shattering reality of child loss to a few syllables?

How do you SAY what must be said?

I remember the first hour after the news. I had to make phone calls. Had to confirm my son’s identity and let family know what had happened.

I used the only words I had at the time, “I have to tell you something terrible. Dominic is dead.”

Over, and over, and over.

Until others could pick up the chant and spread it to the ends of the earth.

And then silence.

Such a deep wound requires silence. Because there are no words for the ache inside a mother’s heart, the pain that burrows into her bones, the sorrow that sucks the breath from her body.

It was some months before I found a community of bereaved parents who began to give me a vocabulary for my experience.

And it was more than helpful, it was liberating!

As I began to speak aloud what was hidden inside, it broke chains I didn’t realize held me hostage.

As long as my feelings are secret, they trap my heart and mind in an endless cycle of regret, fear, sorrow, pain and anxiety. When I speak them aloud, I can recognize them and fight them and overpower them. And when I share them, I find that I am not alone.

Others come alongside and say, “Me too!” Validation makes me stronger. Understanding makes me brave.

I hate the fact that my son is dead.

I hate the pain that his death has inflicted on me and on my family.

There are days I wish I could run away and hide, that I could pretend this never happened, that I could undo the broken that permeates my life.

But I can’t.

There’s no way through but through. I have to face the awful truth, I have to consider the ways it is changing me and remaking who I am.

I need words to process the pain because that’s how I can disarm its power over me.

It’s tempting to try to ignore the hard parts of our stories thinking that we are getting away from them.

But we aren’t.

The harder the season, the more profound the wound or bitter the struggle the more time it takes to process.

The first step is learning the words and finding community in which to speak them.

Here are links to two online communities for bereaved parents:

While We’re Waiting-Support for Bereaved Parents

Heartache and Hope: Life After Losing a Child

If you have lost a child and are looking for a place to learn the language of grief and loss, a safe space to share your pain with others who understand it, see if one of these groups might be the place for you.

Lament For Texas

It’s been hard listening to the news about the flooding and tragic loss of life in Texas.

I say “listening” on purpose-the images are too painful for this mama to see.

I don’t have to imagine what desperate hope was still burning in parents’ hearts in the early hours and days as they waited, waited, waited to find out upon which side of that awful line they would land.

Would they be the lucky ones who got to take their children home or would they be the forsaken, planning a funeral for a too-small body of their beloved whose life had only just begun?

Even before the count was tallied folks were weighing in with opinions and pointing fingers and posturing in front of their pet political or social position using these poor people as props without their permission.

Worse yet, in my view, are the outsiders offering what they undoubtedly believe, are “reasons” for the tragedy-trying to spin sense out of the senseless and urging those whose lives have literally been tossed upside down to adopt a philosophical view and find the blessing in the bruising.

I can’t tell you the hours I spend speaking with parents who have had to untangle the web of well-meaning but misguided advice and spiritual counsel after burying a child. Their hearts are not only burdened by loss but by other people’s ideas about how they should be processing it.

I understand that humans are wired for meaning making. I know people feel compelled to apologize for God, to speak for Him and to create an understandable narrative of what He may or may not be doing in the world.

But Scripture is clear:

My intentions are not always yours,
and I do not go about things as you do.
My thoughts and My ways are above and beyond you,
just as heaven is far from your reach here on earth.

Isaiah 55: 8-9 VOICE

So this is my offering as we mourn out loud for lives lost and for those who have, like us, been thrust into a life they did not choose:

LAMENT FOR TEXAS

O, LORD! Where were You when the waters rose in the dark? Why didn’t You send armies of angels to guide these little ones to safety? Why were children ripped from the arms of their parents as they struggled in the black night against forces too strong for even their determined grasp?

My heart is shattered.

My own grief and fear has broken out of the heavy-lidded chest where I’ve learned to keep it locked away so I can function in a world where things like this happen over and over and over.

I won’t pretend that this is good. I won’t plaster pretty words across devastation.

I can only lean into what I know is true. I can only hold on to the hope that has led my heart back to light and life after my own dark day of tragic loss.

You are God.

And though sin has marred your good, good creation,

You are still good.

In Your mercy and by Your power You will weave what the enemy intends for evil into the eternal story You are writing for the display of Your glory. The black threads of loss will be part of it.

Death is awful.

It is the last enemy to be conquered.

Until then, I wait for Your redemption.

I trust in Your love.

Reflections on a Decade of Holidays After Child Loss

Fellow brave and bereaved, I don’t know how you feel coming off this late-in-the-month Thanksgiving headed straight for Christmas but I’m kind of tired.

Yesterday I shared about post-holiday blues but this is something different.

I love, love, love any time I get with my family and I want to be clear that THEY do not place demands on me I find burdensome.

But…I am no better prepared to trudge through all the holly-jolly THIS year than I was the second year after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven. (I don’t even count the first year when shock overwhelmed my heart.)

This far along in my grief journey many folks I rub shoulders with are either unaware that child loss is part of my story or they’ve tucked that “incident” away in some rarely accessed section of their memory. And while I do not tote my loss around like a token demanding special attention, it absolutely continues to inform how I experience every day and especially how I experience holidays.

So I wanted to share a few thoughts about THIS year-the eleventh Christmas I will celebrate since Dom left us.

It’s still hard. It still takes 110% effort to show up, engage, maintain enthusiasm, DO all the things (or even my abbreviated list of things), not let my emotions overrun my desire to be polite and find time to sit silent in the circle of sacred sorrow that helps my heart hold on to hope.
I have to constantly revisit my own advice (which I will repost in the coming days) about giving myself permission to bow out of whatever I simply can not face.
Communication is key. It sometimes surprises me (but shouldn’t!) that other people can’t read my mind and most forget what I told them last year or the year before. Add to that things change from year-to-year and there’s no way around the need for at least a casual conversation about what THIS year is going to look like.
Grace greases the wheels of relationships. Grace for myself. Grace for family and friends. Grace for strangers-including the clerk at the grocery store-who are probably doing the best they can too.
Increased social interaction-whether a function of more planned activities or just the crowds of shoppers-means it’s harder for me to escape the pressure of social anxiety that has developed post loss. I try to choose carefully what I add to my calendar, graciously send regrets for the rest and then refuse to feel guilty about it.
I am more careful about hydrating and not over indulging in any foods that tend to send my body into overdrive. It’s less about the calories (although I need to be mindful of those!) than it is about the wild swings poor nutrition produces in my sense of physical well-being.
I must plan rest stops along the way. I can’t overschedule, overstimulate and overwork myself and still maintain a semblance of control over my emotional response to the grief waves and grief ambushes this season is sure to provide. I try to set aside at least a few minutes EVERY DAY and (if possible) one day PER WEEK that promises quiet solitude and the opportunity to unwind and unspool built up tension and anxiety.
I purpose to find joyful moments and beautiful memories when gathered with others and when doing all the things holidays require. I hold them close and cherish them.

Most importantly, I remind my heart that this season is only a season.

It doesn’t last forever.

I will survive this like I’ve survived every day since Dominic left us-one moment, one breath at a time.

Compassion 2024: Tales of Extravagant Love and Friendship After Loss

I am well aware that not everyone is blessed by an outpouring of love and support in the wake of child loss. In fact, depending on the circumstances, some families are practically shunned.

It breaks my heart every time I hear of such an experience.

Because if there is one thing I’ve learned in this Valley, it’s this: when a heart is shattered my ONLY job is to show up and do whatever is helpful-even if that means sitting silently and holding a hand.
❤ Melanie

When I asked other bereaved parents to share the things people did that blessed them in the wake of losing a child, I didn’t expect so many stories of extravagant love–of acts surpassing anything I could have thought of or imagined.

“After my daughter passed, which was minutes before Mother’s Day 2012, outside the hospital room-

Read the rest here: Extravagant Love: Tales of Friendship and Encouragement After Losing a Child

Grief Work 2024: Loss is Relentless

My family has opened our eyes to thousands of mornings knowing the one thing we would change if we could is outside our control.

When the world faced the pandemic these past years, it was a new and disturbing feeling for millions (billions?). We are still reaping the consequences of decisions taken during that time.

Eventually, though, most people’s lives have returned to a semblance of normal that makes allowances for the changes.

But some of us emerged on the other side of that season carrying the new and unrelenting burden of loss.

And nothing will ever be normal again.❤

re·lent·less

adjective

opressively constant; incessant.

Read the rest here: Relentless

Grief Work 2024: Learning the Language of Loss

Child loss is lonely.

But you don’t have to be alone.

An isolated heart is especially vulnerable to discouragement and despair.

When I first found myself on this path, I only knew a handful of moms who were walking it too. They were kind and helpful but they weren’t close enough (by relationship or physical distance) to make sharing my daily ups and downs easy or comfortable. I had so many questions. I had so many fears.

And I really didn’t have anyone to ask.

Someone suggested I look for a grief group meeting in my area. But I live in a rural county and there were none. Someone else suggested I start one. But I was in no position to shepherd other hearts or facilitate discussion when I could barely form words around my own feelings.

So I turned to social media. I searched Facebook for bereaved parent groups.

And it’s there I learned the language of loss and experienced the blessing of community.
❤ Melanie

How do you speak of the unspeakable?

How do you constrain the earth-shattering reality of child loss to a few syllables?

How do you SAY what must be said?

Read the rest here: Vocabulary Lesson: Learning the Language of Grief and Loss

Won’t Pretend: Ain’t Nothing Easy About Death

I wrote this post four years ago after my mother joined Dominic in Heaven. Her passing reminded me once again (as if my heart needed reminding!) that there ain’t nothing easy about death.

Four years later and I’m no more willing to pretend it’s anything but awful even as I’m resigned to admit there’s nothing I can do about it.

I miss you both so very much.
❤

I remember the moment I realized I was going to have to summarize my son’s life into a few, relatively short paragraphs to be read by friends, family and strangers.

It seemed impossible.

But as the designated author of our family I had to do it so I did.

Today I wrote my mama’s obituary and though her death was not as surprising as Dominic’s it was just as hard to swallow.

Read the rest here: Ain’t Nothing Easy About Death

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

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LAMENT FOR TEXAS

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