Grief after the loss of a child lasts much longer than most of us realize. In this post 3 parents describe the longevity of grief they experienced.

Talking to parents who have lost a child isn’t easy. It’s about the hardest thing about working with families of children with special needs. Because many of those children are medically fragile. Many of them will die young, too young.

The Unknowing Friend’s Take

Those of us who have never lost a child share some misconceptions about the longevity of grief:

  • We think it’s easier to lose a child living with special needs because parents are prepared for the inevitable.
  • We think parents of kids with special needs should get over the loss within a few months and move on.
  • We think the other children in a family will fill the empty space left by the child who died.

But parents who have watched a child die say those ideas are wrong.

Joy’s Take

One of those parents is Joy Owens who you may remember from the 4HisHeart-Snuggles from Sam series posted at DifferentDream.com in April. She still struggles with grief and writes about it movingly in a recent post at Sam’s CaringBridge Website.

Scott’s Take

Scott Newport, whose son Evan died in November of 2009 from complications caused by Noonan’s Syndrome, is struggling with the longevity of grief, too. In a recent phone call, he said, “Mother’s Day was brutal. Father’s Day was brutal. This is so hard.” He often writes poetry to process his grief and gave permission to share it here.

Bearing Time

The months creep along like a weightless fog
Treasured memories cling to clay
Numbing days anesthetize want
Fear has no place to hide

Passing clouds no peek of sunshine
Winters ice forgotten thaw
Damp rains dance
Hope has no meaning

Relationships with no language
Words with no interrupter
Blank stares, no title
Vision smeared with black marker

Love stands
Against death
Alone
Wondering

“Will a flashlight help?”

Carolyn’s Take

Carolyn, one of the parents I interviewed for A Different Dream for My Child: Meditations for Parents of Critically or Chronically Ill Children had this to say more than thirty years after her daughter, Beth, died. “People told me to give myself a year to recover. ‘I cam remember getting to the end of one year and saying, ‘What’s this? I don’t feel any different.’ But she says somewhere between two and five years, the physical ache stopped. ‘That’s not really encouraging when you think, “We’ll be doing five years of grieving?” That seems like a really long time.'”

Five Years

Everyone I’ve interviewed about losing a child agrees with Carolyn. It takes five years. Five years.

Can you imagine being a parent and grieving for five years? Can you imagine Joy or Scott’s pain when their best, well-meaning friends advise them to get over it and move on? A few years ago, that’s what I would have said. I had no idea of the longevity of grief.

But now, thanks to people like Joy and Scott and Carolyn, I do know. And I want you to know, too. Because someday, someone you know will lose a child. When that happens, you will already know what the grieving parents won’t comprehend for several years. Their grief will last longer than they expect.

You’ll be there to be their flashlight for however long they need your help.
Five years.

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