Moving on after losing a child

Thank you to Donna Berkamn from Kingman, Arizona for sharing this with our group back in the summer of 2010...  like so many articles that I've repeated, I think one helps to address the feeling each parent experiences of a loss so deep that we are never sure we will recover . but like the amputee who loses a limb, in order to survive we must learn to live without a part of us...

Moving on after losing a child

~ By Cathy Babao Guballa - October 29th, 2000 Issue
© 2000 Philippine Daily Inquirer

LOSING a child has been described as the worst kind of loss anyone could possibly go through, a searing and unspeakable pain. The emotions that accompany a loss of this magnitude is much like plumbing the depths of an abyss, not knowing if one will ever be able to climb out of it one day, unscathed and whole. 

When a child dies, a part of the self is cut off and many bereaved parents like to use the metaphor of an amputated limb.

I once read an account of a father who had lost his only son and his words were poignant. "For the amputee, the raw bleeding stump heals and the physical pain does not go away. But he lives with the pain in his heart knowing his limb will not grow back. He has to learn to live without it. He rebuilds his life around his loss. We bereaved parents must do the same."


From her website: http://www.missfoundation.org/cherish/movingon.html