This Thursday, April 11th will be seven years since my daughter went to Heaven. For those who are new to my blog posts, Rachel died in a traffic accident on a beautiful spring morning on her way to work. We don’t know for sure, but based on comments from another driver, she may have been confused about the traffic flow in a construction zone. She had a head-on collision with a dump truck. She had been at her new job for a little over a week and was unfamiliar with the roads exiting the interstate into a new industrial complex.
My beautiful, obstinate, loyal, shoe-fanatic, 30-year-old, newlywed second child left this Earth and this life in the blink of an eye.
After the initial shock of the call from her husband, I worked through the dreadful repeated calls to relatives and friends. There was the preparation for and the holding of her memorial service. There were a lot of people around who made food, hugged me, watered flowers, and washed dishes. Most of my alone time, especially in the wee hours when I would wander from the bedroom out to the couch, was spent sobbing uncontrollably or curled into a self-protective ball silently screaming in my head. Sometime before dawn my husband would cover me with a blanket and sit with me while I slept for perhaps an hour.
It was the most awful thing I have ever lived through.
Except, that was just the beginning. I can’t tell you the exact moment when it dawned on me that I was really and truly going to have to KEEP living and that my life here on Earth was never again going to have one of my children in it.
Sweet grieving parent, if this is where you are, I know it is hard to believe that you can ever experience joy again. It is possible. You will walk around with a hole in your heart, but it will not consume your whole being.
Here’s a random list of things I have learned and ways I have discovered to walk this path:
You will be surprised at some of the people who reach out (and some who don’t). Be open to the unexpected comfort and kindness from people you think of as just casual friends or acquaintances. It may turn out that they have experienced child loss, too and they are empathetic. On the other hand, even very close friends may struggle to deal with your emotions and behavior because you are – necessarily – changed by child loss. Your life changed when you became a parent, and your life changed when your child left this world. You are still a parent, even if you have no more living children. That’s an especially hard concept for others to grasp.
Seek out a grief support group. Especially one for bereaved parents. The group While We’re Waiting has regional group meetings in person and via Zoom. They also offer retreats and weekend getaways. They have a podcast hosted by the organization leader who is herself a bereaved mom. And they have a private facilitated Facebook group page where you can interact with other grieving parents. You can find all their information and the group closest to you at https://whilewerewaiting.org/support-group/.
Spouses may not grieve in the same way. How you express your grief is individual to your personality, but in general, men and women show their emotions differently. That’s not wrong or bad, unless your grief is uncontrollable to the point where you are harming yourself or others (for example, abusing drugs or alcohol, ignoring basic grooming and healthcare, getting verbally or physically violent). It can be difficult to comfort each other when you and your spouse are both in deep grief. If you find you are pulling away from each other because you don’t know how to respond to your spouse’s emotions, please don’t lose hope. There is nothing to be ashamed of in seeking counseling.
And, on that note, I want to say that your church in general and your pastor in particular may not be able to offer all the support and counseling you need. This doesn’t mean you should leave your church. But, it’s very possible that no one else in your church has experienced child loss, or at least not in the same manner you have. And, pastors don’t necessarily have training in child loss grief counseling. Find a counselor who shares your faith and who works specifically with families grieving the loss of a child.
Finally, and most importantly, don’t abandon God. He has not abandoned you. God is always here. Right here. Not out there somewhere, but here. He knows you and loves you. Most of all, He hears you. You can dump all of your emotions on Him, plead with Him, question Him, yell at Him. It’s okay. He can take it.
It is hard to envision living the rest of your life without your child in your world. It could be decades. You, other family members, friends, and the world itself will change so much during that time. Yet, your child is not part of that change. That’s devastating to think about. But, there is hope. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says God has set eternity in our hearts. He has done that so we know there is life after this one. Life everlasting. Life where there is no grief.
Let that knowledge and that hope fill in the hole grief has made in your heart.
Laura
A Light for My Path 
Leave a comment