Child Loss: Facing Thanksgiving Without My Child
I had to get a few things from Walmart earlier today, and the store was filled with displays for Thanksgiving and Christmas already. In fact, any store you go into has the same advertising going on. I was pushing the cart along the doll aisle looking for a birthday gift for one of my granddaughters, when all of a sudden it hit me. Grief. Full blown grief! I dug deep into my handbag to find a tissue to wipe the tears that were dripping down my face. “Where did this come from?” I asked myself. I wasn’t expecting these emotions to come knocking on the door of my heart — not…
Child Loss: The Silence is Deafening!
As I think back on the worst moments of child loss and the loss of my sister, the one thing that stands out the most is the silence. The “absence” of the child that was loved so much leaves a silence that is deafening. Everything about the silence is a reminder that our child is no longer with us. No more waking up to the cries of a little one needing his diaper changed. No more giggles following a splishy-splashy bubble bath. No more hearing the words “mommy or daddy” fifty or more times in a row. No excited talk at the dinner table about the soccer game. No noise …
Child Loss: The Pain Cannot Be Described
I held him in my arms. His little body was perfect. I pulled him up close to me and we sat cheek to cheek. I kissed his tiny little head a thousand times and more. I held his tiny little fingers and just kept touching them lightly against my lips. I took his precious little feet and fit them into the palm of my hand and ever so gently closed my fingers around each tiny toe counting to make sure there were five on each small foot. And, then I felt my body fold into a million broken pieces as I rocked back and forth, my body shaking in pain knowing…
She Knew She Was Dying……I’m Sure of It!
Many of you have been following the story about my sister’s death. If you’re new to this blog, I’d suggest you begin here. Child loss is such a complex grief that we could spend hours discussing this pain every day and still come up with the same conclusion: “Child loss is the worst pain that anyone will ever go through. It can’t fully be explained in words — ever. Losing a child is like having your heart broken into a million pieces!” Carmella was diagnosed with asthma when she was six years old. She had severe asthma — her attacks were brutal. At that time, there weren’t as many medications available…
Child Loss: A New, Frightening, Lonely World
This hasn’t happened to me in a long time, but I’m going to share it anyway. I hope I’m not alone in this, but you know what? I’m going to share because I know that grief does really strange things to the way a person thinks. I just watched a video of a man and his significant other being interviewed about winning the big Powerball. Millions and millions of dollars. They were happy. They were teasing. They were laughing. And, they made the statement, “No more worries. Life is going to be so different now. We can live out our dreams, take care of our kids and families. We’ll never work again. …
Child Loss and Family Pictures: An Entirely New Meaning
I’m not exacly sure when it happened, but somewhere around age twelve I became a photo nut. There was hardly ever an occasion when I didn’t have a camera in my hands. I’m still that way today. I have taken thousands and thousands of photos, and now that digital photography is available, I’m always snapping photos. It’s irritating to some people, but I love to have a photo to remind me of time spent together with family and friends. This week while having a rare, but necessary, meltdown, I was sobbing in bed one evening and decided to look through some of the thousands of photos stored on my computer. It wasn’t until then…
The Darkest Day of My Life: The Funeral
Probably every person alive remembers the happiest moment of their life and when we recall that moment or occasion or person that brought us such joy that we smile from the inside out and get butterflies in our stomach! Thankfully, I can remember several “happiest moments” in my life, and I hope you can, too! Our darkest moments — those days when we cannot believe we managed to continue to breathe — are the ones we want to forget, yet these moments seems to plague us forever. These heavy, painful times dig right into the core of our heart and won’t let go. The pain of grief gnaws at us continuously for a long…
Silent Grief: Living with Guilt
As mentioned in my introductory post, my first real experience with death came when my sister Carmella died at age thirteen. I was fifteen at the time, and she just so happened to not only be my sister but my best friend in all of the world. As a bit of background, Carmella (or “Mellie” as we called her) developed asthma when she was six. I remember so well the wheezing, the tight cough, the look of fear on her face as her air passageway would tighten up and wouldn’t allow her to breathe. It was horrible to see. Many times, I ran off crying — screaming — for somebody to help…
Welcome to the Silent Grief Child Loss Support Blog!
Many of you already know me from previous writings about child loss on Facebook, on the ClaraHinton.com Website, on the SilentGrief.com website which actually began many years ago, and through the book Silent Grief. And, now look at us — here we are meeting together to form another way to support each other through this journey of child loss. I am looking forward to talking with you, and helping you through this grief walk. It’s my hope that we’ll become like a “family” here, and that we will get to know one another and learn from each other about what is helping us get through this pain known as child loss.…