I found this article a while ago and posted it on facebook. I have no idea where it came from or how I stumbled upon it, but it is so true. Last week, a friend lost her baby at 21 weeks. She is devastated and as a parent who has experienced that loss...I relived that pain with her. I thought it might be appropriate to share this article in hopes that maybe you can help someone who has lost a child.
How to understand Parents of angels....
Do not worry that mentioning the name of the child will "remind" bereaved
parents of their child. We remember our child every minute of every day. We want
to talk about our child. Mention his name. One of our biggest fears is that he will
be forgotten and one of our biggest joys is to hear his name.
Understand that we are parents without the right number of children. Because of this we experience over and over again fear, anger, guilt, sorrow. These are not steps that we work through but feelings that will continue to return forever with various intensity and in different forms.....
Keep in mind that there really is no "closure" to the grief for the loss
of a child. How can there be? Such loss is against nature and against all that we
understand in the passage from one generation to the next.
What you say to bereaved parents is less important than that you say something.
Ignoring bereaved parents is only adding to the burden of grief. Simply asking "How
are you doing?" can be very helpful. But do it often.
Call bereaved parents just to let them know you are thinking about them. Don't
be insulted if they do not call you. Grieving saps energy for a long time.
Never think that grieving parents are somehow "holding onto their grief. There
is no such thing. The loss of a child causes endless grief that becomes part of
the bereaved parent's inner self forever.
Remember that grief is not a process that one goes through a step at a time. Grieving
is a roller coaster ride, and it is circular. The first couple of years, we are
numb. When the numbness goes away, we are shocked to see that the world has gone
on without our child. When we come out of this numbness, we are different people
with a new sense of what it is to be "normal."
When parents lose their child, their hearts are broken. A huge hole is left. This
hole will never heal - only the jagged edges around the hole may heal with time.
Our grief, not always in the same form and maybe not as intense, will be with us
the rest of our lives.
It does not matter how a child died or whether he was one week old or sixty years
old. Nor does it matter whether there are surviving children. There is something
absolute about the loss of each and every individual child.
