It’s a paradox really-that grieving hearts can be more anxious and more sorrowful BEFORE and AFTER a milestone day, birthday or holiday than on the day itself.
That’s not true for everyone, but it’s a frequent comment in our closed bereaved parent groups.
Fearful anticipation of how awful it MIGHT be can work me up into a frenzy.
Read the rest here: Post Holiday Blues: When The Grief Comes Crashing Down
I’ll never forget one Christmas when I and some other moms organized a craft day for our preschool kids at a local church.
In our youthful enthusiasm, we thought doing homemade cards accented by glitter was a good idea. Boy, were we wrong!
Those bits of metallic bliss went everywhere-in hair, on clothes, in the carpet…we spent twice as much time trying to clean up as we spent making memories with the children. Never again!
So this quote about grief and glitter really struck home in my heart.
❤ Melanie
Every now and then I run across a quote or a meme that is perfect.
This is one of them.
Read the rest here: Grief Glitter, Tucked In Every Corner
When I was a little girl I never thought about how the holidays impacted the adults around me. I figured it was all about ME. Or at most, me plus my brother and Santa Claus.
I was blissfully unaware of budgets and baggage.
Now I know better.
The holidays require us to wrap more than presents. They force us to wrap all the pain and expectation and hope and heartache in a giant package and serve it up hot and ripe for dissension and disappointment.
It’s relatively easy to figure out what to put under the tree (or give for the nights of Hanukkah or Kwanzaa). It’s much harder to figure out what to bring to the dinner table or the family gathering or the we’re-doing-something-different-this-year NON-gathering.
I’ve written a lot about the holidays in previous years and I will be sharing those posts again because there is always someone who hasn’t read them or who is just now in need of them. But I wanted to add something to the canon this year-on the ninth set of holidays with one child in Heaven.
It’s not easier just because I’ve had practice.
We have yet to settle into a system that makes space for all the feelings and changes that time brings to lives and loves and hearts and homes.
I’m just as jealous TODAY of whole families as I was the first Christmas without Dominic. I’m just as likely to sit for hours wondering what, exactly, I should cart down from the attic, what I should set up in the living room, how I should honor him without making him a “saint” and when tears are appropriate or distracting and indulgent.
I don’t want to discourage anyone.
I have developed many more coping skills and ways to make it through the season than I had that first awful Christmas when every song, every memory, every EVERYTHING stung like driving snow on frozen faces.
I’m just being honest which is the first and most important commitment I made when I started sharing in this space. And I don’t want any heart who still struggles to think he or she is unusual or defective or weak or “less than” the hearts that declare unmitigated victory over grief and sorrow.
Life is life.
It’s not less treacherous because I’ve developed bigger emotional biceps as a result of child loss.
There is, in fact, a greater gap between what I expect from myself and what I find I’m able to give.
But I keep trying.
I’ll buy the presents, deck the halls, make the meals and cherish every moment I’m with the ones I love.
Because I’m oh, so aware that this Christmas may be the LAST Christmas.
A beautiful and terrible burden to bear.
It’s a paradox really-that grieving hearts can be more anxious and more sorrowful BEFORE and AFTER a milestone day, birthday or holiday than on the day itself.
That’s not true for everyone, but it’s a frequent comment in our closed bereaved parent groups.
Read the rest here: Post Holiday Blues: When The Grief Comes Crashing Down
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.
Read the rest here: Let Me Know You Remember
My son’s death is a point in time for people outside my immediate grief circle. It’s a date on a calendar. There is a period after his name.
But it is an ongoing experience for me and my family.
We don’t only remember on birthdays, holidays and anniversary days, we can never forget.
Yet often others do.
Read the rest here: I’m Sorry
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
I’ve written before about how I choose to leave some things just as Dominic left them-even over eight years later.
It’s my way of maintaining physical space in our home that represents the space in my heart where only he can fit.
It’s also more than that.
As time progresses, nearly every other tangible evidence that Dominic existed is being worn away.
Read the rest here: And The Gap Grows: Trying To Remember In a World That Forgets
I first shared this post six years ago when I was nearly two years into this journey and realized that for many of my friends and family Dominic’s death had faded into the background.
It was a date on the calendar for THEM but it was an ongoing experience for me and my family.
I was reminded of how time feels very different to the bereaved this weekend as I spent the third anniversary of my mother’s stepping into Heaven with my grandchildren.
So, so many things remind a grieving heart of the person we miss. So, so many everyday moments transport us back to THAT moment, THAT day.
You might not (I hope you don’t!) understand. It really costs little to extend grace to the grieving. But for those of us whose hearts are broken, it makes all the difference.
❤
You cannot possibly know that scented soap takes me back to my son’s apartment in an instant.
You weren’t there when I cleaned it for the last time, boxed up the contents under the sink and wiped the beautiful, greasy hand prints off the shower wall. He had worked on a friend’s car that night, jumped in to clean up and was off.
He never made it home.
Read the rest here: Grief and Grace:What I Need from Friends and Family
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.
Read the rest here: Bit By Bit: We Don’t Lose Them All at Once
thelifeididntchoose 