I belong to several online closed groups for bereaved parents/ grandparents. A current topic is “How did family support you in your loss?”.
I am stunned at the number of bereaved hearts that were abandoned!
I am thankful I’m not among them.
If you stepped back instead of stepping up when a family member experienced loss there is still time.
Admit your fear, failing or whatever and offer support NOW.
There’s no expiration date on grief. 
I like to think of Dominic surrounded by songs and sounds of unimaginable beauty. So I count the days, and I count it joy that I will see him again.
I can hear him saying, “Do you really believe, Mom?”
Read the rest here: Prisoner Of Hope
I keep asking God to fill me with His love, mercy and grace. And I am more full of those things than before.
But there is still plenty of (if not hate then) less-than-love, judgement and impatience. Trials don’t automatically lead to refinement or stronger faith.
Tribulation can drive someone away from God as easily as it can drive them to their knees.
If I’m not careful-if I’m not very careful-I can use my pain as an excuse for all kinds of bad behavior.
Read the rest here: Can’t Hide the Ugly
If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them.
James O’Barr
I grieve because I love.
My tears are a gift to the son I miss. My sorrow honors his memory. My broken heart gives evidence to the ones walking with me that my love is fierce and timeless.
Read the rest here: Love: The Reason I Grieve
I write a lot about what bereaved parents (me!) wish others knew or understood about child loss and this Valley we are walking. And I am thankful for every person outside the child loss community who chooses to read and heed what I write.
But I want to take a minute to tell those of you who are not part of this awful “club” that I get it-I really do get it–when you need to put distance between yourself and me or other people walking a broken road.
Read the rest here: I Get It-I Really DO Get It.
If we can keep the vision of how much mercy has been poured out on our own hearts and in our own lives, it is so much easier to pour it out on others. We don’t have to manufacture it-we only have to be a willing conduit of the mercy already overflowing from God’s heart to our own.
When the deputy delivered the news that Dominic was gone, my heart broke wide open, its contents spilled on the floor.
But I knew it would not remain empty for long.
It would be filled with something.
And I begged God to fill it so full of love, grace and mercy that bitterness, unforgiveness and anger would be squeezed out with no room to stay.
Read the rest here: Mercy
I’ve learned so much in this journey.
I’ve had to unlearn some things too.
One of the things I’ve had to unlearn is that the medical model of “identify, treat, cure” is not applicable to grieving hearts.
Grief is not a disease. It’s not an abnormality. It doesn’t need to be treated and cured so that it “goes away”.
It’s the perfectly normal and appropriate response to loss.
Read the rest here: Companioning The Bereaved
I shared this post for the first time five years ago.
Before I was part of the community of loss parents, I had no idea how quickly we are expected to “move past”, “get over” or “deal” with the death of a child.
I was horrified to find out that even though most parents would say something like, “I just don’t know how I would survive if my child died” they were the very ones who thought I should sail past this life-shattering event after what they deemed an “appropriate” amount of grief and/or time.
So I’m sharing again in honor of Bereaved Parents Month. If these words speak to you or for you, please share them. It’s our opportunity to help others understand a little more about child loss.
❤ Melanie
It was just over a year after Dominic’s accident and a friend forwarded an article about odd behaviors of those who were “stuck’ in grief. Along with the forward was a little tag, “Reminds me of you.”
It hurt my feelings.
And it was inappropriate.
Read the rest here: I am NOT Crazy!
I have doubts some days too.
There are moments when suffering washes over me like a flood and I am swept under with the tide.
It’s then I cling tenaciously to the promise that my wounds, like Christ’s, will one day not only be proof of pain but also evidence of God’s redemptive power.
Read the rest here: On Suffering and Redemption
When days become months and months become years it’s hard to explain to others how grief is both always present but not always in focus.
I’ve struggled to help those outside the loss community understand that the absolute weight of the burden is precisely the same as when it fell on me without warning that dark morning.
Dominic’s absence, if anything, has seeped into more places, changed more relationships and influences more choices than it did [ten] years ago when I was only just beginning to comprehend what a world without him would look like.
But I, and my family, have continued to live.
We’ve added family members through marriage and birth. We’ve gone places, made memories and made career moves. We’ve gotten older. My husband retired. Children moved away.
All these things and more mean that life is simply bigger than it was when Dom left us.
It’s a slow, gradual process. And for some hearts who are forced to endure multiple losses in a short time the circle may never get very large because the grief is so great.
I remember when I realized that sorrow was not ALL I felt nor Dominic’s absence ALL I saw. It was a bit frightening to be honest.
Did that mean my love for him was waning or that his importance in our family was forgotten? Was I a bad mother because I no longer cried every day for the child not here? Had my heart grown cold?
But then I realized none of those things were true. What allowed me to feel joy again, to participate fully in family outings or gatherings, to plan holidays and birthdays once more was instead that my heart had found a way to hold both sorrow and gladness at the same time.
There are still days when grief looms large and my world seems too small to contain it. But those don’t come as often as they once did.
Life will march on, regardless of how hard we might wish it wouldn’t.
And, in large measure, life after loss is what we choose to make of it.
I’m not abandoning Dom by embracing my life now.
In fact, I’m sure he’d approve.
thelifeididntchoose 