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Tag Archives: thankfulness

Mystified Mother

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Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Heartbreak

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Ade, anguish, bewildered, bittersweet, blessed, buried, child-loss, contrasting feelings, eldest son, grateful, gratitude, grief, grieving, happy, joy, laid to rest, May 9, mother, Mother's Day, motherhood, mystified, Tarik, thankfulness, youngest son

Can a mother forget the infant at her breast,
    walk away from the baby she bore?  – Isaiah 49:15a, MSG

It is Mother’s Day today, but all I can focus on is the fact that four years ago, on the 9th of May, I laid my eldest son to rest. Because I lost a child, each Mother’s Day since his passing, I am mystified whenever I think about being a mother who outlived her oldest son.

I am utterly bewildered because I feel sad and happy on Mother’s Day. I am sad because I lost a son whom I miss every day, and I am blessed (happy) because I still have a son – my youngest son – whom I see every day.

Furthermore, because I am still grieving Ade’s death, Mother’s Day is extremely bittersweet. That is to say, on one hand, I feel immense joy because I was blessed with two sons (Ade and Tarik). I also feel enormous gratitude for every moment I have had with both of them. On the other hand, the pain from missing Ade is so intense that it frequently lessens the joy I should be feeling for Tarik who is alive. Then too, the deep anguish I feel because I miss Ade often diminishes the genuine thankfulness I should be expressing for the time I still have with Tarik.

I am the mother of a child who is not alive. I am also the mother of a child who is alive. Let there be no doubt about it. I love both of my sons in unique and special ways, but the uncomfortable truth is one of them is dead. That is why it is difficult for me – a grieving mother – to feel immense joy all day long on Mother’s Day, especially since I am torn between feeling joy and happiness for Tarik and grief and anguish for Ade. I am certain that all bereaved mothers who have surviving children live with many of the same confusing contrasts.

The bottom line is that since May 2, 2017, when my firstborn son died, Mother’s Day became a day that is hard for me to enjoy because I live with an emptiness that no one – not even my alive son – can fill. As a result, I more than likely will be sad and unsociable on Mother’s Day. I may even need to be by myself.

Whatever shape my grief takes on Mother’s Day, I don’t want people to lecture me about how I shouldn’t forget just how “lucky” I am to have a son who is alive. Losing a child changed everything for me. In other words, I am a different kind of mother because I am a different kind of normal. Therefore, the people who want to support me on difficult days like Mother’s Day need to understand that supporting me means accepting that I am a grieving mother who will always love and miss her deceased son, as well as will always love her living son and will always be immensely grateful that he is alive.

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Thank You!

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Praises and Thanks

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agape love, appreciation, blessing, kindness, reblogged, richly blessed, shared, standard share links, support, thankfulness, visited

Thank You

I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. ~ Ephesians 1:16, AMP

Thank [God] in everything [no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give thanks], for this is the will of God for you [who are] in Christ Jesus [the Revealer and Mediator of that will]. ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:18, AMP

 

I first want to give the honor, glory, praise, and appreciation to Father God, then to Jesus the Christ, and then to the Holy Spirit for all the people they have sent to this blog: all the people who have “liked” a blog entry, all the people who have commented on a blog entry, all the people who have reblogged a blog entry, and all the people who have shared a blog entry. Certainly there is no doubt in my mind that Father God is the only One who caused the growth in the number of visitors to my blog and the only One who caused the growth in the number of shared blog entries. Thank You God for these increases!

Secondly, I want to thank the people who I normally wouldn’t have any way of knowing visited my blog or wouldn’t have any way of knowing they shared a particular blog entry via the standard share links, especially if they do not e-mail me personally or if they do not leave a comment in which they tell me they have visited my blog or have shared one of its entries on such and such site(s) or with these or those individuals. For these reasons, I want all of the anonymous visitors to know that I definitely have been richly blessed by each and every person who has stopped by my blog, and I have been abundantly blessed by every individual who has shared an entry from this blog, whether on Facebook or Google+, or Twitter, Pinterest, Digg, Reddit, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Pocket, or via Print & PDF, or by E-mail. I’m extremely grateful to everyone who took the time to visit this blog and read my entries. Then too, I’m enormously grateful to every individual who has shared one or more of the hundreds of entries from my blog that have found a new home on other sites, or that have been printed out, or that have been e-mailed.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone for being such a marvelous example of God’s Agápe love.  The love, kindness, and support each person has shown to me mean more to me than he or she will ever know.

Once again, thank you all for what you each have done. I’m utterly blown away by your demonstrated Agápe love. I will keep all of you in my prayers, and I pray that you all will do the same for me.

 

Every blessing  . . . .

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Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen

Sanctified Child

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