Category: love

Personal Advent Season

For the past six years, I have been marking each year in remembrance of the day my son died, while learning to dread the anniversary of his due date all the more. Thanks to Facebook’s “On This Day” function, each December 14 I am reminded of all the love and support as the due date dawned without even the chance of his arrival. My mom friends rallied to give words of love and thoughts of me as this date shared heavily among expectant parents, arrived while he had already arrived four months earlier to say goodbye.

It took about two years before the reality of the due date coming with no baby really set in. Frankly, it was a lovely gesture that so many remembered a date spoken of fleetingly, months later, especially after the sudden horror of his being born still. Yet those first years after his death, I was almost wholly transfixed with the date of his death. I dreaded it, I loved it, I celebrated it, I wanted to hide from it. August 11 came each year and I felt dragged back into those frightful hours as we waited for him to be born still. Gradually I experienced the gift of God’s peace on Hardison’s death. Of help in feeling this peace, was discussing the continued preaching of Paul and others after being persecuted in the early years after Christ’s resurrection. One thing covered in the discussion was the idea of not focusing on the persecution, but the perseverance. By keeping our focus on God, we can stay the course by virtue of His love. When we are focused on the persecution (struggle, opposition, tragedy) it is much easier to become angry, disillusioned, and to give up. God’s love is shown in the understanding of our turmoil because Jesus Christ experienced the struggle of human life, in part to aid us during our times of need. I took these known ideas to heart more than ever and eased some of the flailing of my soul that I felt upon Hardison’s death. Even so, I met August 11 with pain long before the date showed up on the calendar every year. Somehow, despite my best efforts it still loomed large. Understandable, I know, yet December 14 would sneak up on me and then strike me down based on friends’ remembrance. Then, this year, I learned to appreciate the coming reminder of his due date all because I made a connection between it and the Christian celebration of Advent.

The Christian advent has come to be all about anticipating the second coming of the messiah. Christians wait for Christ to return and fulfill the promise of His eternal kingdom. Each year during the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, a time which has come to represent the birth of Christ, we look back at His coming and forward to His coming again. Even when not speaking in the Christian sense, advent can be defined as “the arrival of a notable  person, thing, or event.”  While reading a devotional taken from Bo Stern’s When Holidays Hurt, this statement took on a whole new meaning. Ms. Stern says “One of the reasons Jesus came to dwell with us – and is coming again – is to wipe away every tear.” Did your lightbulb go off too, based on your own circumstance or what you have read of mine? The bells were ringing like the sound when you get an answer right on a game show and the lightbulb illuminated. I could look upon the advent of Harrison’s due date as a reminder of the love and joy we were anticipating with the advent of a new member to our family. The way Christians look forward to the second advent of Christ, a member of our eternal family. I will still be heart sore and sad as December 14 arrives, but I can also view it as a personal advent season, a reminder every year of what Hardison means to this family. No longer do I only have to be reminded of when and how we lost his physical presence. I don’t have to be bombarded with sadness once the memory reminders start showing up on Facebook, I can reach back to the happy shock the date originally stood for.

These thoughts on personal advent seasons are not only useful due to the loss of a child. Most loss, sadness, and pain, can be brightened by the idea of the remembrance of the excitement of arrival. It may be you will look forward to the coming of justice, of peace, of love. But look forward in anticipation, not just back in sorrow.

Words Can Be Abusive



This is a hard post to write as it will talk about the often overlooked subject of emotional abuse. Often we hear about physical abuse but emotional abuse is often far more prevalent and is designed to make us think less of ourselves, question our motives and actions, isolate ourselves from friends and family and truly leave our substance in the abuser’s hands.

An often used definition of emotional abuse, also known as psychological abuse, is “any act including confinement, isolation, verbal assault, humiliation, intimidation, infantilization or any other treatment which may diminish the sense of identity, dignity, and self worth” which I took from the site healtyplace.com. I know that emotional abuse can be slow moving, insidious and happen to anyone at any time or any age. You may think of yourself as tough, independent, and strong minded. Doesn’t matter, it could still creep into your life, perpetrated by someone you trust, and change you into a person who questions everything about yourself. I knew myself to be strong minded and tough, with firmly held  beliefs, but I too was caught in a web of lies told to me by someone who professed to love me, but really just wanted to control me and my environment because that made them feel better. It was hard to hear friends tell me that they were concerned for me, I couldn’t even see what they were talking about. For me, the wake up came when physical abuse tried to rear its head, I immediately got out, but it took physicality to get me away, then time and therapy for me to understand that the years of words structured to hurt had actually harmed me in ways I hadn’t noticed. Some signs include yelling and swearing, mocking, ignoring, and victim blaming. Please listen to those around you with insight and if you fear you are someone you love is being abused emotionally, understand that often just breaking up isn’t enough, they may need help to stay safe and to work through the mental fallout of the abuse. Mental health providers are especially helpful in these situations. There is a list of hot lines available at healthyplace.com also.

Recently I visited a very close friend at their home. They were excited for me to meet their new love interest and I was excited too. Only the excitement was short lived as the reality intruded and their loved one spent the weekend scaring me witless with their screaming vulgarities and aggressive behavior. My beloved friend was worried it might not be working out, but scared this love interest would harm themselves if asked to leave. I was terribly afraid we would be harmed because they had not been asked to leave. I was torn between leaving in a hurry for fear of my own safety and a deep need to stay and support my friend who I was just as afraid for. I made accommodations and talked myself into staying in a volatile situation for the care of someone else. See, I was already not listening to my inner voice which shouted ‘RUN!’, but I let the emotions of the situation dictate my actions. It is so easy to fall into this type of thinking and inaction. My choices did nothing but waste my time and make it more difficult to leave when the time came. Conflicting schedules kept my friend and I from ending our weekend on the high note it started on. I left without ever talking to them from the heart, without being able to hug them and reassure us both about what I had been a silent witness to on the fringes of the relationship, known but never even seen to the new love interest. I still don’t know what the lover looks like, only what they sound like in heaving anger and screaming blame. Only the fear they instilled in everyone in that house and my own that the fear and anger would leak out to stain us all.

I left things unfinished and unsaid. I pray that you won’t do that. I ask that you speak out, seek help, and fight for the psychological health of those around you. I must return to this situation and try to assist and I write this in hopes it touches even one person in their time of need, or one person who then recognizes the need in someone else. Change takes courage, I pray the courage of us all.