This year my daughter in law joins me in observing this solemn day. In January our sweet little Holly joined Dominic in the presence of Jesus.
There are few days on the calendar when a mother (or a father) who is missing a child’s earthly presence gets to publicly acknowledge that fact.
After the memorial or funeral, most folks are uncomfortable with child loss. It makes them feel vulnerable and makes real the fact that no one is ever truly safe.
But on this day, we lay bare the truth: children die before their parents.
If you know someone who has a child who has gone before, don’t turn away. Ask them about him or her. Choose to listen and not turn away.
❤ Melanie
International Bereaved Mother’s Day is observed the Sunday before Mother’s Day in the United States. This year it’s next Sunday, May 3, 2026.
I didn’t even know such a day existed until I was a mom that needed it.
For those of us who have children in heaven, setting aside a day to acknowledge that unique mother/child relationship is helpful.
It’s probably genetic (won’t mention any names!) but it has been reinforced by training and life experience.
When faced with a difficult or messy situation, my mind instantly rolls through an inventory of available resources and possible solutions.
And I tended to cut people off mid-sentence with my brilliant (?) plan to save the day.
But there are things you just can’t fix.
I knew that before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven but I mostly ignored it.
I can’t do that anymore.
So I’m learning to listen better. Learning to let others express the hard things that can’t be fixed so that their burden is a bit lighter for the sharing. I’m learning that silent hand holding or hugging or just looking someone in the eye instead of dodging their gaze is a great gift.
I’m learning that lending courage is possible. One heart can actually beat in synchrony with another and the duet is musical and magical strength.
I’m learning that there are too many voices shouting “solution!” and too few ears listening to the full expression of a problem.
I’m learning that often my rush to remedy is hurtful, not helpful.
I’m learning that time does not heal all wounds-there are many among us bearing injuries that may be decades old but have never been spoken aloud because no one would listen.
I’m learning that even the spoken stories need to be repeated often and with just as much emotion each time because the telling has a way of releasing pain all it’s own.
I’m convinced that if we were a society of listeners who slowed down just long enough to really HEAR other people’s stories we’d be a society with much less pent up anger, bitterness and other dark emotions.
I’m embracing the old saying, “God gave us two ears and one mouth so we should listen twice as much as we talk”.
Sometimes that means literally biting my tongue or placing my hand over my mouth.
But I’m trying not to waste this hard-bought lesson.
When I reshare that post, it always generates lots of comments from fellow bereaved parents.
Forgetting things and people’s names, misplacing important documents, sometimes even getting lost in familiar surroundings while driving-all common experiences following loss.
It feels like you’re losing your mind but for most of us, it gets better over time.
I’ve developed lots of habits and tricks that help me navigate my still-less-than-perfect memory and much slower processing ability since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
One of them is to carefully check when exiting my car that I have my keys, phone and payment method.
The other Saturday I was running a couple of errands early in the morning so I could cocoon the rest of the weekend, knowing Sunday was the anniversary of Dominic leaving for Heaven.
My first stop was our local feed store.
I got out of my car, opened the trunk and went in to purchase a couple bags of horse feed. When I began walking back to my car, I reached in my pocket for the keys and realized I didn’t have them. Panic set in (it’s never far away).
So I went in to the store to see if I left them on the counter. Nope.
Back out to car-not there. Damn.
As I’m standing there, getting ready to phone AAA and order a locksmith the young man who loads feed asks me what is wrong. I tell him and he says, “You know you can crawl through the trunk and into the back seat on these cars, don’t you?”
Of course I had no idea even though I’ve owned the car for fifteen years and knew the back seats folded down. Never had need of using that feature before.
So now I’m wondering how in the world my big behind and arthritic joints are going to navigate that space when the same fella offers to do it for me.
Can I just say I’ve never been more grateful to anyone in all my life as I was to that young man?
He wriggled and squirmed and wedged his not-too-slender form into that tiny space and popped up victorious in the back seat.
God bless him.
He walked away to continue working and it was then I reached into the driver’s side and realized my keys weren’t there. Not in the ignition. Not in my purse I’d left behind when I tucked the debit card in my pocket.
The WHOLE TIMEthey were in the key hole of the trunk. Accessible, available.
SIGH…
I slid my hand over them as if I was only closing the trunk down on the feed and drove off. Thankful. Embarrassed. Humbled.
Again.
I know everyone forgets things sometimes.
But those of us living with grief understand that this happens all too often.
Twelve years ago today I woke up knowing that at some point I’d close the lid on my son’s casket and never again see his face this side of Heaven.
For friends and family it was the moment when Dominic’s death was “over”. His story complete. His life appropriately marked and celebrated. It was the end.
For me, it was a beginning.
A beginning I did not want to embrace. But there was no going back, only forward, ever forward.
Melanie
I used to look at tombstones in cemeteries and do the math between the dates.
I was most focused on how long this person or that person walked the earth.
I still do that sometimes. But now I do something else as well.
I look to the left and the right to see if the person who ran ahead left parents behind. My eye is drawn to the solitary stones with the same last name next to a double monument clearly honoring a married pair.
And then I do a different kind of math.
I count the years between the last breath of the child and the last breath of his or her mama.
Because while that first date marked an end for everyone else, for the mama, it marked the beginning of the rest of her life- a life she never imagined nor would have chosen.
Today I was backing out of the driveway when my eyes landed on the tag of one of our other cars.
Suddenly I realized that I hadn’t renewed our tags this year.
They are due in January and, like other important dates graven in my over- organized brain, I literallyNEVER forget.
But I did.
And I hadn’t even thought about it these three months until just now.
My sweet granddaughter, Holly, went to Heaven at Dallas Children’s Hospital January 4th. My elderly dad had eye surgery in Florida January 19th. I was home for exactly four days the whole month.
This is what grief looks like in real time twelve years later.
I still have six half grown kittens born a week before Holly entered the world . I brought their poor mama 700 miles because I didn’t want her to deliver while I was away welcoming my precious girl.
I just can’t let them go.
They are connected to her life, a source of joy, a reminder that death doesn’t claim every beautiful thing.
I’m probably going to keep them all because I can and because a farm can always use more barn cats.
This is what grief looks like twelve years later.
I recently had a nuclear stress test and an echocardiogram. My EKG in January was just a little “off” so my cardiologist sent me for testing.
The results were good. No real issues other than that I need to get back to walking every day and should lose weight.
I finally activated a Fitbit tracker I bought months ago to track my heart rate, activity and steps.
This is what grief looks like even after over a decade.
I’m rapidly approaching another unwelcome milestone marking twelve long years since I heard Dominic’s voice, saw his face, hugged his neck.
I’m stronger.
I feel joy.
I don’t cry every day.
But if anyone thinks the absence of my son or my granddaughter doesn’t changeEVERYTHING, they are wrong.
“The worst conceivable thing has happened, and it has been mended…All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
~Julian of Norwich
I’m not sure when I first read this quote, but it came to my mind that awful morning. And I played it over and over in my head, reassuring my broken heart that indeed, the worst had already happened, and been mended.
Death had died.
Christ was risen-the firstfruits of many brethren.
It is tempting to forget that there were three long days and nights between the crucifixion and the resurrection beause the way we observe this season rushes us past the pain to embrace the promise.
But it’s not hard for me to imagine how the disciples felt when they saw Jesus was dead. It was neither what they expected nor what they prayed for.
There were many points in the story when things could have gone a different way:
When taken by the religious leaders-surely, they thought, He will explain Himself, they will let Him go.
When taken before Pilate-Rome will refuse to get involved with our spiritual squabbles, Pilate won’t authorize His death.
When presented to the crowd-no Jew would rather have a wicked murderer released instead of a humble, healing Rabbi.
At every turn, every expectation they had for a “happy ending” was dashed to the ground.
On the one hand Death is the triumph of Satan, the punishment of the Fall, and the last enemy. Christ shed tears at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane: the Life of Lives that was in Him detested this penal obscenity not less than we do, but more. On the other hand, only he who loses his life will save it. We are baptized into the death of Christ, and it is the remedy for the Fall.
Death is, in fact, what some modern people call “ambivalent.” It is Satan’s great weapon and also God’s great weapon: it is holy and unholy; our supreme disgrace and our only hope; the thing Christ came to conquer and the means by which He conquered.
~C.S. Lewis, Miracles
Bury a child and suddenly the death of Christ becomes oh, so personal.
The image of Mary at the foot of the cross is too hard to bear.
In some liturgical Christian traditions, today is the day the church remembers and honors Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with expensive and rare perfume.
It was a beautiful act of great sacrifice as the perfume would ordinarily be a family treasure broken and used only at death for anointing a beloved body.
It’s also an expression of deep sorrow because somehow Mary knew.
Mary. Knew.
So she poured out her precious gift on the One Who loves her most.
Some people insist on reading the end of a book first.
They want to know if the characters they may grow to love end up well and happy.
Me? I start at the front and work my way through letting things unfold as the author intended.
I will admit though there are times when I’d kinda sorta like to have a heads up in real life.
Of course there’s no crystal ball, lines in my palm or deck of cards (in spite of Madam What’s-Her-Name’s claim) that can see into the future.
But there is One who KNOWS every little thing the future holds and Who holds that future in His hands.
From the beginning I told you what would happen in the end. A long time ago I told you things that have not yet happened. When I plan something, it happens. I do the things I want to do.Isaiah 46:10 ICB
When Dominic left us suddenly, unexpectedly and instantly in a motorcycle accident, it was a shocking surprise to our hearts. But as I wrote in the service program for his funeral, it wasNOsurprise to God.
I don’t believe for one minute that my loving Heavenly Father put His finger on my son and declared that night it was his “time” to die. I DO believe that my omniscient and omnipotent Lord, who is outside time and sees the end from the beginning, KNEW that Dominic would drive too fast, lose control and enter Heaven at 1:10 am on April 12, 2014.
I believe that while He could have miraculously saved my son, He chose not to and Dominic suffered the natural consequences of a series of physical and biological forces that operate without His supernatural intervention every single day in this world.
I am confident that God worked His purposes in and through Dominic all the days of his life and I am certain God has been and continues to work His purposes in me and through me even in child loss.
My heart is often disturbed and even frightened by what’s going on around me.
In these especially unsettled times, if I focus on what I don’t know, what I can’t predict and the limitations of the humans in charge, I will melt into despair.
So I remind myself that God’s purposes will stand. His rule and reign is sure. Nothing-NOTHING-can stand separate me from His love, His grace and His mercy.
Jesus Christ is [eternally changeless, always] the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 13:8 AMP
QUESTIONS:
One of the oldest “proofs” non-believers like to toss at those who follow Jesus is this: If God is all-knowing AND all-powerful, then why do bad things still happen? How might you answer that question? Have you ever wrestled with it yourself? Here’s a link to my thoughts on the matter: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/06/10/did-god-take-my-child/
While God may rarely give an individual foreknowledge, He gave Israel prophet after prophet to tell them what He was going to do. How often did they take His warnings to heart? How often do we?
In the passage from Isaiah above, God declares His purposes and plans will stand. That comforts my heart and echoes Paul’s words in Romans 8:38-39 that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Write down three other verses (using a concordance) that reinforce this biblical principle about the character and purposes of God. Make them personal-how do those verses confirm hope in your own heart?
“Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever” is a powerful concept! Unlike the times in which we live where human leaders say and do one thing one day and say and do another the next, we can rest firm and secure that what God has declared in Christ is absolutely, positively rock solid! “Every promise of God in Christ is ‘yes’ and ‘amen’”! (2 Corinthians 1:20). What promises of God in Christ bring you the most comfort? Write a list and post it where you can see it.
If you have children or grandchildren at home, how might you help their hearts cling to the truth that no matter what, God is in control? How might your own confident, consistent love and support model our Heavenly Father’s unfailing love toward us?
PRAYER:
Lord,
These times are trying my soul. It feels like everything is out of control and there’s no sure way through this valley of confusion and potential disaster. Help my heart take hold of the truth that NONE of this is a surprise to You.
Your purpose will stand. Your plan will unfold. No one and nothing can prevent it.
Make Your Presence real to me today. Open my eyes to the ways You continue to prove Yourself faithful. Sing courage to my soul when I’m afraid. Remind me by Your Spirit of every promise.
Thank You for Jesus. Thank You for the assurance that no matter what, my eternal security is assured.
thelifeididntchoose 