Tag: memories

Navigating Grief: Definitely the Worse for Wear

I shared this for the first time last year around this time. I’d had a difficult previous several months and my face showed it.

From February to the first part of September 2025, things were looking up.

I launched my “official” ministry: Heartache and Hope; was hosting monthly in-person bereaved parent support meetings; there were several opportunities to share with other groups around the country; and all four of my women’s retreats were fully booked.

Then September 14th my father suffered a life-altering stroke and I became his full time caregiver for three months. In December, my sweet granddaughter Holly entered the world a little early and after only two weeks on earth joined Dominic in Heaven.

I look at my face now and there are more lines than ever. My body screams every morning when I call on it to get up and get going.

But if I’ve learned one thing on this journey, it’s this: Make memories and TAKE THE PICTURE!

Every photo is precious when you can’t make any new ones.

❤ Melanie

I have never been one of those women who lied about her age.

My weight…well, you will have to threaten me with something that matters to get THAT number out of my lips.

But I’ve noticed this year more than others since Dominic left us that the wear and tear of years and tears and life and loss are showing up on my face as well as my hips.

I am definitely the worse for wear.

I’m sixty-two and for the first time in my life I am religious about applying under eye cream and moisturizing lotion to my face each morning and night.

who wants to look young

I don’t want to be the sore thumb in the family pictures!

I’m not sure it’s working.  I’m not sure anything can erase or roll back the marks that life and love and loss have etched on my face.

I’m not sure I want to.

Because each wrinkle, each line, each saggy, baggy skin flap says, “I loved, I lived and I am surviving-even though it’s hard.”

Before Dom left I was camera shy.  I still am, a bit.  But I’m trying hard to suck up my pride and my insecurity and let those flashes pop.  Memories are made one day at a time and photos help preserve them.

So whether I’m at my best, at my worst or somewhere in between, I won’t say no to a Kodak moment.

I wish I had more of them from “before”.

Dominic and family at PRSSA banquet

I wish I hadn’t’ been so darned particular about what I looked like, what I was wearing and whether or not my wrinkles or big butt showed.

Worse for wear?

Who cares?

This one wasn’t made to last.  

For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.

2 Corinthians 5:1-5 MSG

New Year’s Eve 2025: Auld Lang Syne

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.  We plot and plan and hope and dream but in the end we have very little control over how our story ultimately plays out.

So we are left each New Year’s Eve with some good memories, some not so good ones and some we cling to like gold from a treasure chest because they are all we have.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?

Never. 

Read the rest here: New Year’s Eve and Auld Lang Syne

Christmas 2025: Remembering the Missing-Four Candles

I have always loved candles.  Something in the flickering light speaks to my heart.

It’s one of my favorite parts of early evenings-watching the candles I light on every flat surface cast a soft glow and chase the darkness.

Even a small light offers hope.  

Read the rest here: Remembering the Missing: Four Candles

I Really Miss Your Voice!

I try to limit the time I spend perusing old photos and old social media posts of my missing son.

I’ve learned that while they remind me of sweet memories and happy times they also prick my heart in ways nothing else can.

I was looking for something specific the other day and had to scroll through Dominic’s Facebook page to find it. As I did, I began reading some of the back and forth comments under the posts and pictures.

This time it wasn’t what was said or where the photos were taken that hurt my heart.

Instead it was the tiny little time stamp underneath the words that took my breath away.

Read the rest here: I Miss Your Voice: Silent Echoes Haunt My Heart

We Don’t Lose Them All at Once-Bit By Bit They Fade Away

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.

Of course the space he occupies in my heart is safe-a mother’s heart grows larger with each birth and never shrinks again!

But in the physical world, the observable world, the world outside the safe sanctuary of my own soul-his presence THERE is fading.

And that’s it’s own brand of grief that must be recognized, felt, mourned and laid to rest.

fading-away

Every time Dominic SHOULD be here but ISN’T means another memory made without him, another photograph with a missing piece, another family milestone celebrated a bit more quietly because his booming laughter doesn’t join the chorus.

Every decision that would ordinarily involve consulting all four children’s schedules and desires is one more opportunity to count down two, skip one and go to my youngest.  I never can remember that there are only three phone calls or texts to make. My heart hurts each time I don’t check in with Dominic.

desimones uab family

Odd pieces of mail come in his name-leftover from mass mailing lists that have not yet been purged of deceased individuals.  Still a little shocking, always sad, I carry it up the quarter mile to the house and lay it on top of the pile of other things that prove he once walked the earth.

Digging through the toolbox in the garage for a screwdriver and there’s that funny little part he took off a car years ago and tucked inside the drawer-just in case we could use it for something.  I smell the grease and gas and feel him near.

Then my mind drags my heart back to reality and he’s gone again.

Dozens of moments make me miss him anew.

I’m not delusional.

I know he has run ahead to Heaven.

But my heart holds on to every shred of physical connection as long as it can.

any place we ever walked i miss you

And then he’s ripped from me all over again.

Bereaved Parent Month 2025: I Don’t Want to Remember My Son

I don’t want to remember my son. 

I want to make memories with him.  

I want him to watch me grow old, to watch him get married and have children and to hear his voice mingled with his siblings at my table.

Read the rest here: I Don’t Want To Remember My Son

Bereaved Parents Month 2025: But I Had All That BEFORE!

I absolutely understand that when people say things like, “Just think of all the wonderful memories you have” or “He brought you so much joy” they mean well.

Because it’s true-I have beautiful memories of Dominic.  And he DID bring me great joy.

But I had those things BEFORE he was beyond my reach.

Read the rest here: But I Had All That BEFORE!

Bereaved Parents Month 2025: They’re More Than “Things”-They’re Memories

I was surprised at myself.

When we cleaned out Dominic’s apartment two weeks after he left us, I couldn’t throw away a thing.

Just as Dominic left things when he went out that evening.

Even though it meant boxing it up, carting it down the stairs and loading and unloading it onto our trailer, I DIDN’T CARE.

If it was his, if his hands had touched it, his body worn it or he had placed it in the cabinet or fridge, it was coming with me.

The only thing I left in that space was the empty echo of his fading presence.

I brought all the rest home.

Read the rest here: They’re Not Just “Things”

Family Trees and Broken Branches

A cousin whom I haven’t seen in decades contacted my dad in order to complete a family tree he is working to compile.

It’s a noble task and one I fully support.

But when my dad forwarded the request to me (because I had details on my own son’s wedding and his wife’s birth date) it was an unexpected trigger.

Typing away I added mine and my husband’s birth dates and the place and date of our marriage.

hector and me 29 anniversary

Then down the line of my children.

Fiona.

fiona and cash at home (2)

James Michael and his bride.  Their wedding date.

james and lillie

Dominic.  I have another date for him-one I never, ever thought I would live to record-the day he left this earth for his heavenly home.  My breath catches in my throat.

035

Julian.

My youngest son who is now older than his brother ever got to be.

julian in mountains

My second son has no descendants.  Every molecule that was Dominic is now in the grave.  No representation of his humor, his talent, his face.

His unique light has been extinguished from this world forever.

I realize that these dates will be filed away, made part of a record for those that come after without any understanding of the person they represent.

Just facts on a page.

History.

missing child from arms

Lessons in Grief: Dwelling or Remembering? Who Gets to Decide?

Why is it “dwelling” in one instance and “remembering” in another?

Who gets to decide whether I’m taking out a cherished memory, holding it, stroking it and reliving it because it’s all I have left or I’m clutching the past, refusing to let go?

I will be the first to admit that mulling over past offenses is probably the last thing I need to do.  Especially if I’m trying to forgive them.  That’s not helpful nor is it healthy.

But there’s a difference between THAT kind of thinking and the kind of thinking every bereaved parent does about his or her missing child.

When Dominic ran ahead to heaven, there was a sudden, horrible and unchangeable end to new experiences, to making any more memories, to another conversation, picture or text.

All I have of my son is whatever I had saved up to the moment of his accident.  

And it is not enough. 

It will never be enough to fill up the spaces of what my heart wishes I had.

He lived for nearly 24 years.  But I can’t withdraw those memories like cash and “spend” them, day for day, for the next 24 years.

It doesn’t work that way.

So I have favorite moments, like we all do, that I pull out over and over.  I cherish them like precious stones or rare coins.  I hold them, stroke them, tell the stories behind them and hug them close.

Not because I can’t “move forward”.

Goodness! 

Here I am eleven years later living, breathing and fully connected to the people and events in my present!

I do it because memories are a way to remain connected to Dominic.  

He is as much a part of my life-unseen by others, unheard by others, often forgotten by others-as the living, breathing children that are still here with me.  

So I am not DWELLING on these memories.

I am hanging on with both hands because I refuse to let one-quarter of my heart be relegated to darkness and silence because of other people’s discomfort.  

I will remember.  

As long as I have breath I will speak my remembrance.

I will never, ever, ever let go.  

handprint on my heart