“What I Wish Everyone Understood About Child Loss”

Nobody ever plans on child loss becoming part of their life, yet the sad fact is that every day children die and parents are left grieving the loss of their child. This journey of grief is not an easy one. In fact, this is the most difficult path a parent will ever walk. The journey is long, lasting a lifetime. There’s no way to get off of this road. It is now the road that must be traveled every day for as long as a parent of child loss remains alive.

My life has been turned upside down and inside out by child loss and like so many others I was naïve enough to think it wouldn’t happen. Yet, it did. My son was snatched away without warning and now there are only memories to fill the huge hole that has been left in the center of my heart and soul. Child loss is such a misunderstood loss by the majority of people. Truthfully, I’m a bit tired of saying, “Unless you’ve walked in these shoes, you’ll never know what it feels like.” While that’s true, others can at least get a good grasp on what this void feels like if they really sit down and try to imagine what one day would be without the life of their own child.

I wish others understood the magnitude of this loss. I wish they understood that losing a child causes permanent changes to the very core of a parent. I wish they understood that you can have a rock solid faith and still cry yourself to sleep every night because the hole in your heart hurts so bad.

Oh, how much I wish others could grasp what it means to know with absolute certainty that your child will never appear on this earth again. Never again will we, the parents of child loss, get to see or touch our child again. We will never see life in our child’s eyes again. We will never be able to share any laughter with our child. We will never………….do anything with our child ever again.

Our child is now a memory living within our heart and our fear is that the memory of our child will fade over time.

One of the most difficult moments I had was seeing my son shortly before he was buried. I know that this is the tradition we have practiced in this country for years, but in a lot of ways it is brutally cruel.

I wanted “one last time” with my son, yet there were people standing around. Why can’t people understand that a mother needs one final moment all alone with her child?

I wish I would have screamed, “Get out. This is MY son. I gave birth to him, and I want to be the very last person to see him now that he’s gone!” , but I was polite instead. Oh, how much I wish I had tossed aside my manners and climbed up close to Mike and cried for hours and hours while holding him “one last time.”

"I wish others understood not to ever rush a mother at the funeral home. The clock means nothing to a mother anymore. She simply wants “one last time” with her child.

I ran my fingers across his face, his lips, his hair. My son. My beautiful son. There was so much left that I wanted to tell him. I wanted it to be just me and him. A mother and her son.

My tears drenched the shirt he was wearing as he laid so stoically in the casket. I wanted to yell out in fear and anger, “Why did you do this? Why did you leave like this? Didn’t you know I wanted to be with you when you died? I’m your mother! I wanted to be the one with you, not the EMT’s — strangers pounding on your heart trying to get your heart to beat one more time.”

I want others to know that I wanted to be the one to say, “He’s gone.”

I’m Mike’s mother. I want others to know that I wanted to be the one with him when he left this earth.

I want others to know that mothers have different feelings about child loss than anyone else. We carried our child’s body inside of us. We gave life to our child. We felt the miracle of life happening in every cell within us. We lived and breathed with our child for nine months. Our body sheltered our child, fed our child, nurtured our child.

I want the world to know that when a child dies, part of a mother dies, too, and that part that died cannot be revived ever again. Oh, she can fake it, but a mother knows that part of her died the very moment her child died. That’s what I’d like others to know.

I wish others knew how important it is to have our child remembered. I’m finding one of my biggest fears is Mike being forgotten. I’m so afraid his memory will fade each year until I’m the only one who remembers.

I’m so afraid my son’s life no longer counts……………

I want others to know that even though life goes on, it will never go on the same for a mother of child loss. Mike is forever forty-two. He will never grow older, and that saddens me so much. I found some emails Mike had sent to me shortly before his death. He was planning a way to move his family “back home.” He wanted me to keep it a secret until he could get the details worked out. He knew he could sell his three children on the idea, but he was going to have a harder time convincing his wife to move from Tennessee to Pennsylvania.

I want others to know that my son had plans but he didn’t get to see them carried out. His life ended far too soon.

Life is going on all about us, and every parent of child loss realizes that. But, we want YOU to realize that life isn’t going on for us as easily. Every day without our child is a struggle. Living with part of yourself gone isn’t easy. We fight hard every day to find a reason to smile about the future and most days it’s so very difficult.

I want others to know that the pain of child loss never goes away.

The. Pain. Never. Goes. Away."

A recent post on a blog by Clara Hinton, a fellow loss-mom.

Never the Same

"So many friends misunderstand the grief of losing a child. One of the first questions they want answered is, "When are you going to get over this? When will you be back to your old self?" Sadly, the answer is never. We'll never get over the death of our child, nor will we ever be our "old self" again. Why? Because when our child died, a part of us went with our child. It's impossible to explain to others. It's something a parent understands, though. We never feel "whole" following the loss of a child because such a big part of our heart is now missing. We will grieve the loss of our child all the days of our life. Grieving is an extension of the love we have for our child. It's not something to try to hide or be ashamed of. Grief is part of our lives now. We eventually learn to live within our grief, but we will never, ever be the same person again."

Silent Grief - Clara Hinton

Why Can't People Understand My Need to Grieve?

**This was borrowed from a blog I follow so, not my own words, but they could be as they so accurately put into words what we are feeling.....the feeling that since we are Christians, we should automatically be "all better. This couldn't be further from the truth.**

My son died. He died suddenly, without warning. On that warm day in May, the lives of so many people changed when my son’s life on this earth ended. He was the strong one in the family. He was the oldest brother and the one that the others looked up to always. He’s gone and our hearts are broken and life will never be the same again!

It is now going on two years since Mike died. Life has gone on for most everyone except his immediate family. For us, the pain is real. The pain is cruel. The longing for Mike overshadows every day in a million different ways. Our lives changed permanently when Mike died, and yet………..

I’m finding it so hard to grieve openly without others pointing a finger and letting me know that I should be stronger than this.

“Stronger than what?,” I want to scream over and over again! “How strong should I be? You walk in these shoes a day and tell me how strong I should be!”

I don’t understand. I really don’t. I don’t ever remember myself criticizing another for mourning the loss of a child. In fact, I often wondered how they were able to function.

I think part of the problem with my open grieving is others are so used to me being the strong one, that they want to snatch away my right to grieve! They selfishly want me to be strong for them!

Some days I feel like wearing a banner across me that says, “Every mother has the right to grieve her child. Every mother needs to grieve the loss of her child because that is her last way of showing her love for her child.”

There is a place in my heart that feels like there is an open wound. It hurts. Some nights when I’m getting into bed I sit on the edge of the bed and let out several long, deep mournful sighs. Oh, how much it hurts deep within to know that my son died and is never coming back to this earth! I will feel that open wound inside of me until the very day I die. Why? Because I am a mother who nurtured this child inside of me before he was ever born. I held him close to me for months after he was born feeding him, rocking him and singing him lullabies. I wiped his nose and gently rubbed his back through many feverish nights.

I was there to calm him when he had nightmares. I was there to cheer him on when he was struggling and felt self-defeat. I washed his clothes and cooked thousands upon thousands of meals for him and did it because I loved him. I watched him grow into a fine, young man.

Then he died, and my heart broke. And, now people expect me to be strong and not show my grief.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not constantly sobbing. I don’t always have a tissue held to my nose. My eyes aren’t swollen shut every day from crying. I go to work every day. I enjoy family and friends. I love cooking and gardening.

But, I am also walking around with an open wound in my heart that painfully hurts day and night, and when I do cry or express my sorrow I expect to be respected and given the support I need to grieve in my own way.

What a shame that parents of child loss often feel like they must put on a happy face and mask their grief! How wrong it is to ask a parent who has had a child die to “Buckle up. Be strong. Put that behind you and move on!” I don’t expect people who have never felt this pain to fully understand. That’s an impossibility. But, I do expect to be given supportive freedom to grieve as my final way of expressing my love for my son. Grief is the longest good-bye a parent will ever say. If only others could understand how important this final good-bye is to a parent!

What Bereaved Parents Wish You Understood

1. I wish my child hadn’t died. I wish I had my child back.

2. I wish you wouldn’t be afraid to speak my child’s name. My child lived and was very important to me. I need to hear that my child was important to you also.

3. If I cry and get emotional when you talk about my child, I wish you knew that it isn’t because you have hurt me. My child’s death is the cause of my tears.

4. Being a bereaved parent is not contagious, so I wish you wouldn’t shy away from me. I need you now more than ever.

5. I might be sad and I might cry, but I wish you would let me talk about my child.

6. I wish you wouldn’t expect my grief to be over in a certain amount of time. I wish you could understand that my grief will never be over. I will suffer the death of my child until the day I die.

7. I am working very hard on my recovery, but I wish you could understand that I will never fully recover. I will always miss my child, and I will always grieve that my child is gone.

8. I wish you wouldn’t expect me to “not think about it” or to “move on.” Neither will happen, so don’t frustrate yourself.

9. When I say, “I’m doing okay,” I wish you could understand that I don’t “feel” okay and that I struggle daily.

10. I wish you knew that all of the grief reactions I’m having are very normal. Depression, anger, hopelessness, and overwhelming sadness are all to be expected. So, please excuse me when I’m quiet and withdrawn or irritable or cranky.

11.. I wish you understood that grief changes people. When my child died, a big part of me died as well. I am not the same person I was before my child died and I will never be that person again.

12.. I wish very much that you could understand …understand my loss and my grief, my silence and my tears, my void and my pain.

But, I pray daily that you will never understand.......

Big, Old, Ugly Boxes (Quite Contrary)

I have shared this before, but I'll share it again. It so accurately describes what we are going through as we continue to walk the path of grief that God has set before us. It's been over a year since Austin was taken from us and brought to heaven. While we DO find comfort that he is perfect in heavenly glory, that fact does not automatically make our pain go away. This is a "band-aid" saying that many think will make us "all better".... but he is still gone. Our arms still ache to hold him and hug him. He is not at his place by our table. Our new house does not have a bed for him. His belongings are not in a closet and dresser, but rather in large plastic totes in the corner of our bedroom. He (again) will not grace the doors of Heritage Christian School's fourth grade classrooms in a little over a week. Everywhere we look, there is a gigantic gaping hole where he should be. It hurts to see this hole everywhere we look. This hole is NEVER going to go away. Austin will ALWAYS be gone from our family and from our lives. We will ALWAYS grieve him and it won't EVER get easier. I feel like there are many in this world that believe that you "get over" grief, and I must admit I used to be one of those people. I always thought that as long as they looked like they were doing well, they must be over it. I've since found out that I couldn't be more wrong. Especially when you lose a child. When you lose a child, you don't just lose them on the day that they die, you lose your future. You lose every single event that your child would have potentially been involved in. Though the pain may get a little less sharp and the edges less jagged, it will NEVER go away. As pointed out in the following article, the pain is like a box. Sometimes it feels like it's a huge, heavy box, while other times it is smaller and we are able to handle it a bit better. However big it is, it is ALWAYS the same heavy weight. My hope is to bring to light what it actually feels like to lose a child, and to put it into perspective for those of you who may think like I thought before we lost Austin.

P.S. Pay special attention to the paragraphs in bold print. These tell it like it is.


Big old ugly boxes (Quite Contrary)

Let's get one thing straight, I am no expert.

I only speak as one with experience.

In these last few weeks and months, I've been watching as many people I know and love are fighting against loss. Some of us let others know our struggle, some of us quietly struggle alone... against the loss of love, hope, possibility, normalcy, health, future, ... the 'some days'.

Grief -- Our response to loss...
in a finite world...
when we were meant for infinity.

One year (to the day) after a child I loved was killed, I attended a class. I was a trauma nurse and needed to be re-certified in trauma medicine. As it happened, the class was held on the one year anniversary of that day I would rather forget. I went through the class in a fog, ticking down the minutes and hours until it would eventually mark the anniversary of the moment we lost someone we loved...

And then, it was time for me to test.

I walked into the exam room to a mannequin on a stretcher. And the instructor stated the scenario of this imaginary person who I needed to treat. So I did. I assessed him head to toe, intubated him, treated him...and ultimately saved this mannequin's life. All while seeing the child on the stretcher who I could not save. The one where I was too late.

Completing the test, I looked up at the instructor. Swallowed the pain, took a breath through the hurt, and dared her to fail me through my tears.

The sun came through the windows. The students in near-by rooms finished testing. And the instructor just looked at me. Then she put down her pen and simply said, "You have walked the same path as I have."

She went on to tell me that she could tell that I was carrying grief. And after telling me her story of loss, she said this:

"I'm not going to tell you that it will get better. It won't. I'm not going to
tell you that it happened for a purpose. It didn't--at least not for any
purpose that we will understand. Right now all you know is that it's too
heavy to carry.

What I will tell you is that you will always carry it.
You will never be rid of it, but...
...you do learn how to carry it.

Right now, it's like you have your arms wrapped around the biggest,
heaviest box ever. And all your time and energy is given to that box.
Struggling with it, sweating against it, trying to somehow live your life
with this big, huge, painful box that you are forced to carry right in
front of you.

There will come a day when the box is just as heavy...but it is smaller.
And maybe you are able to fit it into a backpack where finally
your hands are freed up to help you manage the rest of life.

And then there will come a day when the box gets even smaller,
...but still just as heavy. And maybe then it's small enough
to fit in your pocket where no one else knows that you are
carrying this heavy weight around...except you.

But...you will always have this box. Some days it's bigger than others.

And it is always...just...as...heavy."

Then she gave me the trauma certification because I nailed that test and saved the heck out of that mannequin's life.

So what?

I only need to tell you these things so that I can tell you the next part.

Rewind a little further -- one week after this person I loved died, I went back to work. I worked nights. The day shift nurses came in just after dawn and I gave my patient report to a battle-ax of a nurse. She was the definition of "old school". Hard core. Had been a nurse for 40 years or more, would put you through it until you had proven yourself worthy. Only then did she let you see that she was just a bleeding heart of a person. She watched me as I gave report and once I finished she said (somewhat rudely, I might add), "Are you finished? Get your purse."

So I did...because anyone knows you do what an old nurse tells you to do. And she didn't say a word. She walked me out the doors of the ER, down the hospital driveway, across the parking lot, and finally when we got to my car she slapped my butt then turned and went back to work.

And it was one of the most meaningful things that anyone had done for me when I was struggling with my big old box of grief. She offered her silent acknowledgement that I needed someone walking next to me in my sadness.

That instructor was right. My grief is in a smaller box. Still heavy but contained enough where I can even take it out and examine it from time to time. Some days, that box blows up and I have trouble carrying it again. But now more often than not, people might not realize that I still carry it.

Again, so what?

I'm not going to tell you that it will get better. I won't say that this was all for a purpose. I won't even tell you that there is a 'right' way to get through loss. There isn't. There...just...isn't.

But I think we all need to pay attention to these big-old-ugly-grief-boxes that people carry. We need to stop trying to look over it or around it or anywhere else. We need to stop trying to gloss over it or attempting to put a bow on it to make it prettier. We need to pay attention and see it for what it is--a big ugly awful thing that none of us want...but all of us will be called to carry at some point in our lives, maybe even more than once. Because those who are trying to carry that grief can't see anything BUT their loss. Not even if you try to put a bow on it.

I only tell you these things so that I can tell you this last part: That I have walked a similar path as you. Where, "How are you?" feels like the wind got knocked out of you. And where, "He's in a better place now," only brings rage and isolation. And, "It happened for a reason," brings fear of the future. Those ribbons and bows do...not...help.

Here's something else I've learned on this journey, God never wanted us to carry those grief boxes either. He has promised us so much more than any of this pain. And he nailed that promise on a cross.

So, if I see you straining against the heaviness of loss, I'm probably not going to slap your butt. I'm also not going to offer you any ribbons or bows. But I will walk next to you however I can so you aren't alone in your struggle.


Romans 8:37-39 (NIV)

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers,
neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I'm Not Moving on From, I'm Moving on With

Bereaved people should “move on” from grieving the loss of a loved one, right? Scholarly publications call this idea misguided, a myth. However, many people must still believe it - and say it in private conversations - because I have read countless articles and blogs expressing anger and pain around it. In a raw and eloquent Facebook post, Kay Warren addresses the suggestion that she and her husband should be moving on from the loss of their son Matthew, who died of suicide. “The truest friends...[are] willing to accept that things are different,” she writes. “They’re ok with messy and slow and few answers....and they never say ‘Move on.’”

To me, this “moving on” concept makes no sense at all. In fact, my brother - who died just over two years ago - is the person I least want to move on from, because he is the most gone.

Where did it come from, the idea that one should completely separate from a loved one who has died? How is it still in our collective consciousness, given that it works for absolutely no bereaved person I know? Why do I not see it written down in advice articles? Perhaps something instinctively feels wrong about advising people to move on - wrong enough that we don’t offer it as written advice, but entrenched enough that we still find ourselves saying it.

I think it feels wrong because it is impossible.

In recent years, research has revealed information about how our relatives and close friends, our life experiences, and our traumas change us physically and psychologically. Mothers and children exchange cells during pregnancy and at birth, cells that may remain in the other person’s body and play a role in health down the road. Stress and trauma can permanently change DNA in the cells of the traumatized person, in such a way that the altered DNA is heritable, often resulting in children who are more likely to experience stress-related psychiatric disorders. In education, carefully designed short-term interventions can lead to radical shifts in attitude and behavior that change how students think and work.

Our lives change us, often permanently. People and experiences become part of us at a cellular level. How, then, are we to be expected to “move on” from a child, a life partner, a sibling, a close friend, a parent who has died? How could I set aside the parts of myself linked to my brother? You might as well ask me to cut my own heart out with a knife, leave it by the curb, and then continue walking down the road. It is impossible.
What, then, is possible? For me, it’s noticing the thoughts and emotions that come up from moment to moment and sitting with them however I can. What that looks like changes all the time. I talk about him, or I stop talking. I cry in my car, or I go running. I pore through old photo albums, or I put all the albums away. I notice when his favorite songs come up on my shuffle, I write about memories, I text his friends, I take walks alone, I escape in work, I wallow in old e-mails. I show up, day after day, and I try to understand.

Caregivers who study the process of grieving refer to integrated grief - an enduring state of grief in which the loss, your understanding of it, and your emotions around it become incorporated into your life over time. Integrated grief doesn’t mean forgetting the person or setting aside the pain. On the contrary, it sustains the bond by including both the agony of loss and the positive memories. I believe this is what I am instinctually doing - trying to integrate my grief. As I slowly realize I cannot be connected to my brother how I once was, I am creating a whole new web of connection between us - a web that needs all the threads, good, bad, and ugly, to stay strong.

I have family and friends whom I love and care for, multiple work responsibilities, and personal and professional aspirations for the future. I want and need to be able to continue. So, yes, I move on - not from, but with my brother. Moving on with him gives me a chance to live.

Sarah Lyman Kravitz

Forever Changed

by ©Nathalie Himmelrich

I know you care for me and am so glad you’re reading this. I know that you can’t fully comprehend, nor would you want to, what it means to be a bereaved parent. Honestly, I’m still finding out for myself. To live without my child is not something I ever wanted to learn and yet it’s what I have to.

I see that you want me to feel better. Let me assure you, you’re doing the best you can to soothe my pain, yet it is here and will be here… until it lessens. It won’t ever go away completely and this is ok. Can you be ok about it with me?

I hope you will have the courage to remember my child with me until we part. Please remember this: You may speak her (or his or their) name, you may remember her birthday or anniversary with me, whether that is by sending me a text message, card or flowers – it doesn’t matter, it’s the thought that counts.

Please do not fear my tears or my sadness, it means that I’m thinking of her or missing her. It’s not that I am permanently broken or sick, just broken-hearted and grieving. Please have the courage to sit with me and my pain, without needing to fix it.

At times I might say ‘I need some time to myself’ but more often, I do appreciate you being here, even without any words, keeping me company or doing something with me. Other times I might need distraction and I might even laugh and experience some joy and then feel guilty again and cry in the next moment. It’s ok, this is life and death: complex and paradoxical and not always to be understood.

You probably feel that I have changed. You might even hope and wait for me to return to the ‘old me’ again. I’m sorry but that won’t happen. I’m forever changed. Losing a child is like losing a limb. Even though the scars of the amputation will heal, it’s a permanent change and as much as it sucks, it is what is. I have to get used to it. Will you bear the chance to get to know me as your ‘new normal friend’?

I’ve chosen you as my friend because you have a big compassionate heart, yet I know it’s (almost) impossible to understand the unimaginable. Don’t say things like: “Wouldn’t it be time to move on?” or “At least you have…” I know you might say those kind of things in an attempt to support me. I know you’re well-meaning yet I’ve become sensitive and certain sentences are like shards of glass on an already wounded heart. Even if you don’t understand, would you allow your heart to reach out and trust the sensitivity of my broken heart? (For examples on what to say instead, click here.)

I might not be up to celebrating pregnancy news, I might even feel jealous of those lucky mothers who are joyously carrying their children. It’s not that I’m mean, it’s because my heart longs for my child and seeing those mothers with their children is a reminder of what I don’t have.

With time and healing, I will be sad less often or cry less often as at the beginning. This does not mean I’m ‘over it’. My child lives on in my heart and I will never get over the fact that I’m never to hold her hand in life. Please do not confuse my healing with ‘been there, done that’. My child might have gone with the wind, yet I’m still searching the world for signs of its fleeting presence.

Thank you for being here for me and with me.

Thank you for being my friend and having remained my friend through this.

Thank you for creating a new friendship with my ‘new normal’ self even though we wanted everything to remain as it was…

Thank you for remembering my child and therefore honouring me as her mother.