It Started With Love

It Started With Love, Child Loss, Grief, Missing your child, living with Grief, Bereaved Moms

It started with Love.  A letter. My hurting friend, Are you happening upon this site in ‘fresh grief’? Are you a few months or years out? Maybe you’re huddled next to your child’s bed rocking your body into and out of the primordial moans of agony that have become the call for your missing child? Perhaps you’re with me, at an incomprehensible 5-year milestone? It may not matter, as we share the same unwritten language and are crawling the same formidable path. I’m there with you. I may not be right beside you, but I can feel you near. I … Continue reading

Focus on The Light-Keeping a heavenly perspective at Christmas

Focus On the Light, Surviving the holidays after loss of a child, When Christmas hurts, Until I hold you again, Light of Christ

  FOCUS ON THE LIGHT-Keeping a heavenly perspective at Christmas.  This time of year, when the world is sparkly and rejoicing, it feels particularly harsh against the shadowy backdrop of this life where my son is gone. The Christmas season makes the already gaping wounds of child-loss seep and throb. As I try to function like the old me and keep up with the additional stress and demands, the ambush of grief seems to be constant and everywhere. The parades, the parties, the shows, Christmas cards arriving daily, non-stop commercials and the worst, for me- Christmas music. It’s everywhere. Music … Continue reading

Grieving The Holidays

Grieving The Holidays, Surviving The Holidays After The Loss of a Child, Grief,

This is a re-post from 2 years ago. I am reposting for the new subscribers who may not have searched posts regarding the holidays after the loss of a child. I hope there is something in here that can help you or your loved ones through the rest of the holidays.   Somewhat by my own doing, life has spun out of control lately. Over-committed, over-worked, over-stressed and under-rested and carrying an extraordinarily heavy emotional burden. I didn’t plan well. I didn’t say ‘no’ when I should have, I had no form of self-care and it was the perfect storm … Continue reading

What Mother’s Miss, A Journal Entry

What Mothers Miss, Living without Your Child, Child loss, Until I hold you again

I originally wrote this in March. Dreaded March. It seems appropriate today too. Your would-be 18th birthday. #18 would be 18. Even now, I cannot fathom this. I miss you so badly I don’t know where to put the pain sometimes. The list of what I am missing about you feels endless. It is endless, because my days without you are endless. Forever.  Journal entry, March 8, 2019 I fear forgetting a single thing. I know there are details that must be slipping away as I power on without you. The futality of intentional overload and busy-ness to ease the … Continue reading

The Year In Grief Pt. 2

Grief, loss of child, The Year In Grief, Until I Hold You Again, Surviving the loss of a child,

The Year In Grief Pt. 2 Another year can be a relief- another year survived, another year closer to reunion with our child. Another year can also feel like the tiniest step in an infinite trial. Here is part 2 of some observations from 2018. My Living Children Are “OK” Right Now. After a recent conversation in our parents group, I have decided to edit this section a bit. I want to be optimistic about the well-being of my surviving boys however I cannot let my desire for them to be ok blind me from their reality.  Originally this section … Continue reading

The Year In Grief- Observations From 2018

Coexistence of Joy and Pain, Contradictions in living with the loss of a child, bereaved parents, another year without your child

The Year In Grief (Part I); You would think a couple of years into living with the chronic pain of child loss that not much would change, that the learning curve would be waning down. That’s not the case. I am constantly observing new things about this life, about others and about continuing to live while grieving the loss of my son. Here are some thoughts from myself and others who walk this path with me; God gives me the strength for this day.  There are days where I wander about directionless, lost in foggy disorientation. There are days when the … Continue reading

Living In The Gap

Beyond The Veil, Waiting For Heaven, Missing your Child

  LIVING IN THE GAP- Insight on the disconnect grieving parents feel interpersonally and spiritually in the unrecognizable world they live in.  I remember scuba diving years ago and being very deep. We were in the Caymens and exploring farther out and deeper down. It was glorious and exhilarating! A stunning new world we were discovering together. We were exploring down the side of an underwater cliff when the sea floor seemed to disappear beneath us. We had reached a fissure so deep and so wide the bottom was undetectable-miles and miles down. My earth-dwelling instincts made my heart start, feeling … Continue reading

Spring Keeps On Singing

His absence is a dissonant reverberation in the very heart of my soul. Always there, always droning. I realize it’s song is one with me now. Not in me, but part of me. The thick wires of the instrument vibrating continuously. Sometimes a low hum, other times a pounding orchestration of missing, anger, confusion, pain, shame, fear and longing that thrashes and shreds from within. How terribly awful the proof of one’s unconditional love can be. Ceaseless crazy love. Something like that woke me this morning. It was not the usual beeping of the bus at the corner. It was … Continue reading

After Bad Things Happen To Good People

Bad things happen to good people, Hope is what tethers us to faith. hope of reunion with Christ and our child, child loss, grief

After Bad Things Happen To Good People By most standards we would be considered “good people”. We are also the good people who a horribly bad thing happened to. Walking, breathing proof that bad things do happen to good people. I’ve heard, “When I’m having a bad day, I think of you and what you must have to go through everyday and I don’t feel so bad.”  As much as I appreciate the sentiment, I don’t want to be the poster-Mom for how bad your life could be. (Look at her and count your blessings!) I will never understand this and we … Continue reading

What I’ve Learned Since The Loss of My Child Pt. 2

Finding joy after child loss, loss is a continuous experience,

  The sun was high and radiant, the lake gleaming and alive.  Flickering prisms of light danced across the surface of the afternoon water. This is our ‘good’ time of year-summer. The humming motor is such a comforting sound as are everyone’s voices. Friends and family. I have Noah near me today so my soul is happy. We’re all smiling and laughing- I’m content even. He is surfing on the wake behind the boat and I’m thinking of how beautiful he is and how grateful I am for him. I’m so happy in that moment as words trickle through my … Continue reading