Just out of earshot my heart strains to hear the faint echo of Dominic’s voice-his humor, his lively sarcasm and biting wit. I can almost convince myself that he’s there in the room as the two other boys banter back and forth.
I’m used to a trio, not a duet.
It’s like the blues without a bass line.
How can it be the same song and yet a different one altogether?
Oh, how I miss him!
As families gather around tables and in backyards to celebrate fall birthdays, Thanksgiving and (soon!) Christmas, my heart longs even harder to hear Dominic’s name.
Of course I remember him-he’s my son-and of course others do too.
But it is especially helpful this time of year to have friends and family speak of him aloud.
Of course I may cry.
I cry often anyway.
But if I cry because you remind me of the good friend Dominic was to you or because of a special memory you shared with him, they are tears of joy as much as tears of longing. ❤
I wrote this two years ago and it still resonates with my heart. If there was one message I could scream from the rooftops this side of child loss it would be this: Everything, EVERY. THING. except time and people can be replaced.
Think about it.
Is it difficult to rebuild a home or replace favorite keepsakes, yes-but not impossible. But it is utterly and unforgivingly impossible to recapture lost moments and there is no one but God that can breathe life into a body.
Please, please, please don’t take your people for granted thinking, “There’s always tomorrow.” Sometimes there isn’t.
Every spring and every fall we dutifully make the rounds to our clocks and digital devices, putting them first forward an hour and then back in an attempt to make the days “longer”.
As if time was in our hands.
The sun rises and sets according to the Creator’s schedule, we can neither speed the world’s turning, nor slow it down. We can only choose whether to be present in the moments He grants us.
Read the rest here: Time Change
One of the most difficult things to explain to anyone who has not buried a child is this: I didn’t just lose Dominic ONCE, I continue to lose him.
I lose him every single time there is a moment when he SHOULD be here but isn’t.
I lose him when his friends graduate, get married and have children.
I lose him again on Christmas morning when HIS face isn’t around the breakfast table and HIS name isn’t on the presents around the tree.
I lose him when I need to call and ask a question about my computer or need his opinion when trying to make a decision.
I lose him when everyone else is making their way home for the holidays or a birthday or just a visit-his car never rolls up the lane, his smiling face never emerges, his arms never reach out to wrap me in a bear hug.
I lose him when his siblings line up for photos-the space where he SHOULD be but ISN’T looms large.
I will never know the joy of standing at his wedding.
I will never be able to congratulate him on his first court victory.
I will never see his children
I won’t have his companionship in my old age.
He is gone-out of reach.
Untouchable.
Lost.
It can get lonely in this life. Social media aside, most of us wonder if who we are really makes a difference at all.
But it does.
You are unique-created to make a difference only YOU can make.
The edges of your life touch the edges of others’ lives in places no one else can reach.
Don’t give up.
Don’t give in.
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Lord, when one of us hungers, make it our instinct to feed.
When one of us is displaced, make it our instinct to share our home.
– Common Prayer
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I’ve spent the last three days with over a hundred bereaved parents.
And they are all beautiful.
Beautiful in their bravery and their brokenness.
It was probably the most diverse and HONEST “church service” I’ve ever been to-and it had nothing to do with the facility. It had everything to do with hearts.
These are hearts desperately longing to beat to the rhythm of the heart of God. Hearts that are too shattered to pretend when there is an altar call. Hearts that don’t care if sobs escape or tears stream down.
And hearts that receive other hearts with open arms no matter if the body that carries them looks familiar or proper or fashionable or is the same color as their own.
It was hard to be surrounded by so many hearts carrying so much pain.
But it was also beautiful.
I wrote this last year and was reminded of it yesterday:
We spend so much time, money and effort trying to make our decaying frame look less like the temporary shelter it’s intended to be and more like an eternal monument to beauty.
But try as we might, we are impotent against the forces that will eventually drag us to the grave.
What if, instead, I worked as diligently to exercise my inner woman as I do my too-generous bottom?
Read the rest here: Beauty That Lasts
I totally get it–we are ALL so busy.
Calendars crammed weeks and months in advance and no white space left over to pencil in lunch with a friend even though we desperately NEED it.
It seems impossible to make that call, write that note or stop by and visit a few minutes.
How can I meet my obligations if I use precious time doing the optional?
But when the unexpected, unimaginable and awful happens, suddenly that calendar and all those appointments don’t matter. Balls drop everywhere and I don’t care.
Because when your family or best friend needs you, you come-no questions asked.
You toss a few necessities in your carry-on, lock the door, unplug the coffee pot and RUN.
You connect that phone to the car charger and dial away as you drive down the road.
And you show up.
Because when someone needs you, REALLY needs you, there is NO SUBSTITUTE for presence.
And the world keeps spinning.
All those “important” commitments cluttering my calendar are still there. But a few phone calls later and they are easily rearranged. Medicine refills can be sent almost anywhere. Church responsibilities can be shouldered by someone else. Social dates can be rescheduled.
The only thing that matters is being exactly where your heart tells you it needs to be for exactly as long as you need to be there.
But you don’t have to wait until it’s an emergency to show up.
If it can wait if it HAD to, then it can wait.
You will not be going over a “to do” list with your last breath.
Choose to make people a priority right now-you might not get a second chance,
Even if you think you are the Lone Ranger-riding the hills and vanquishing enemies all by yourself, you aren’t. Heck, HE wasn’t alone either (thus my confusion over his name).
Every single one of us has people in the background making life as we know it possible.
And when life as we know it takes a sudden left turn, all those “invisible” people become oh, so important.
It happened when Dominic ran ahead to heaven. The eleven days between the knock on the door and his funeral were filled with friends, family and even strangers who came by, brought meals, cleaned my house, made phone calls, and did all the things I just. couldn’t. do.
These last weeks have been the hardest season since Dom left us. When I got the phone call Mama was being life-flighted my heart dropped to the floor. Having been there once before, I was not at all ready to revisit the awful pain of loss.
So I gathered what I needed, made a few phone calls of my own and my children and I raced down to be with her and my father.
Thankfully, the ending to THIS story, though hard, isn’t tragic.
After the first eleven days in hospital and only a few at home before a second hospital admission, Mama is back at home getting stronger.
Things are different. Changes are required.
But she is smiling and beautiful. Still with us.
Hallelujah!
But in order for me to stay with my folks for 27 of the past 31 days I have had to call on and depend on the help of others.
For me to leave MY responsibilities at home, someone else had to pick them up. Horses and goats and dogs and chickens don’t feed themselves. The church deposit has to be made each week.
My husband has graciously accepted that our communication is limited and sporadic. What used to be long phone calls every day turned into short bursts and quick texts that let him know I was OK and still breathing.
My youngest son, Julian, laid aside his own project of remodeling his first home to pick up all the things I normally do around the farm-no complaints and no questions asked. He is patient with me when my tired brain can’t think of words while trying to give him yet another chore that needs done.
My daughter, Fiona, finishing a tough last semester in RN school, as well as working and putting in required clinical hours, has called to check on me and her grandmother, offered excellent medical tips and helped me ask for the things we need for Mama. She shoots me funny memes and encouraging texts that provide laughs to boost my immune system and bolster my courage.
My eldest son, James Michael, has squeezed in a weekend visit to my parents’ house in between helping his AF base recover from Hurricane Irma and a hundred other responsibilities as the Public Health Officer for a large command. He drove the tractor and helped bale hay. He brought flowers for Mama and BBQ ribs and sweet tea for me.
My friends at church have graciously given me space and taken up slack so that I didn’t have to worry about my duties as treasurer. No pressure and no tacky comments-only love and understanding from folks who KNOW how important family is.
My very special friend, Laura, sent me back from my brief three day stint at home a couple weeks ago with helpful herbal tinctures to brace my body for stress and hard work. And she always listens without trying to fix me.
Dominic’s example as a strong advocate gave me the backbone to stand and insist that Mama get the care she needed when in hospital and at home. I could hear him say, “Don’t let them get by with that!” to my often trembling heart.
And many, many of my parents’ friends and our extended family have phoned, sent notes and stopped by to encourage my heart and theirs.
People keep saying, “You are doing a good thing for your parents”.
I appreciate that. But I want them to know that I am not doing it alone. It goes back in a long chain to those who choose to take up the slack I leave behind when I drive out my lane.
I would not be free to help if others didn’t choose to help ME be free.
So I want to give a loud and public shout out to each one that has done this hard and necessary work in the shadows.
You are amazing.
I love you.
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.
Read the rest here: True Truth
thelifeididntchoose 