When you have faced a chronic illness and related intensive treatments for weeks or months, feelings of relief when the child is no longer suffering and is at peace may be experienced. If a child has died after a long, lingering illness such as a chronic disease, the death may still be sudden, perhaps following an acute relapse, or it may be expected as when the medical team and parents understand and agree that nothing more can be done. With any child’s death, no matter the cause or age, the shock is profound. Sudden deaths also occur with newborns such as a stillbirth, fatal birth defect, or when a seemingly normal infant dies of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). If parents have an opportunity to see their child after death, although very difficult, it may help in facing the reality of the tragedy. These sudden phone calls or knocks at the door are a parents’ worst nightmare. Shock is particularly profound when death is sudden and tragic such as an unforeseen accident, suicide, or murder. These reactions may last for only a few minutes or they can last for hours, days, weeks, or even months. These reactions help cushion the full impact of the loss until ready and able to face the devastating reality of our child’s death and the multiple meanings it has for everyone involved. As my sister reached to hold and hug me, I remember that I could hear her words but yet couldn’t understand them. I remember a haze of emotions flooding my mind. Overwhelmed with emotions, I fell to the floor, my knees buckling under the weight of what I had just learned. Only moments before, my life had felt intact. Only moments before, I had been going about my life. After I hung up, I started to cry, sob, and scream inconsolably as my whole body trembled. His next words were simply, “Tony is gone.” Somehow, I knew exactly what he meant. He started the conversation telling me he loved me and to try and be strong. Kindly, he had arranged for my sister to be with me when he called. He had to torturous task of calling to give me the news. I was out of town when my son, Tony, drowned while cleaning our pool. When parents first learn of the death of their child, their response is often one of shock, denial, disbelief, or numbness. The love you have for your child is not severed but rather your relationship continues in a different context, for it’s not how they DIED, but how they LIVED. In the end, this is only meant to aid in understanding and expressing your grief your way. Other descriptions may not fit with how you feel or what you experience. You may have aspects of your grief that are particularly difficult. It is not expected that anyone will experience every aspect of what is written here. Just as everyone has a different fingerprint, so is your grief journey. The hope in offering this e-book is to provide what might happen in the grief process and the many responses that may be experienced. The parent-child relationship often takes on new forms as a parent connects with their child in new ways. With time, the pain of loss, although always there, becomes less intensive. It helps a parent work through the pain of the loss. Some try to avoid facing their pain by holding feelings inside and acting as though they are fine.Īlthough painful and difficult, expressing grief is vitally important. One parent may need to talk a great deal about the loss and the pain, while another may become quiet and withdrawn. The ways in which feelings and emotions of grief are experienced and expressed differ from person to person. Some emotions of grief can be shared with others, while other intense feelings of loneliness or guilt, may never be put into words. Grief impacts a parent’s whole identity as well as the identity and security of other members of the family. While memories of the child flood their mind, they also experience a deep emptiness and unimaginable void in their lives. The pain of grief is extremely intense as parents digest the finality of never seeing their child again and the loss of future hopes and plans. The overwhelming suffering and intense emotions that flood the days, weeks, months, and years following the loss is called grief. It shatters core beliefs and assumptions about the world and the expectations about how life should unfold. A child’s death causes a profound family crisis. The death of a child is devastating and often referred to as the worst experience a parent can endure.
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