memories – Page 15 – thelifeididntchoose

Your Child Matters

I know many who read this blog belong to closed online bereavement groups.

That’s a beautiful thing- a place where we can share our pain with others who understand it in a judgement-free zone.

We often post photos and our child(ren)’s story in the closed groups.

But today I want to take a moment to provide a public forum for anyone who wishes to take advantage of it.

Your child matters.

His or her story matters.

Your pain matters.

If you are so inclined, please “speak” your child(ren)’s name in the comments section. Tell us something about your child(ren), tell us what you miss about your child(ren), tell us what made your child(ren) a special light in this world.

(It is a PUBLIC forum so please don’t post anything you don’t want the world to know.)

Repost: Memorial Day

Last year around this time, my eldest son received his captain’s bars and had just begun Officer Training School.

This year, it’s even more real to me that one of my own children may be called upon to risk or give his life for the life and liberty of another.

And the number of mothers I know whose child has died in service or because of service related wounds or PTSD has grown ever larger.

Memorial Day is not “just another holiday”.

It is a solemn occasion that merits our deepest reverence.

We must never forget: Freedom isn’t free.

Read the rest here: Memorial Day

Flashback

I bend down and bump my head against memories.

“Mama, look at THAT!”

“Have you ever seen one of those?”

“Is it true toads give you warts? He lives under that rock. Don’t move it-let him live there because he eats bugs!”

“Why is the tail blue? What happens when it breaks off?”

Young boys found toads and luna moths, blue-tailed skinks and lizards Older boys hid with air-soft guns to ambush the other team. Young men changed oil and car parts.

And one summer a laughing Dominic lifted me high in the backhoe bucket so I could paint the top trim of the house.

Synapses fire and lightning flashes through my brain in seconds. ONE corner of my house-all this.

Every room holds memories. Every footfall echoes past days. Every window frames some precious vignette in my mind’s eye.

Inescapable.

Most days I’ve learned to turn down the volume. But today it would not be denied.

And I think, “How would I have survived those precious, precious years if I had known what was coming?”

Thank God I didn’t.

Repost: You Can Only Hold On To What You Refuse To Let Go Of

I wrote this post after hearing a radio interview in which the guest said, “You can only hold onto what you refuse to let go of” in reference to clinging to what was truly important in life.

It struck a chord deep in my heart because as the weeks turn to months and then to years, I’m realizing I must hold onto every bit of Dominic that I can.

Because no matter how much I wish it were different, time has a way of washing our minds clean of things we don’t cling to with both hands.

Those hours before I planted one last kiss on my son’s forehead, I held his hand.

I nodded at the people filing past to pay their respects with my arm tucked behind me, desperate to cling to my child.

Read the rest here: You Can Only Hold On To What You Refuse to Let Go Of

Bluebirds and Hard Work

So, what keeps my heart tied to this weary world when what it really wants is to go Home and be free of pain and sorrow? What anchors me to the sod when my soul longs to float away? What compels me to stay?

Last week it was bluebirds and hard work.

Washing up dishes from a morning cooking frenzy, I raised my eyes to look out the window and there-looking down the chimney of our smoker-was a bluebird.

Unconcerned with me he rested for some minutes where I could drink in the vibrant hue of his feathers. There’s just nothing like that blue anywhere but on the back of those beautiful birds-no matter how long I look at one, I always feel it’s not long enough. Then off he flew to join another on a branch.

It was a gift.

And I tucked it in my heart to pull out later when I needed a reminder that there is still beauty and life in a world that also includes pain and death.

About an hour later I joined my youngest son at his house just a few miles from the farm. It’s an older home on main street in our little town and needs some work before he moves in.

It was carpet day.

So for the next few hours we worked together and by the end of the day we had done it! Carpet laid. No major mistakes.

Success was sweet!

I was really just a go-fer and cheerleader but it felt oh, so good to have something work out just as planned.

It felt absolutely victorious!

We sat in the finished room and drank it in.

Someone else may have just moved on to the next task in the long list of tasks needed to finish the house. But when life has gone terribly wrong, you learn to relish those moments when it goes right.

THIS is what I hold on to.

These slices of beauty and victory are treasures I tuck inside.

Repost: Life at the Intersection of Desire and Self-Control

Maybe you can relate: It is easier to do without if what I want isn’t close enough to tempt me.

I don’t shop if I don’t want to spend. I don’t get donuts if I don’t want to eat sugar. I don’t have soda in the house if I don’t want to drink carbonated soft drinks.

It’s much harder to deny my desires when what I long for is within reach.

Read the rest here: Life at the Intersection of Desire and Self-Control

Don’t Rush To Get Rid of Things

closet

It’s a common question in grief circles: How long should I keep my child’s things?

Should I clean out the room? Give away the stuff?

The answer is different for each family, each circumstance, each heart.

But I would say this: If you have a place to store them, don’t be in a rush to get rid of your child’s things.

A scrap of paper that might seem unimportant in your initial grief may be meaningful months later.

There are so many things you HAVE to decide right away. This is one you can decide later.

I wrote this post over a year ago, but my choice to purge our old school papers still haunts me: A Life in Scraps

Repost: Slow Fade

Each time Dominic should be here but isn’t, I lose just a little bit more.

fading-away

“It would be easier, in a way, if it happened all at once.

If the vivid memories of his voice, his laugh, his body language, his sense of humor just disappeared-POOF!-now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. Then I could make a single adjustment.”

Read the rest here: Slow Fade

Holiday Planning Helps for Grieving Parents

As much as I hate the mashup of Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas that assaults my senses every time I walk into a store, it IS a reminder that, like it or not, the holidays are coming.

I wrote these posts a few weeks back so that grieving parents and their families could begin to think about and make plans for year-end celebrations.

I know it’s hard-it continues to be hard for me as I approach the third (!) set of holidays without one of my children at the table.

But it is harder without a plan.

So here are links to the posts. I pray they are a small help for heartbroken mamas and daddies:

Grief and Holiday Plans: Working Out the Details

Grief, Holidays and Hard Conversations

Grief and Holidays:What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

Practical Ideas for Dealing with the Holidays after Child Loss

Confluence

Like most parents who have buried a child, a line is drawn through my life.

April 12, 2014 changed everything.

Whenever I hear a date or a memory drifts across my mind, I think, “that was so many days, months or years BEFORE or AFTER Dominic left us”. I can plot events on a calendar like I’m making a history timeline.

Put this one here and that one there. It seems so simple and straightforward

But daily life is much more complex.

I live in a world where “before” and “after” run together in a mighty torrent. And I can’t control the way they mix and churn.

These past few days I’ve been pet sitting for my eldest son, James Michael, and my daughter-in-law while both are out of town for work training.

They just moved from North Carolina to Florida and are still unpacking.

So while I’m here I’ve been helping to put things away and clear the boxes. I decided that working in the office was a good place to start-I figured I couldn’t do much damage by putting books on shelves and pens in cups.

None of these things belonged to Dominic.

But as I opened the boxes I was flooded with memories.

I found a scrapbook my daughter made for JM’s high school graduation-filled with photos of my three boys-years upon years of adventures, goofy faces, travel and achievement.

Another box held my son’s old Bible with a couple of church bulletins tucked inside. I was tossed back to the time when we all sat in the same pew, strong voices blending in worship, hands together in service-when I could not have imagined we would be one less-I only dreamed then of adding to the family, not taking away.

There was the graduation program from Auburn School of Veterinary Medicine.

Just weeks after burying Dominic we were celebrating the culmination of four years’ hard work. It was supposed to be a rip-roaring party, but it was a quiet dinner instead.

And then onto the mementos marking James Michael’s transitions since then: from single to married; from sheriff’s deputy to Air Force captain; from West Virginia to North Carolina to Florida.

All important events that were missing Dominic.

Celebrations and achievements that were a bit smaller because we are fewer.

Even as nostalgia swept over me, excitement also filled my heart because James Michael and his wife were beginning a new chapter.

I was happy to be helpful.

Encouraged that I could be of use in this season where many times I feel useless.

And I thought about rivers-rivers of time, of memories, of experience and of dreams.

Confluence: a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point, especially of two rivers of equal strength.

This is where I find myself right now-swimming, drifting, sometimes drowning in the rivers

of “what was”

and “what is yet to be”

as they join in the “right now”.

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