love – Page 80 – thelifeididntchoose

No Way to “Fix” Child Loss

This was shared in a bereaved parents’ group to which I belong and I really like it.

It’s a great reminder to those of us traveling this road that it is a lifelong journey.

It’s also a good explanation of why there is a gap between our experience and those who have never experienced child loss.

They want to apply the mechanical or medical model to us but it just doesn’t work.

We can’t be “fixed”, we can only learn to make adjustments that incorporate our new reality.

When your car breaks down, you go to a mechanic. He puts in new parts, makes adjustments, and your car runs fine again. When your body is ill, the doctor examines you and makes a diagnosis. Medication or surgery can cure the problem. With treatment, you’re healthy again.

The mechanical and medical models do not help when it comes to grief. Part of you died when your child died. That part of you is irreplaceable. There are no interchangeable parts to get you through grief. You have to adjust. There is no simple process.

Think of your journey through grief as a kind of rehabilitation. When a woman loses her eyesight, there are ways of coping. She can learn to read braille, get a seeing eye dog, and learn to navigate with a cane. If a man loses his hearing, he can get hearing aids and learn to communicate through sign language and lipreading.

Living through the aftershock of death can teach you new ways to adapt and survive. Life is never the same after a loved one dies. You will need to learn new ways of thinking, acting, and feeling.

Life is still worth living, but there are adjustments to make. They are not easy, because they require admitting that your child is no longer there. The adjustments can include not making as much food for a family meal; missing that precious face at the dinner table; not tucking your child into bed at night; buying fewer Christmas presents (or no birthday gifts); having tears come unbidden when surprised. You can make these adjustments as you walk through the grieving process. Determine that you will learn the skills needed to survive.

You will never forget your child. Your life will not be the same. As you go through the changes, you can hang onto God, because he never changes: ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever’ (Heb. 13:8). His love surrounds you. His strength is available to you, and he will help you face each demanding new day.

~Warren Wiersbe, Gone But Not Lost

Repost: Faithful Waiting

I’ve been working on Christmas posts for weeks now and really thought I’d have something original and new for today. But life has conspired against me and I find myself worn and fragile and oh, so very tired!

Then a thread on a bereaved parents’ page reminded me of Simeon. And my heart knew that even though this post was written two years ago, it was precisely what I needed for THIS year, THIS Christmas.

I am clinging with both hands to the promises I can only see by faith: That this pain will be redeemed, that every tear is captured and treasured by God Almighty and that every single stolen thing will be restored and renewed.

I will proclaim with Simeon that God is faithful and He cannot lie.

So I open my eyes on Christmas morning to a world where joy and sorrow live together for now but look forward to the morning when only JOY will reign.

I fell in love with Ron Dicianni’s painting, “Simeon’s Moment” many years ago. My husband bought and framed a print for me and I sit opposite it every morning as I drink my coffee.

It never fails to touch my heart.

Read the rest here: Faithful Waiting

What’s Your Legacy?

I can’t tell you how many people try to tell me what Dominic’s “legacy” is. They extol his positive virtues and comment on how many lives he touched in his short 23 years.

They want me to be consoled with the intangible, relational, immeasurable impact of his life on the lives of others.

Yet they continue to live as if their OWN legacy will be determined by the amount of stuff they acquire or the size of their retirement accounts or the money they leave behind for others to spend.

It can’t be both.

If my son’s life is worth remembering just because of who he was, the people he loved and how he lived, then EVERYONE’S life is worth remembering for the very same things.

Christmas is the one time a year when far-flung family members are often gathered around the same table. It’s an opportunity to make connections and build relationships.

So I ask myself, “Am I going to spend it talking about the weather and the news and other sundry things that won’t matter in a day, much less a year?”

OR, maybe I can choose to reach out, to ask deep questions, to make space for honest conversation and real sharing.

Maybe I can mend a broken relationship by offering a long-hoped-for apology, speaking aloud the offense and taking responsibility for the pain I’ve caused in the past.

Perhaps I can proclaim a REAL blessing-not just the one we memorized from grade school-over the food and over the heads of the people gathering to eat it.

Why am I glad they are there? TELL THEM!

Most of the presents under the tree will be consumed, broken, outgrown and tossed away one day. But meaningful words spoken in love and kindness will live forever in a person’s heart.

We all leave something behind.

We are all building a legacy.

This Christmas I’m asking myself, “What’s mine?”

When You Think You Can’t Hold On

So many ways to be reminded of how hard it is to hold on in these days and weeks around Christmas.

If your heart is barely able to beat, the pressure to be “hap-hap-happy” can send you over the edge.

If your home is empty of cheerful voices, the constant barrage of commercials touting family togetherness can leave you feeling oh, so lonely.

Early sunsets and darker nights send feel-good hormones flying and leave a body aching for just a little relief from anxious and depressing thoughts.

When you think you can’t hold on, let go.

Let go of expectations-yours and other people’s.

Let go of traditions that no longer serve your heart or draw you closer to the Babe in the manger.

Let go of tons of baking or cooking or entertaining with perfect centerpieces and fragile china.

Let go of blasting Christmas music through the house.

Let go of shopping for the perfect gift or mailing all those cards.

Be still.

Light a candle in the darkness.

Sit quietly and see how even the faintest light can chase away the black of night.

And then hold your empty hands out to the God Who made you, the God Who loves you, the God Who longs to draw you to His heart and let Him fill you with hope.

There IS hope.

He came in the form of a Baby-weak and vulnerable just like us.

He KNOWS our pain.

He is not impressed with our busyness or our decorations or our presents piled high beneath the tree.

He sees the heart. He looks with mercy on a broken heart. He is the Healer of hearts.

He longs to heal yours.

Why, Oh Why, is Christmas So Hard???

As another Christmas without Dominic rapidly approaches, I am pondering the question: “Why, oh why, is Christmas so hard?”

I think I’ve figured out at least a few reasons why.

For me, probably THE biggest reason Christmas is hard is because it throws off the routine I depend on to shepherd my heart through a day. It’s easiest for me to manage when I have at least a couple of hours of quiet time each morning. I need those silent moments to let my heart feel what it needs to feel, to cry if I must and to orient my thoughts after, once again, “remembering” that Dominic isn’t here.

Changing schedules and extra commitments mean that some nights I stay up later than usual and can’t manage to get out of bed in time to have those hours. Extra people in the house mean that they may get up and join me in the living room. While I love the company, I have to be honest and say I would love it more a little later in the day 🙂 ,

Another reason I struggle at Christmas is because all (almost all!) the family is together in one place. This may sound odd to anyone who hasn’t buried a child, but when every single person I care most deeply for is together, it highlights the space where Dominic SHOULD be but ISN’T.

Other times of the year we are more or less a full circle-as long as one or two others are missing, it kind of feels like maybe, just maybe, Dominic is away for awhile instead of away for the rest of my life. But when we are all gathered round the table or the tree or the fireplace, it is oh, so obvious that he isn’t here.

Buying presents and filling stockings I go down the list. I have to skip Dom because he won’t be here to open gifts or pull out his favorite candy from a Christmas sock. I can’t even mail him a package where he is. So I try to focus on the fact that his Christmas is the best one, because he is with the One Who IS Christmas.

But my heart still hurts, still yearns for one more hilarious morning when the camcorder won’t work or one of our sleepy young adults refuses to roll out of bed while the rest of us are waiting.

We are waiting now for a different kind of morning-one where the light dawns and never dims.

While I am in no way ashamed of the grief I carry-great love means great grief- I do try not to burden others with my tears at events or in places where smiles should rule. The Christmas season multiplies those occasions and calls for so. much. energy. just to maintain my “happy face” for the masses. It’s exhausting in a way only other grievers can truly understand.

And, of course, we celebrate Christmas in the US during what my grandmother used to call “the dark of the year”. Shorter days, longer nights means less time outside, less sunshine to generate the feel-good hormones I depend on to get me through each moment. When the nights come early and linger long, my mind has more time to ruminate on what was and what will never be again.

Finally, because Christmas is stressful for everyone for different reasons, people can just be a little harder to deal with-less flexible, more impatient, quicker to take offense or give it. All that emotional drama can overwhelm my heart in a flash-leaving me speechless, crying and anxious. It’s no one’s fault. It just is what it is.

For all these reasons-and dozens more-Christmas is an especially difficult time of year for this hurting heart.

So I try to be gentle to myself and to extend the same grace to ME that I extend to others.

I remind my heart that it is perfectly OK to turn down invitations when I just. can’t. go.

I lean into the Promise born in the manger-Emmanuel, God with us-and hold on with both hands.

Christmas 2017: What the Bereaved Need From Family and Friends

Christmas is fast approaching so I’m posting this one last time. I hope it helps someone who is struggling to share how hard it can be to “make merry” when a heart is broken. ❤

I know it is hard. I know you don’t truly understand how I feel. You can’t. It wasn’t your child.

I know I may look and act like I’m “better”. I know that you would love for things to be like they were: BEFORE. But they aren’t.

I know my grief interferes with your plans. I know it is uncomfortable to make changes in traditions we have observed for years. But I can’t help it. I didn’t ask for this to be my life.

Read the rest here: Grief and Holidays:What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

25 Ways to Give Holiday Hope to the Grieving

This will be the [eleventh] Christmas without Dominic.

I’m certain that for some of my family and many of my friends, they are less and less aware of his absence. That’s completely natural and understandable.

But for me, his absence looms just as large THIS Christmas as it did that FIRST Christmas.

Even if you do realize how hard it is for grievers during the holidays, you might not have any idea how to show you care.

I came across this list originally published Family Life Today that gives 25 ideas to give holiday hope to the grieving and wanted to share it because I think it is wonderful.

I can promise you that any hurting heart would be delighted to have a friend or family member reach out in one or more of these ways.

25 Christmas Gifts or Remembrances for the Brokenhearted

1. A tree that can be planted in the family’s yard in memory of the loved one (or a gift certificate to a nursery that can be used to purchase a tree in the spring)

2. Bibles, Christmas Poinsettias, or library books given as memorials

3. Memorials to the local church or charities

4. Home videos of the loved one (especially ones of activities that the family may not have)

5. A scrapbook filled with pictures of the loved one

6. Special Christmas ornaments (for example, if the child played the piano, see if you can find an ornament in the shape of a piano)

7. Books such as Streams in the Dessert and When Life is Changed Forever

8. A personal item that would become a memento about the loved one’s personality or gifting

9. Gift certificates to a cabin or lodge, or to a place that the loved one once enjoyed

10. An original poem about the deceased

11. A journal from friends and family with written memories about the deceased

12. A written tribute to the deceased (The Best Gift You Can Ever Give Your Parents by Dennis Rainey and David Boehi, explains how you can do this.)

13. Addressing their Christmas cards or notes

14. Joining them in holiday shopping or doing the shopping for them

15. Asking if you can help decorate their home for Christmas

16. Sharing homemade Christmas cookies

17. Arranging family photographs in albums

18. Inviting them to decorate a gingerbread house

19. Picking them up for Christmas services at church and holiday get-togethers

20. Helping them shop for that “perfect gift” that they can give to others in memory of their loved one

21. Decorating a small tree with ornaments that have special memories of the loved one

22. Helping them write holiday memories

23. Organizing a candle-light memorial for close friends and family

24. Having a family-time of singing some of the deceased’s favorite Christmas carols and hymns

25. Giving the brokenhearted blank journals to write Bible verses that remind them of God’s presence, such as 2 Corinthians 1:3-4a and Jeremiah 29:11

God’s Timeless Time

Henri Nouwen is one of my favorite authors. His gentle spirit and kind heart shine in every word.

I have learned a lot from him.

This is one of my favorite passages, especially as I contemplate life after Dominic has left us.

On the one hand I feel as if I am leaving Dominic behind-time on earth marches on and event after event rolls past without his presence or participation.

On the other hand, I feel as if Dominic has run ahead to our forever home and must be waiting for us as much as we long for him.

But Nouwen’s words remind me that time will no longer be something I think about or worry about once we are all together in the Presence of our Savior.

There is no “after” after death. Words like after and before belong to our mortal life, our life in time and space. Death frees us from the boundaries of chronology and brings us into God’s “time,” which is timeless. Speculations about the afterlife, therefore, are little more than just that: speculations. Beyond death there is no “first” and “later,” no “here” and “there,” no “past,” “present,” or “future.” God is all in all. The end of time, the resurrection of the body, and the glorious coming again of Jesus are no longer separated by time for those who are no longer in time.

For us who still live in time, it is important not to act as if the new life in Christ is something we can comprehend or explain. God’s heart and mind are greater than ours. All that is asked of us is trust.

Repost: What Does Healing Look Like?

As I continue to walk this Valley, my heart asks the question, “What does healing look like?”

Fewer tears? Check.

More laughter? Check.

Better able to function? Check.

I’m definitely not as fragile as I was in the days and weeks and first months after Dominic left us.

I can do what life requires without falling apart (most of the time).

Read the rest here: What Does Healing Look Like?

Be Present

I remember the first year cell phones became common among my children’s friends.

We hosted an event at our home and I watched, amused, as the guests realized, one by one, that there was NO cell service out here in the country.

Cut off from their electronic connection to everyone not in attendance, they were forced to be fully present with those that were.

Some of them embraced the opportunity while others bemoaned the fact they had to carry on face-to-face conversations.

And when they found out we didn’t have cable TV, well, THAT was a whole other disappointment!

What seemed natural to me and my family was unusual and uncomfortable for most of them.

Being present takes effort.

It’s so much easier to listen with one ear while pointing the other toward Facebook, YouTube, music or some other distraction.

It’s a lot harder to sit quietly through the same story you’ve heard every Christmas. It requires self-discipline to lean in and love on that difficult aunt or uncle who can be so critical but is really so desperate for compassionate companionship. It is unnatural to lay aside our own desire to be the center of attention and make room for someone else instead.

But being present is the present only YOU can give.

And it is the present that others will remember long after the trinket you bought them has been lost or broken.

So put down the phone. Turn off the TV. Hide the remote and close the apps.

BE with your people. They, and you, are a gift.

Today is a treasure that will never be repeated.

Treat it that way.

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