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 am the proud daughter of a military veteran.
I am the beaming mother of a son who served and the aunt of a nephew currently serving.
And while others argue about why and where we send troops and fight wars, I pray that wherever they go and whatever they do, they return home safely.
Read the rest here: The Value of Veterans
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
Since Dominic ran ahead I collect poems, sayings and quotes that help my heart put words to what it feels.
I consider each one a gift.
Over the next few days I will share some of them with you-I hope you find them as beautiful and helpful as I do.
This is a beautiful, traditional Jewish blessing often shared with mourners.
Read the rest here: We Remember Them
I share some version of this every year on 9/11 because while it has been decades since this tragedy, it continues to reverberate in the hearts and lives of those who experienced it.
When you lose someone you love suddenly and unexpectedly your world is turned upside down.
Those who were taken on this day 21 years ago are rightfully mourned and marked by nations.
Those of us who quietly said good-bye in hospitals or on roadside accident sites or in our living rooms when we were brought the news often mourn alone.
But know this: Regardless of how death steals your loved one, it takes great courage to live every day knowing by experience that a single moment can change everything.
We should honor the survivors too.
❤ Melanie
It’s been twenty years since the Towers fell. Hard to believe-no matter how great the tragedy, life goes on.
Like many, I was watching things as they happened that day.
My husband, an architect and engineer, saw the wobble in the first tower and knew, he knew, it was going to collapse. Horrified I began to understand that whoever was still in that building was running out of time.
And I cried, oh, how I cried. It was awful.
Since then I’ve lived my own tragedy.
Read the rest here: Learning To Live With Unanswered Questions
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
It’s different for every heart.
But each of us who know child loss have a season of grief.
It’s so much more than “just” the day our child left for Heaven.
For me, it starts in November and runs through the end of May-fully half of
every.
single.
year.
Read the rest here: Season of Grief: How a Heart Marks the Days
The calendar is relentless. There’s no respect for seasons of mourning or grief anniversaries or weeks of sickness or unexpected early births of grandchildren.
The sun rises, the sun sets and another day is crossed off into history.
So somehow-without my permission-I find I’ve woken to mark the eighth anniversary (do you call such a horrible thing an anniversary?) of Dominic’s death.
It’s humbling to realize I (and my family!) are not only still standing but flourishing. It’s horrifying to comprehend I’ve continued to live and breathe for 2922 days since Dominic left us.
Most days are pretty good.
Today is hard.
❤ Melanie
When the numbness wore off (maybe around six months) I remember vaguely wondering what years down the road would feel like.
I tried to project the “me” of that moment into the future and imagine how I might deal with life changes, new circumstances, an empty nest, grandchildren (if there were any) and growing older alongside the heartache of burying a child.
But just as it’s impossible to comprehend how the addition of a child utterly transforms a family, it’s impossible to understand how the subtraction of one changes everything just as much.
We are all so very different than we would have been if Dominic were still here.
Life most likely wouldn’t be any more perfect because we would each grow and change, find common ground and find points of conflict, make new memories and drag up old hurts.
Still, none of us would carry the deep wound and traumatic injury of sudden and out-of-order death.
THAT is impossible to ignore. Even eight years later it’s a red flag, a sticky note, an addendum to every family gathering and holiday.
So we carry on.
Like generations before us who have walked this world dragging loss behind them, we keep going. It shapes us but doesn’t limit us. It informs our views but isn’t the only thing that molds our opinions and frames our choices.
My faith in God’s larger and perfect plan helps me hold onto hope even as I continue to miss my son.
But today is a hard day and I don’t think that’s going to change as long as I live.
I’m getting better at remembering Dominic’s birthday in ways that honor who he is and the man he might have become. I can’t say I’ve figured out any good way to walk through the yearly unavoidable and unwelcome reminder of the day he left us.
I’m learning to allow the grief waves to simply wash over me without resisting them.
Eventually the hours tick away, the day is over and I find I’ve survived yet again.
❤
I confess-until it was MY son who left for Heaven before me I had NO idea that grief was really just love.
But when the person you love more than the breath in your body leaves you, the love remains.
And you have to find something to do with it.
So you sigh and you moan and you find ways to keep that person relevant despite the days, weeks, months and years (!) of experiences that interpose themselves between the last time you were able to hug his neck and the date on the current calendar.
❤
” If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them.” ~James O’Barr
I grieve because I love.
My tears are a gift to the son I miss. My sorrow honors his memory. My broken heart gives evidence to the ones walking with me that my love is fierce and timeless.
Read the rest here: Love: The Reason I Grieve
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