Bumbling Through Child Loss... Waiting For Signs

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 The road is rocky when it comes to losing a child.



The path takes you to highs and lows, and you experience the wonderment 

and detriment of life in the same breath.

Over the last five years, I have learned lessons that I never would have experienced had I not been thrust into the label of a bereaved parent.

I can honestly say that I likely would not have pondered the meaning of life and death so internally, if I had lived a life of certainty and basked within the traditional milestones.

This is definitely not a journey I would ever want to repeat, but I am trying to understand what life is showing me... teaching me even.

When you have something ripped out of your life in such an inhumane way, it startles your entire existence, and you are left standing there holding the bandage, as your wound bleeds all over the ground below you.

You aren't sure what you are possibly going to do to survive the pain that is rushing towards you like a speeding freight train.  You simply stand in its headlight, numb and frozen from moving out of the way as life continues to barrel forward.

Somehow, the train slips by you onto the next track, and you are left standing there, after hoping it would have ran you down, in order to escape the heartbreak you are feeling.  Life has a strange way of teaching us lessons that we never would have signed up for, had the curriculum been an elective course.  There are those who believe we have chosen this lifetime, and the lessons that we needed to learn.  If this is the case, every bereaved parent is an icon of a true hero... Someone whose strength is beyond anything we could ever imagine.  How we survive child loss is a mystery to the ones living this path, as some days it is even hard to breathe, let alone function.

In the midst of the anguish, we continue to strive towards hope.  Hope that there is something more to life... that existence is eternal.

... And out-of-the blue, we are blessed with signs and coincidences that we just can't explain otherwise.  For instance, I am nearing the 5 year anniversary of my son's passing and just recently expressed my dismay to him that I hadn't received any of his famous dimes to put in his "Dimes From Heaven" jar.  Afterwards, I never thought any more about it, and on the weekend, I stopped for a coffee.  Rather than paying with cash, I noticed I had a free coffee card, so I proceeded to hand that to the clerk.  Just as I had turned my head back towards the steering wheel, something caught my eye.  To my complete amazement, I had a shiny dime literally sitting on my leg.  I was astonished, as I had been waiting so long for a dime to appear, and suddenly, here it was and a smile brewed across my lips.  

Just when you least expect it, our loved ones respond in the smallest ways, but it certainly helps to mend the crater that was left in your heart the day they left.

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