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When you suffer the loss of a child, your life will take you down an uncharted path as you begin to face grief. One of the things you’ll encounter along this path are unprepared comforters — those whose intentions are to make your grief more bearable. Unfortunately, this group of comforters are at a disadvantage in the know-how, thus their words fall just short of their intended target. It would be easy to label these less-effective comforters as hurtful, but let’s not act to hasty. For the most part, everyone you interact with, who is aware that your child has passed, has good intent, well-meaning wishes and wants the best for you as you face your new broken world.
With the variety of people who are in your life, you can expect all sorts of clichéd one-liners, awkward hugs, speechless communicating, moments of uneasy silence mid-conversation and blank stares. Of all the things we learn as we go through life, learning how to express grief and sorrow is not among them until you are face to face with it.
While we who have lost a child are learning to deal with life after the child is gone, it is vitally important to remember that friends and family are also learning how to deal with the new you after the child is gone. It is an incredibly high learning curve for both sides. As desperately as you want your child back, they want the old you back. Their eagerness to obtain that goal can be where things begin to unravel. As the ones hurting, we often unknowingly place high expectations on those around us. When they fail those expectations (and they almost assuredly will) we can get hurt, sever ties and experience secondary losses as the collateral damage piles up around us.
My wife and I heard a wide variety of seemingly insensitive remarks. While still in the hospital after delivering our stillborn daughter, there were already suggestions from friends saying it was time for us to begin moving on. Why couldn’t we just shake it off and let the grief go already? They supported this charge by comparing our progress to those who had allegedly handled a similar loss better.
We were shocked and angered. We began to isolate ourselves. We let the bitterness of someone’s misdirected words fester and begin to take root in our hearts. We spent much of the time, that should’ve been directed towards our grieving process, rehashing hurtful words. The double-edged sword of emotion was only injuring us. It took many hard months to learn this lesson and more importantly realize we couldn’t get the lost time back.
As if dealing with our loss wasn’t a big enough assignment, we had another difficult task to add to our to-do list. It was solely our responsibility to educate, engage and give the benefit of the doubt when dealing with others who were unsure of how to react to our loss. Taking on this new responsibility can be extremely difficult in the beginning. After all, we are the ones hurting. We are the ones who need to be catered to. It seems so wrong to think that it is our responsibility to make others comfortable.
If you have found yourself in this situation, I challenge you to change your outlook. Motivation to connect with others, and consider their side of your grief may seem backwards. This isn’t an easy task, but easy left the moment we said goodbye. In the end it will be worth it. For those of you fortunate enough to have a strong, understanding support system — never take it for granted.
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About Paul
I have felt this so many times. I’m glad to know it wasn’t just me. Thanks for sharing!
~Kerry
This is so very true. I still struggle with this, thanks for sharing your words with us.
It is extremely difficult shrugging off the friends that say insensitive comments. I have even tried to let them know that they don’t need to say anything – just listen and let us vent, cry, etc. What do you do when they still want to add their “personal experience”? I think there also comes a point when you just have to avoid them.
Unfortunately that is a very tough place to come to and decision that may have to be made in certain situations. The thin line that you have to balance when ‘avoiding’ someone is that you don’t damage the relationship while doing so. This is where things can become very tricky. By the time we get to the point of wanting to avoid them, we are usually (not always) fueling our decision by emotion. Again, each situation is different, so you really have to do what is best in your particular situation. Usually a face-to-face talk will cause others to curve how they interact, but, sadly, other times, it takes far more drastic measures. The key is to learn to let your grief lead you without it controlling you. Easier said than done.
Great, great post, Paul. Thank you.
Yes, maintaining those relationships is our responsibility too. Thanks for the reminder.
I am so sorry for the loss of your sweet Bella. My son, Noah, was stillborn nearly 5 years ago. I wish things were so different for both of our families and all of our children were here, Earth-side. Despite having a living child (now 7yo), it wasn’t until the birth of my rainbow (now 1yo) that I realized that people (friends, family and passersby) did not know how to express their feelings and truly comfort, rather than hurt. I wish I read this post (without the loss of Bella) early on in my grief journey. It would definitely have saved some relationships. I hope this will help me, still, in the future, when unintended, insensitive comments are made. Thank you so much for sharing your life with Still Standing Magazine. I hope this reaches those who have not yet come to this realization in their grief journey and perhaps saves some relationships that might have otherwise been lost.
Thank you for the kind and encouraging words. It is amazing how much is shared incommon beyond the loss of the child. A whole world of ‘not knowing how’ is revealed in these moments.
Our pastor and his wife have been counseling us since we lost William (they have also lost children). Our pastor’s wife says frequently how we need to have grace and patience with others, and we’ve shared about how it is so challenging to be gracious and patient when we’re in such deep pain. For me, it has become a part of my faith journey, becoming more like Christ by responding with grace and patience when someone well meaning says or does the wrong thing.
Thanks for sharing.
Such an important lesson to learn. Some take longer. I happened to have taken longer. My hope is to help others come to this realization.
I can definitely relate to your post, Paul. I’ve let go of several relationships because it became obvious that there was no middle ground. I must admit that I miss those friends, but I’m struggling so bad with my own grief that at the time, trying to maintain a friendship with those people just wasn’t on my “to-do” list. I have since found new friends who are walking in this grief journey beside me. Friends who have also lost children and get what I’m going through.
One of the hardest and alarming things was trying to determine if we were losing friends or if friends were losing us. In the end, I’m not sure anyone can go through the loss of a child without some sort of collateral damage. The comfort zone of those involved is usually what is tested and proven very early on. Most draw to those who can relate beyond imagination.
Paul, thank you so much for taking the time to share this! I had a similar experience after my second miscarriage. My boss was very concerned about my ability to function normally at work, and I had to comfort and reassure him that I was still going to be able to do my job, but that I was hurting and needed some time. He wanted me to move on so he could have the old me back as his employee, and so I had to constantly reassure him that I wasn’t the old me, but that I would eventually be stronger and better. He wanted me that person that I wasn’t ready to be yet, and it was hard, not to mention hurtful. I’ve tried to educate him, and I think he’s getting there.
Hello Paul,
My husband lost his twins over 40 years ago, one at 17 and his town brother at 27. These two deaths was senseless and a
tragedy. The biggest tragedy after the loss of their lives was the silence a Father carries because of the senseless remarks
of well-meaning friends and family.
Men pull this tragedy within themselves to cope with and carry the grief forever.
Of course his loss was mine also. He was divorced father of three and his children (2) was compounded because of the isolation he dealt with from his children because of the constant pulling the children from him due to his ex-wife.
Sorry is such a cheapened word and when you lose something so dear as your own children, a part of your flesh and bone,
sorry isn’t enough so you close the subject and go on with what you think is life without your children.
The one part we took from these deaths was to hold those left behind and allow them to feel the love you have for them and
never let a day go by that you don’t convey this message to them.
My heart as a wife to this wonderful human being with such a quiet loving spirit breaks for him all of the 50 years we have been
married.
We have three children of our own and he has one son from his first marriage and everyday we take a breath of this life
we share with all of them how much they mean to us and that our love grew everyday they grew into adults and now we are
grandparents of 7 and Great-grandparents of one and another on its way in November.
Yes we are so blessed to have our family to share our love for each other but, a day never goes by that our son’s aren’t thought of and wonder what they would look like and what kind of a family they would be sharing with us and how many children they would
have.
Death of a child no matter how they die is something you carry with you the rest of your life but still thankful for the time no matter
how short or how long was a blessing.
For whatever the reason they are gone the time we had them will always be a precious memory to relieve each day and be
thankful for that short time.
I know it is easier to for people to help a woman go through the loss of a child but what about the Father? He suffers in silence
and endures the pain of his loss. My heart goes out to the many Fathers who have suffered the loss of a child in silence because
I watched my own husband suffer that loss for each of his sons.something he will never leave him.
God Bless all of you Men who know what I am talking about..
People always say once a Mother always a Mother well, I can tell you “Once a Father always a Father ” goes hand in hand with
what a woman suffers also.
Thinking of your loss,
Jan Heck
Thank you for sharing this Jan. I can only imagine the siuation you have described. It is interesting the focus that changes when we lose something we truly felt we shouldn’t have. While I am only removed about 18 months from the loss of my daughter, I have prepared myself to know that there never will be a day that I finish grieving. There is no closure, there is progress, but as long as I breathe, I will remember her. Your husband sounds like a wonderful man. God bless you both!
I have to admit I struggled with this after our son died – the expectation that others would be there for us, the struggle with feeling abandoned when people didn’t know what to do and simply disappeared, the friends we counted on who only called every few months, having no family geographically close and needing to depend on those close by. Nearly everyone we knew disappeared, and we – particularly, my daughter (17 y.o.) and I – struggled with hard feelings. We expected people to rise to our need. When they couldn’t/wouldn’t, it hurt. When dealing with so many issues concerning the death of a child, it’s not easy to know the right thing to do or how to handle things like this.
I remember getting a letter from a gal one year after Jason died, explaining to me how she was so sorry she couldn’t face me. She wanted me to understand how difficult it was for her and how sorry she was. I was struggling with how to continue my life without my precious son; my thoughts at the time were more along the lines of “does she know how difficult it is to face every day without Jason and without any support?”
I do agree with you that it often falls to the bereaved parents to teach those around how to help – even though they may not know what they need or even how to help themselves. I also think it sometimes falls to the bereaved parent to put on a good face or to hide deep grief in order to make it palatable to those around. People don’t like to be around deep grief, especially when it concerns the death of a child. It makes everyone uncomfortable, and people don’t like to be around things that make them uncomfortable. That’s why, in order to maintain or keep relationships, it falls to the bereaved parent to appear to be “fine.”
It’s certainly a complicated issue. Thank you so much for your insight and input. Keep up the good work.