From Riches to Rags, and the Glory I Found There

Hello Charles, My name is Katharine...you don't actually know me, but you were involved in a car accident with my husband, John, a year ago.  You chose to take cocaine and fentanyl and chose to drive, heavily impaired, on a revoked license.  Because of those decisions, you drove, head-on, into my husband while he was riding his motorcycle home from church…and you killed him. My amazing, full of life, kind-hearted husband...died brutally on some meaningless strip of road that will forever be imprinted on my mind. Your choices destroyed my whole world... You may wake up every single day in a jail cell but you are not the only one left to face horrific consequences of the choices you made that day. Every single day I wake up and face a life without the greatest man I ever knew. Every day I wake up and I must make the conscious choice to find joy in life still. Because your choices broke me...and I have to live life every day without my partner. Not to mention the grief of countle...

There is a common thread of conversation amongst women who have lost a child, at almost every stage, "nobody wants to bring them up". Sometimes that is true, sometimes people don't bring up your baby. It's not that they don't remember or that they think your baby didn't matter. They don't bring up your baby because they're afraid of hurting you more. They're trying to respect your wishes and to follow your lead. But, please hear me when I say this, and I mean it in the kindest way possible, it is not someone else’s responsibility to make you feel better. Sure, it would be great if they could instantly know what you needed and give it to you, but they're human, so they can’t be responsible for our happiness.  It's time, we grieving mothers, to end our pity party and realize that we are responsible for our child's legacy, no one else. In the world we are given a "pass" to grieve however we like. Even if that means we are si...

Grace can be defined as "the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to deserve it." As grieving mothers we are gifted with so much grace from others.  We have husbands who hold us while we weep uncontrollably and hold us together when we feel like our lives have fallen apart. We have parents who look at us and our loss is mirrored in their eyes. They remind you that we are strong and that they are proud of you...even when we don't deserve it.  We have sisters who weep with us, who let us rage about how unfair life us, and who remind us that they miss their nephew too. We have friends who commiserate with us, and try their hardest to understand and to be there for us. Friends who think life is unfair too.   We have ushers in our church who hug us as we're suddenly weeping in our seats because the sermon is about motherhood, reminding us that we will be reunited one day. We h...