Child Loss is Turning Me into a Hermit
What happened to me? Countless parents of child loss ask that question because they feel and act so different after their child died. What happened? Why do so many withdraw from society following loss? Why do so many avoid social situations of any kind? What’s going on? So, what do we do? Are these changes permanent? Are they good for me? Grief is a heavy load to carry, and we shouldn’t do it alone. Yes, we’ve changed, but not all of the changes have been bad. We now understand the pain others are feeling. We now understand the value of time over things. We now appreciate all of the little…
Who would I be if my son had lived?
Have you ever thought about who you would be today if your child hadn’t died? I know we think a lot about who our child would have been, but what about us, the mothers and fathers, left behind? My son died when he was 42. He had dreams of building a vacation home at “the homestead” — in the field where he grew up. I would have loved that! He and I talked about that a lot! His last trip home before his death we walked the field that adjoins my home and he and I stood on the spot where he wanted to place his home. “Can you see…
The Day Began Normal, Then My Child Died
We never expect a child to die! Never! Never at any age. Child loss just isn’t supposed to happen. Children are always supposed to outlive their parents, but………that isn’t always how life plays out. I can remember every detail of that day. I got up as usual and got ready for work. It was a Friday, and I was so happy that the weekend was just hours away. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and I had plans of working outside in the yard in my flower gardens. As the day progressed, I was feeling fidgety — just so ready to leave work and chill out. I got a phone call…
Faith Struggles During Child Loss
Faith struggles during grief and child loss are not new. When King David's son Absalom was murdered David was inconsolable.
Sometimes There is Nothing That Can Help
When a child dies, we are desperately looking for some kind of help. Something or someone to encourage us is what our aching heart needs. But, the reality is that there are times when absolutely nothing can help. There are no words. There is no action. Nothing. And, so we sit in our pain trying to absorb the depth of what it means to have a child die. Such was the case both times when my two sons died — one son died in utero — a stillbirth. Another son died unexpectedly in the prime of his life of a massive heart attack. Both times knocked me to my feet…
Nothing Makes Sense About Child Loss
When a child dies, we want an answer to the question, “Why?”. We wrestle over and over again with the question all the while knowing we’ll never really get an answer — at least not an answer that makes any sense. Cancer. Car accidents. Choking accidents. Drug overdose. We know “what” happened, but when a child dies we want to know “why”. Why my child? Why now? Why did this have to happen? The first time I understood that young children can die is when my thirteen-year-old sister died from an asthma attack. It was a warm June evening in New Jersey — that humid, salty, sea air kind of…
What Can I Expect in Year Five? Year Ten? Or More Following the Death of My Child?
We’re full of questions following the loss of a child, and rightly so. This is a path that is new to us. This is something we never planned to be part of our life, yet here we are on this lifetime journey of grief and loss. I’ve been writing about grief and loss for over thirty years now ever since experiencing several life-altering miscarriages and the stillbirth of my precious son. Naively I hoped and prayed that child loss would never enter my life again, but as life sometimes goes, that was not the case. Once again, the death of a child shattered my heart — this time an adult…
What can I do when grief overpowers me?
There are days when the grief of losing a child seems over-the-top. The pain is just too much and we have no idea what to do or how to cope. I’ve been there. I’ve had a LOT of those days when I felt totally defeated. I spent hours upon hours in bed crying until I thought there were no tears left. This is a horrible place to be in our grief. When my son died, the early months of grief are barely remembered. All I know is that I was in a lot of pain. Nothing made sense. My world as I knew it no longer existed. This new world…
Life goes on…..but it feels so wrong without my child.
Every parent of child loss knows this lonely pain. It’s the pain of watching life go on without your child. It hurts and it hurts really bad. It feels all wrong, and nothing makes sense. We are plagued day after day with the gnawing questions of “why?” and “how can this happen?”. Yet….despite our questions and our pain, we see it happening before our eyes every day. New memories are being made. People have gone back to smiling and feeling joyful. People are busy with their own lives building and nurturing their own families. And parents of loss……well, we feel left alone. Isolated. Lonely. Broken. Sad. I love hearing from…
When will this grief end?
Every parent suffers through the loss of a child in his or her own way. But, there is one thing that is uniformly the same for all. The pain. The pain of losing a child is intense. And, the pain is ongoing. I am convinced after losing two sons, that the grief of child loss never goes away. There will never be true closure — not in the sense that some people think. We do ourselves a great disservice by thinking that one day we’ll wake up and everything will feel A-okay. That’s not how it works. When a child dies, everything in our world as we once knew it…
