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
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
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
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.
November 2013 was my 50th birthday and the kids arranged a surprise party for me at Dominic’s apartment. My husband was home from California and we were all together for my birthday, Thanksgiving and the Iron Bowl. So many memories, so many moments.
As the leaves begin to turn in Alabama, my heart begins the countdown.
Then that Christmas-it would be the last one where the table was full and all I have are a few fuzzy photos because we anticipated a spring season of graduations and a wedding. Plenty of time for better pictures when we were dressed for the camera.
As we hang the lights and the nights get longer, my heart gets sadder.
January was back to routine. Everyone busy. James Michael and Julian would be graduating soon. We had normal back and forth texts and messages, never knowing how precious these few recorded words would become.
As we move toward warmer weather, my heart grows cold.
February 14, 2014 was Julian’s birthday and for a couple of hours all the kids were home. We sat outside on an old trailer laughing and cutting up. Someone suggested a photo. Everyone demurred because we were in ragged work clothes and thought it was a waste of time. Oh, how I wish I had that picture now!
But there’s no going back.
I saw Dominic in March a few times. Since he lived just 25 miles away I would meet him to go to Sam’s Club and stock up on basic food stuffs. He came out to our place to work on a friend’s car. He and Julian met up and made a road trip for Spring Break.
It was the last time I’d see him alive. My heart hates turning the calendar to April.
April. What can I say about this awful, awful month?
I will never be able to recapture any sense of hopeful anticipation as flowers bloom and leaves bud. I don’t care when the last frost might be because try as I might, I can’t plant a garden. When the first really beautiful day arrives, whether or not it corresponds to Dom’s death date, it only makes me fearful other young men will take their bikes out for a ride after a long, cold winter. I wonder how many mamas wake to a knock or phone call.
The smell of cut grass reminds me of the people that came to help us clean up before the funeral. The sun streaming in the living room window conjures the mornings I woke and dared it to shine in the face of such tragedy.
My heart barely holds on.
And then May. Mother’s Day-what kind of mother lets her son die? Even though logic tells me otherwise, my heart still accuses.
Graduations, weddings–reminders that Dominic never got to finish his law degree, will never marry and that every single molecule of him is gone, gone, gone-no children, no likeness ever looking back at me again in this life.
Finally, there’s his birthday-the one he missed by only a few short weeks. Forever 23. Never any older. May 28th comes and goes. Sometimes it’s on Memorial Day like the year he was born but often not. So I gird my loins to face the date AND the day.
My heart hurts but breathes a sigh of relief.
This season is over. But it will come again.
So I try, try, try to cram as much into the intervening months as possible.
The calendar is relentless.
thelifeididntchoose 