The power of grief after losing a child can often be described as a tsunami of pain that hits with an unimaginable force that leaves parents reeling from the shock and horror of their situation.
The grief ‘journey’ has many descriptions, the most apt often being the description of a rollercoaster of emotions parents feel from hour-to-hour, let alone day-to-day, year-to-year. It’s not unusual for parents to be looking for ‘solutions’ to their pain, ways to ‘fix it’ and answers as to ‘how long it will take to start feeling some sort of normality again.
One of the main focuses within bereavement counselling at Edward’s Trust, is to support parents to understand that we are here to facilitate parents ‘learning to live with’ and build their lives around the inexorable grief of the death of a child of any age.
Although our services are unique in not having a limit on the number of sessions we provide, we do not confuse this with creating a dependency on the counselling for parents.
The emotion of guilt is often a huge part of grief – the guilt of potential things parents feel they should or shouldn’t have done, noticed or said.
Throughout the sessions, although the level of pain remains the same, parents can experience shifts in the way their grief manifests and this in itself is often coupled with new feelings of guilt. These can include the guilt of not crying so frequently or for so long, for feeling ‘OK’ and actually enjoying events and occasions. Experiencing these different emotions may result in parents feeling like that they’re leaving their child behind, which can create new senses of loss.
However, these changes do not mean that a parent’s grief is less painful or that they miss their child any less, it means that parents are finding their individual ways to live their lives around the grief.
The general misconception is that overtime, grief becomes smaller and smaller and eventually fades completely.
The reality is that, with the loss of a child, grief does not become smaller over time, and it certainly never fades. The grief may become quieter or less pain-searingly raw, and parents learn to develop coping strategies to grow and build their lives around the grief, but this serves to highlight the incredible strength of human resilience and does not reflect any lessening of pain, grief or loss.
Just because you see someone smiling and looking ‘OK’, it does not mean that their external appearance reflects how they’re feeling inside. Even if they are able to cry less and enjoy certain occasions or activities, the grief is always there, and there is no reason for bereaved parents to feel guilty at any time when they may not feel quite so low.
If you or someone you know is struggling with the bereavement of a child, please do get in touch. Our services are free of charge and come with no strings attached.
