 |
Death. Grief. Children.
Protecting children from the biggest reality of life is one of those topics that most parents avoid. And for many families, avoidance is easy as getting a sitter when attending a funeral. But what happens when the person who died is part of your children’s immediate family, a part of their daily lives, someone whom they will grieve the loss of?
Being grief-stricken while pregnant is not how I ever dreamed my fourth pregnancy would play out. But at 24 weeks, the doctor told us Amelia was sick with problems making it impossible for her to survive.
Weeks passed by turning into months. She grew and thrived. Each roll and swish turning stronger into jabs and hiccups as my belly grew to accommodate her little body.
And all the while my three children fell in love with her and anxiously awaited her arrival. They sang songs, read books, and would gently touch my belly hoping to feel her move. They were smitten and wanted the world to know all about their new baby. My children were about to learn the hardest lesson about life and my husband and I felt powerless.
We struggled with our own grief and just wanted to protect them, but how? How could we make this horrible, terrible, unfair thing alright for them?! We couldn’t. There was no way to avoid it, no wrapping it up in an antiseptic package that would make the news less difficult, less terrible, more palatable. There was nothing we could do to spare them. So we decided upon the only thing that made sense. We told them the truth about how “Amelia’s body was very sick and she would not be able to live outside of mommy’s body for very long.”
Then came the inevitable.
Anticipatory grief is a hard one to live with, but we didn’t get to choose. And after loosing my own father suddenly as a child, I can personally say that there is no ‘better’ or ‘preferred’ way to experience death. Weather you wait for it to come or are struck by it suddenly ~ grief spares no one.
What was important for our family, was that we wanted to allow each of our children to feel safe to grieve in any way they needed to and to let them know that they were not alone. We also knew that in order to be emotionally healthy, we would have to all deal with the messiness of grief together. We would answer the repetitive questions, give concrete details and information they could understand, acknowledge our own feelings, ask them about theirs, and be the people they wanted to come to when it mattered most.
It will always be heartbreaking to listen to my daughter express how much she wishes she had a living sister or to see the angry drawings created with little hands. Sometimes one of the kids just needs to curl up and cry while we listen to them talk about their feelings. Other times they are candid in public about Amelia’s death and I have had to learn to just let them share their story. At the end of each day, I am always gently reminded that no amount of pain has stopped them from loving her in their own unique ways. And because we made the decision to involve our children in Amelia’s short life, they have had the chance to incorporate her into theirs forever.
Many parents make the false assumption that a child cannot handle big feelings. But the truth is that children have an amazing capacity for understanding. And depending upon age and personality, most children handle grief the way they are supposed to… naturally.
Some ask lots of questions. some cry, some vent, some retreat, some explode, some regress, some avoid and act as if nothing has happened for a period of time. And if you think about it, that is exactly how most adults deal with grief. The difference is that children’s emotions (depending on age) are usually dealt with in spurts. They tend to move in and out of these big feelings because they are not able to maintain them. And this can lead to the false assumption that a child is ‘fine’ when they are not.
If you would like some ideas on helping your child with grief, there are many resources and books available.
Here are a few to begin with:
Children’s Grief Education Association
The Journey Through Grief and Loss: Helping Yourself and Your Child When Grief Is Shared
We Were Gonna Have a Baby, But We Had an Angel Instead
I Miss My Little Brother
Am I Still a Sister?
The Empty Place: A Child’s Guide Through Grief (Let’s Talk)
|
About Stephanie
This is heart-wrenching to read, but I’m so glad that you’ve written it because I know it will help a ton of parents with grieving kids. Surviving Eve’s death has been so hard…I couldn’t imagine having to grieve AND guide living children through their own grief. Incredible, mama.
It was never how I thought my life would turn out. . . but like all of us, we had to live it. I really believe that my children are so amazing and I am honored to be able to walk with them in this grief journey. They keep Amelia alive in ways I could not and that is a gift that I never would have been able to see if we didn’t honor their grief processes. It is healing just to be around them and to see how they handle situations with a grace that most adults do not.
Before we lost Bella, we had learned through a counseling session that as children we can not process things like an adult can, and as a result it becomes a part of who we are and how we handle things as adults. I didn’t want the loss of Bella to impact my children years down the road. We immediately had a counselor come and talk to the children. At the time, my then seven year old didn’t seem to be affected much, and my then nine year old was the one who asked the questions. My one and a half year old was just too little. They seemed to be okay so we left it alone. We always told them it was okay to talk about her and ask questions or share their feelings. They shared their feelings, but in a different way. Whether it was drawings or stories or my son writing “I Love You Bella” in the steamy bathroom mirror, they expressed themselves. The hardest thing to witness was the newly found fear that not only Paul and I had, but that the children found as well. Because we had experienced such a tragic loss, something we had never experienced before, we were ALL afraid something else could happen at any given moment. I saw the fear in my kid’s eyes when their little brother would hold his breath during a fit, or when my son left the front yard without permission how my daughter just knew he was kidnapped. That’s something that over time, they grew out of. They had to learn, just like we did, to trust God again and not the think the worst was going to happen every time. Thank you for your post!
Yes, our family too all experienced that kind of new fear. I vividly remember how I had to monitor the things I said, since to a small child telling them anything that was vague or misleading about what was happening was more troubling for them. For example, when they first saw Amelia’s body, we never told them she was sleeping. We only used the word ‘dead’ and illustrated for them that her body didn’t breath, eat, grow, her heart wasn’t beating, she could not see, hear, taste, touch or feel. We also used this time to teach them about our beliefs and faith. This helped them understand that a soul is permanent while the body is not. We still often express our random thoughts and fears about death and the unknown, but part of that is now easier for them, because they ‘know’ someone who is family is already waiting for them.
I don’t know if we ever grow out of that anxiety of bad things happening, because they still do. And after the death of a sibling, it changes a family. The same blissful ignorance that was ripped from us all is now shaping our lives in other ways.
Thank you for your comment. I am so sorry that Bella is not here with all of you.
Oh I totally understand that new fear that comes after a horrible loss like the ones we’ve had to endure. Just was overwhelmed anew with it tonight. I hope that one day it fades…but I kind of doubt that it will, at least at this point. I hope that your children are not too negatively affected by the fear over the long term, Nicole and Stephanie.
This could have just as easily been my story. We knew our daughter was going to be born with a heart condition and that survival was not certain. It was so hard coming home to tell my 14 year old daughter that she was finally going to have a sister but….. I didn’t know for how long. The whole ten weeks we had our sweet Jenny here was shadowed with the uncertainty of how long we would have her. I think sometimes the thing that hurst most about loosing my little girl is the pain my kids have had. One child gets mad, one tries to down play how important she was to him, another just is silent about it and my youngest living talks about her all the time. He adored her so much. I wish I could of been her big brother. He would of been the best. Thanks for putting into words the feelings of my heart.
Kelly, your children sound a lot like mine. I often think of how unfair life has been to them. They don’t get choices about most things that have happened, but then again, neither do we as adults. But being a family who is not afraid to celebrate the one we love and be honest with the pain that we feel over them not being here, is important. It is a life lesson that we could easily fail if we don’t give weight to how each of our children grieve differently. I know that having to parent through grief was never something that I could have imagined us having to do, but Amelia’s life and death has shaped us. And as we all move forward in time, we find more proof that she has forever bound us tightly together.