Anger & Guilt are very normal emotions

Anger & Guilt are normal emotions

~ by Judith Rollins, Ph.D.-Department of Family and Human Development, Utah State University

The death of a child, at any age or for any reason, is probably the most traumatic event that parents must endure. In this current society, with its medical advances, people expect to die in a predictable sequence. Simply put, parents should die before their children. When some tragic circumstance changes this order, parents are bewildered, not only by the overwhelming grief for the loss of the child, but also by the seeming unfairness of the death.

The cause of the child’s death does not seem to affect the amount of grief that parents experience over time. A child’s death following a long illness appears to be just as difficult for parents as a death due to a sudden accident. Also, most parents grieve as intensely for a very young child as they grieve for an older child.

For bereaved parents, there is no “standard” grief period. Compared to all other crises, the recovery period following a child’s death appears to take the longest amount of time. It is important for parents to understand that they are not abnormal if they experience periods of sadness and grief for many years afterward. And two of the most common and often lingering emotions may be anger & guilt.

Anger - Initially, many parents feel very angry. This anger may occur because the child’s death seems so unfair and parents feel so helpless. The anger may be directed towards oneself, one’s spouse, the medical profession, an outsider, or even God. Parents often look for someone to blame, even each other, so they can “make sense” out of a needless loss. When anger and blame can be openly expressed, they usually give way to the more rational feelings of loss and grief. It is best to acknowledge the anger one feels and try to determine the source of the anger rather than deny the feelings. Repressed anger may resurface later as depression.  If talking about angry feelings with one’s spouse is difficult, perhaps a third person, such as a counselor, minister or support group, might help minimize the stress of such an encounter and hopefully direct the negative feelings to their appropriate source.

Guilt - Guilt is another emotion that parents often feel. Society expects parents to be able to protect their children, and a child’s death may make the parents feel they have failed in this responsibility. Fathers may wish they had spent more time with the child, or mothers may feel guilty if they were employed outside the home. The child’s every unfulfilled wish may be remembered with guilt. This type of guilt is usually irrational. It is important that parents be able to discuss these guilty feelings as they occur and to understand that the child’s death was unrelated to the events that have caused their guilty feelings.
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There is no question - the death of a child is the most overwhelming grief possible - the loss of a child is unlike any other loss. Be patient with yourself - adjusting to life without your child is an ongoing process.  There will be time when your grief journey seems slower than it should be and that's OK.  There will be times in the months and years ahead when WHAM!! out of the blue you are overwhelmed again with grief and that's OK.  All of this is normal - the journey of grief is different for each of us..

Such a Beautiful Day….

~written by Mary Ehmann, Valley Forge BP/USA

Why am I Crying?

This is a question that comes up every spring, particularly from newly bereaved.  It’s something we have always looked forward to, before tragedy hit.  The cold, drab, bleak winter is finally over.  Somehow, we thought that magical time would be the magic that would free us from our pain.  Unfortunately, not so!  Perhaps it’s because we see this beauty unfolding, and our children are not here to share it. 

The devastating knowledge is that the “magic” of spring didn’t change our feelings.  The fact the world seems to go on, just as if nothing has happened, when  our world seems to have stopped, seems impossible to comprehend.  False expectations.  What we tend to forget is that seasons change, where we are in our grief cycle is what controls our feelings.

Just hold on to the fact that spring is a rebirth of what seems dead, as dead as you feel now.  It is true, you will never stop missing your child, however, hold on to the belief that your spring will come again, too.  When it does, it will be different.  

Just as the trees and flowers are not the same, you won’t be either.  But their beauty is still there, and as you start to come back to life again, you will find different joys in life. 

We all run on a different calendar, so no time frame can be put on your spring.  Just know that your feelings are perfectly normal.  It may seem that you are back at square one, but look back, remember what it was like in the beginning, and I think you will realize there has been progress,  and there will be more.  

There are no road maps for this Journey through Grief

~ Written by T. Thomas

In the summer of 2008, I lost my only child to a fatal car accident. She would have turned 19 that September, if that one moment in time had not occurred.

How does one keep breathing, continue waking up every day when someone so dear is gone? I marvel each morning that I am still here, still opening my eyes to the beauty of the sunrise, to the wonder of the day. It always seems somehow simultaneously miraculous and wrong that I should still be on this earth and my daughter is not.

What maps are there for grief? What guideposts? Counseling – for me – was decidedly disappointing. Books are plentiful and occasionally helpful. Support, love, listening ears and solid hugs from friends and loved ones are priceless and welcome. But nothing changes what is. Nothing brings back the missing person.
The pain of all that is gone doesn’t stop.

Grief is a self-involving emotion. It pulls us down into the darkness of our own hearts and tends to exclude others. It is an injury to the soul that is generally not visible on the surface. We who grieve are the walking wounded, but our wounds are deep inside where the world cannot see.

Our culture dismisses grief. We get three days off from work for “bereavement,” as a general rule, and then we are supposed to be “over it,” and back to normal. Fortunately, my place of employment is filled with understanding friends who continue to support my challenges, but most people are not so lucky. The truth is, those who grieve do not get “over it” quickly. Depending on the loss a person suffers, it can be years – perhaps a lifetime – before the grief fades. What happens more surely is the pain “softens” a bit, but the soul’s wound may never fully heal.

Doctors, counselors and well-meaning acquaintances immediately suggested I take pills – anti-depressants – to help with the pain.  “I’m not depressed,” I explained, “I am grieving.”

But in today’s culture, there is no room for grief. We are told to take a pill and feel better. Drugs are intended to treat sickness – like clinical depression perhaps. Grief is not a sickness. Grief is a legitimate emotion that, if bottled up or drugged down, will find its way out eventually. And although I want very much to “feel better,” I need to feel this grief. I don’t want to be numbed and anesthetized. I need to miss my child, my funny girl, my best friend.  But it does hurt – all the time.

My mind fights reality. I want so badly to go back to that brief moment one sunny May morning and make something different happen, change some tiny detail that would alter the tragic outcome. But that is not possible.

We cannot change what happens to us. Life presents challenges, obstacles, tragedies over which we have no control. Feeling a loss of control can lead to a sense of powerlessness and bitterness, and true depression can take over where grief leaves off, if we let it. That’s where we do have control.

We can’t control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond. We have control over our actions, our goals, our words and deeds. In a nutshell, we can control who we become, and thereby control how (and if) we begin to heal our grief wounds.

Coming through grief is like struggling through an uncharted landscape. It is difficult and mostly unpleasant, with hills and valleys. As time passes, the hills are a bit higher, the valleys a bit less low. I focus on what I can control and try to become a better person. My daughter wants me to be happy – she said so often. And so I strive to be.

Does anyone undesrstand what we are going through?

~ by Cherie Houston

July 31st, 1972 - 39 years ago today, my beautiful daughter Robin died.. She was a beautiful healthy and happy little 7 month old - sharing the nursery with her 16 month old brother Ric - their very patriotic red, white & blue nursery with matching cribs, hers had a beautiful canopy top... We awoke early that Monday morning, to the shock that Robin Marie, our beautiful little girl, had died during the night, a victim of SIDS - yes 39 years ago today, our world seemed to go into a tailspin, that was the day we lost our 2nd child.. God this can't be happening again, but it did.. Our first daughter, Randee Marie, had died the year before on March 17, 1971 - a little more than 9 hours after she'd been born 12 weeks prematurely, but despite the heartache of losing Randee, we were blessed ~ her twin brother, Ric - who was also only 3 lbs - had survived and now again Ric was our "only child".

I've kept a diary since high school and from time to time I go back and read entries from years gone by - funny, sad, philosophical, complaining, angry, proud, amazing, hopeful - such a wide variety of emotions and it helps to see where I've been... I recently went back and read my diary a year after Robin died - not sure I've ever gone back and read the few weeks after her death-that's too painful, but a year later was OK. I was already expecting again - and would be blessed with a little baby boy - yes Ric had a new baby brother - Bobby was born Aug 27th, 13 months after Robin's death and 7 years later we were blessed again with another beautiful baby boy - Sean... Blessings and tragedy seem to be intertwined - on September 19, 2009 our 3rd child would die, when our 36 year old sone Bobby took his own life on September 19th, 2009..... I want to share with you what I wrote one year aftr Robins death, because it reminds me that maybe those around us who can't understand our pain, just truly can't...

Tuesday, July 31st, 1973
I don't remember when or where I heard the expression "the only two things in life that are certain are death and taxes" But I know it's a common statement, so why is it that no one seems comfortable with understanding what death does to those who are left living? Why can't anyone around me understand how painful it is when someone we know or loves is grieving and heartbroken over the loss of their child, parent, spouse or close friend. Why doesn’t everyone around us understand what we are going through? After all everyone is going to experience loss at some time in their life. Or is it that grief is so terribly painful that no one wants to talk about it and those of us who do, we just makes others uncomfortable.

How did this happen – one year ago today my beautiful little girl Robin died, gone – only 7 months old and in just a moment, this healthy happy little girl who had just pulled herself up and took a step was gone… How can this be and why is that no one seems to understand what I’m going through. I watch other young moms and dads who have lost their babies to SIDS and why is that no one around any of us seems to understand the impact that this loss has had on us. Instead, it seems as though others around us, want to yell at us and say “straighten up and get on with your lives – you are young, you’ll get over it – you’ll have another”… Yes, maybe that’s true – after all I am excited about being pregnant again and I’m nervously looking forward to the arrival of this new little girl or boy in a few months, but why can’t anyone understand that I also want Robin back and that this new baby, although he or she will be loved, will not and can never replace Robin – I just want my baby girl back…

It's not fair-what did we ever do wrong to be thrown into this nightmare – like a spooky fraternity with the deaths of our babies in common - yet we have no idea what to do, how to act, what is normal and we are all wondering the same thing – are we all going crazy?? Dr. Sturner has been so wonderful - who could have guessed the medical examiner to do Robin's autopsy would become such a close friend, but he's helped me so much this last year including establishing this SIDS chapter, but he’s a grandfather and although he’s lost a grandbaby to SIDS, he’s blessed that he has all his children – he can’t fully understand how overwhelming this loss is… I’m amazed at the number of “outsiders” who have whispered to us that they themselves, their moms, aunts, grandmas, etc have had a baby who died of ‘crib death also” but they never talk about it – how can that be, I just want to shout it from the roof tops – my baby is gone, my heart is broken, can’t anyone help me… how and why can you keep death a secret??

Each parent I meet, the feelings we share are the same, feelings of devastating pain, all we want are things the way they were ~ we want our life as it once was and our babies back ~ God why cna't anyone understand that this pain is crippling ~ our hearts feel as though they are totally shattered and we aren’t sure if we will ever get through this, how can we cope, will we ever feel better – doesn’t anyone understand how much we are hurting… Is this what we are going to feel forever – it’s been a year, but it feels like this morning – the nightmare repeats itself over and over again in my mind – whether I’m awake or asleep – like a movie that never stops…

But then again I can't be going crazy – because each and every parent I meet who has suffered this same horrific event is feeling the same things, so this must be normal, this must just be what grief is.. But if that's the case, why then, can’t anyone around me understand what I’m going through, because after all – some of them must have been where we are, they must understand what we are going through – because after all everyone is going to suffer the loss of someone they love – after all taxes & death are the only 2 sure things in life that are certain..

So why can’t they understand my grief or is it that they do understand. Yes maybe they do understand more than I think they do, but maybe - just maybe - for them it’s just too painful to go back, so they scurry away from us - almost as though we are contagious and they might catch our grief - and maybe they have to turn their backs on us because they are just grateful that it’s not them…

Surviving a Child on Mother’s Day

~ by Erma Bombeck

If you’re looking for an answer this Mother’s Day to why God reclaimed your child, I don’t know. I only know that thousands of Mothers out there today desperately need an answer as to why they were permitted to go through the elation of carrying a child and then lose it to miscarriage, accident, violence, suicide, disease or drugs.

Motherhood isn’t just a series of contractions; it’s a state of mind. From the moment we know life is inside us, we feel a responsibility to protect and defend that human being. It’s a promise we can’t keep. We beat ourselves to death over that pledge. “If I hadn’t worked through the eight month.” “If I had taken him or her to the doctor when he had a fever.” “If I hadn’t let him use the car that night.” “If I hadn’t been so naïve, I would have noticed he was on drugs or needed help with depression.”

The longer I live, the more convinced I become that surviving changes us. After the bitterness, the anger, the guilt and despair are tempered by time, we look at life differently. While I was writing my book: “I Want to Grow Hair, I want to Grow Up, I want to Go to Boise,” I talked with Mothers who had lost a child to cancer. Every single one said that death gave their lives new meaning and purpose.

And who do you think prepared them for the rough, lonely road that they had to travel? ---their dying child. They pointed their Mothers toward the future and told them to keep going. The children had already accepted what their Mothers were fighting to reject. Even those children who died a sudden death are able to spiritually touch their parents and help them live on.

The children in the bombed-out nursery in Oklahoma City have touched many lives. Workers who had probably given their kids a mechanical pat on the head without thinking, that morning were making calls home during the day to their children to say, “I love you.”

Joy and life abound for millions of Mothers on Mother’s Day. It’s also a day of appreciation and respect. I can think of no Mothers who deserve it more than those who had to give a child back.

In the face of misery they ask, “Why me?” but there is no answer. Maybe they are the instruments who are left behind to perpetuate the lives that were lost and appreciate the times they had with their children. They are the ones who help pick up the pieces when tragedy occurs and others have lost their children.

Mourning a Lost Child - A Psychologist's Grief

Grieving the Death of Your Son or Daughter by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen


Mourning a lost child never gets easier, but it might be comforting to know you're not alone in grieving the death of your son or daughter. If you're suffering through death of your child, you might not feel so alone when you gather with other mothers who are also mourning their lost children.

Here is an excerpt from Charlotte Mathes' book, called And a Sword Shall Pierce Your Heart Moving from Despair to Meaning After the Death of a Child.

Mourning a Lost Child - A Psychologist and Mother Shares Her Grief ~ When a child dies, we lose our commonsense faith in life's predictability. The unanticipated early death cuts through what we have formerly assumed is a natural order of things, shaking the very foundation of our living. When a son or daughter dies, all we believed comes into question and we feel as if we have no standpoint.

There is a saying to the effect that we only understand our lives after we have suffered disappointment: "Life is what happens to you after you make your plans." Once we had ideas about what coming years would bring to our family. After the death of our child, however, we find ourselves thrust into a period where, while there is no foretelling the future, we suddenly have no plans, and our dreams have been shattered.

How different this is from the sadness we feel when an older person dies. If she has lived a full life and dies naturally, we may miss her, reminisce about all she meant to us, and perhaps wish that we had taken more time to appreciate her. We also come to acknowledge that life brings a series of losses, and we may even understand that they are somehow necessary, or at least part of everyone's experience. But the death of our child attacks our understanding of life's rhythm and purpose, leaving us wandering in unmapped territory.

Grieving the Death of Your Son or Daughter

After John Kennedy Junior's plane crash, Lauren Basset's parents and Carolyn Basset Kennedy released the following statement: "Nothing in life prepares you for the death of a child." Though it had been twelve years since my son's death, I wept when I read those words, for they brought me back to when I was unprepared for my struggles with his illness, for his death, and for the challenging grief work required to once more be fully alive.

Today's women mature knowing much about how to deal with expected milestones: sexual experience, marriage, professional life, working motherhood, and even divorce, remarriage, and menopause. That which we don't already know, we feel reasonably confident of learning from abundant resources which are easily available to us.

Consequently, we don't anticipate a life-changing event -- mourning the loss of someone you love -- that puts the core of our being in doubt. Even those who have experienced much tragedy in their lives are unprepared for a child's death.

Without self-pity, Ruth first summarizes her many losses before coming to her stark conclusion: "My life has been full of pain. As a child, I experienced coming from 'the wrong side of the tracks.' My father and mother left me when I was thirteen and I had to find other caregivers. My little sister died when I was eight; my father died when I was twenty-two.

My oldest son had cancer of the bone at age eighteen. My first and only grandson was born with Down's syndrome. He had open heart surgery and was in critical condition for two weeks. My husband had open heart surgery and died two years after Tom committed suicide.  None of this has been as devastating as my son Tom's death."

Excerpted from And a Sword Shall Pierce Your Heart: Moving from Despair to Meaning After the Death of a Child by Charlotte M. Mathes, LCSW, Ph.D. Copyright © 2006 Charlotte Mathes. Published by Chiron Publications (September 2005).

Anger & Guilt are normal emotions

~ by Judith Rollins, Ph.D.-Department of Family and Human Development, Utah State University

 

The death of a child, at any age or for any reason, is probably the most traumatic event that parents must endure. In this current society, with its medical advances, people expect to die in a predictable sequence. Simply put, parents should die before their children. When some tragic circumstance changes this order, parents are bewildered, not only by the overwhelming grief for the loss of the child, but also by the seeming unfairness of the death.

 

The cause of the child’s death does not seem to affect the amount of grief that parents experience over time. A child’s death following a long illness appears to be just as difficult for parents as a death due to a sudden accident. Also, most parents grieve as intensely for a very young child as they grieve for an older child.

 

For bereaved parents, there is no “standard” grief period. Compared to all other crises, the recovery period following a child’s death appears to take the longest amount of time. It is important for parents to understand that they are not abnormal if they experience periods of sadness and grief for many years afterward. And two of the most common and often lingering emotions may be anger & guilt.

 

Anger - Initially, many parents feel very angry. This anger may occur because the child’s death seems so unfair and parents feel so helpless. The anger may be directed towards oneself, one’s spouse, the medical profession, an outsider, or even God. Parents often look for someone to blame, even each other, so they can “make sense” out of a needless loss. When anger and blame can be openly expressed, they usually give way to the more rational feelings of loss and grief. It is best to acknowledge the anger one feels and try to determine the source of the anger rather than deny the feelings. Repressed anger may resurface later as depression. If talking about angry feelings with one’s spouse is difficult, perhaps a third person, such as a counselor, minister or support group, might help minimize the stress of such an encounter and hopefully direct the negative feelings to their appropriate source.

 

Guilt - Guilt is another emotion that parents often feel. Society expects parents to be able to protect their children, and a child’s death may make the parents feel they have failed in this responsibility. Fathers may wish they had spent more time with the child, or mothers may feel guilty if they were employed outside the home. The child’s every unfulfilled wish may be remembered with guilt. This type of guilt is usually irrational. It is important that parents be able to discuss these guilty feelings as they occur and to understand that the child’s death was unrelated to the events that have caused their guilty feelings.
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There is no question - the death of a child is the most overwhelming grief possible - the loss of a child is unlike any other loss.

• Be patient with yourself - adjusting to life without your child is an ongoing process.
• There will be time when your grief journey seems slower than it should be and that's OK.
• There will be times in the months and years ahead when WHAM!! out of the blue you are overwhelmed again with grief and that's OK.

All of this is normal - the journey of grief is different for each of us..

 

Turning Tragedy into a Positive

A Friend shared this story with us recently and I'm sure it is a story much like so many of ours - this is the story of a mom from Abilene, Texas ~ Written By Local Reporter Kyle Peveto 5.15.2008

For months after her 9-year-old son died in a bizarre car accident, Myra Dean remained in shock. She took a job in Saipan, a commonwealth of the United States in the Pacific Ocean, and had no idea what to do with her grief until she read about the Compassionate Friends group in a Guam newspaper. The newsletters she received from the organization of bereaved parents helped her understand that she was not alone and that she would be forever changed.

When the StoryCorps Airstream trailer came to Abilene this spring, Dean's boyfriend insisted they reserve a spot to record her story. Her emotional telling of the death of her son Rich struck StoryCorps producers enough that they edited the 40-minute session into a shorter feature that is tentatively scheduled to run on National Public Radio's Morning Edition at 5:30 and 7:30 a.m. Friday.

"It's very raw. She talks about how painful it is. She talks about her feelings, about God and about how she overcame this over time. A bereaved parent is always a bereaved parent. The pain never leaves you," said Gary Jamison, Dean's boyfriend, who conducted the interview in March.

"It comes across on the (recording). It speaks to you; it pulls at your heartstrings."

While living in Kansas City, Kan., 31 years ago, Dean separated from her husband and moved into a home on a quiet street with her son. He was riding his bicycle one Friday evening in May when Dean was preparing to spend a night out with friends. When she went to pick up the baby sitter two blocks away, she left Rich riding his bicycle with his friend, telling him to watch for cars.

Returning, she saw a crowd near Rich's friend's house and an ambulance. Immediately, she knew it was her son. "Some people don't believe that you can know that," she said in her StoryCorps interview. "I don't know if it's the tie between a mother and children, or me and Rich in particular, but I knew."

Rich had been playing in the yard, watching the sunset, when an out-of-control car flipped over the hedge and landed on Rich and his friend. The friend was unscathed. Rich was crushed.  Her father died later that summer, and Dean felt amazed that no one understood her pain.  "Expectations are that in a year, you'll be better. But after the first year, the shock is just wearing off," she told the Reporter-News. "After that is the real roller-coaster ride."

Years later, after founding the first Compassionate Friends chapter in Abilene, she began speaking each semester to an Abilene Christian University class on death and dying. She tried to help the students empathize with a parent who has lost a child.

"When you lose your child, that was your future. ... Even genetically, I was a part of my parents, but they were not a part of me," she said in the interview. "Richard was genetically, physically part of me. And when I talk I always try to find ways to explain to people about the pain, and I say it's as if you've had an invisible amputation." "At some point you get over the pity and say, 'This is life.'"

Jamison heard her speak last fall and encouraged her to write a book or tell the story to other bereaved parents. Then he scheduled the time with StoryCorps. Dean said her life is "like a soap opera." She also has survived kidney cancer and bears an S-shaped scar from the surgery.

Tuesday was the 31st anniversary of Rich's death. For years, she remembered him painfully, but now she acknowledges the day. Now, Dean is the development director for KACU, Abilene's NPR station at ACU. Next to her desk is a framed drawing by Rich of an ocean scene with blue whales and men swimming with tridents.

Rich's death changed her life. She said she knows she will never "get over" his death, but she has learned to live with his memory.

Coping with A Child's Violent Death

Each year 25,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 die violently from murder, suicide, or accident. A child's unexpected death shatters parents' most fundamental assumptions about their own future, their self-worth, and the meaning of life.

Finding peace and a new normal and what some would call “a meaning for the loss” after the loss of any child is challenging, but for parents whose children die violently, it is much more difficult. Some specialist say that the key to finding peace is to eventually find some kind of meaning in what feels like a senseless disaster.

Studies have shown that parents who found meaning, reported less mental distress, happier marriages, and better physical health than parents who hadn't made sense out of their children's death. Murphy’s study showed that parents that attended bereavement support groups were the most likely to find significant meaning in their child's death.  Parents typically seek two kinds of meaning.

First, they search for the concrete causes and remedies for their children's deaths. They focus on the drunk driver, the stray bullet, the fateful decision that put someone at the wrong place at the wrong time, or a child's suicidal depression. They may gather details of the accident or ponder obsessively what everyone could have done to prevent the death. Studies show that most parents find meaning at this level within a year, but that doesn't lead to peace.

It usually takes years to find the deeper meaning that characterizes the second stage of recovery. This is when a parent can feel grateful for the 16 years, "we had him/her around". The road to deeper meaning is long and difficult. Only 12% of parents find it within the first year. Usually it takes 3-5 years, and then, only 57% of parents are likely to achieve it, according to Murphy's study.

Most parents who found deeper significance said that they gained new insights into the purpose of life and reordered their own priorities. "I have realized that life isn't just about work, but about people and relationships." Others found existential meaning, coming to believe such things as, "everything happens for a purpose."

Parents whose children were murdered, understandably, find it more difficult to find meaning, but agreed, that attending bereavement support groups helped greatly to find significant meaning in their child's death.

~ Article by Roberta Lester-Britton and Michael Walker who specialize in helping parents cope with their death of their child. www.beachpsych.com (source: Psychotherapy Networker and a study conducted by Shirley Murphy of parents whose children died violently)

WHEN A CHILD DIES (Part 2 of 2)

~ by Carol Staudacher

When A Child Dies - Surviving the Death of Dreams Part 2 of 2

You can find groups for grieving parents by contacting the pastoral care office of the largest hospital near you or by inquiring at the closest hospice. They should be able to direct you to local, specialized support, such as a group for women surviving neonatal death, or for parents surviving the loss of a child to AIDS. Consult the "resources" attached to this article for other national organizations that are likely to have local chapters in your area.

There will be times when you feel especially fragmented, as if the challenge of getting through the day is beyond your capabilities or beyond your desire. When you feel this way, let your heart dictate your direction. Rest and reflect and allow your feelings to come forth without censoring or resisting them. Don't hold back tears. It's not just a myth that crying makes you feel better--it actually does.

During these times of release and reflection, you might begin a project you can work on quietly, slowly, and lovingly--a scrapbook of photos, a letter or poem to your daughter, a piece of prose that describes your son--emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. Describe everything he meant to others, everything he achieved in his life. You may tape-record your own memories or experiences. Some parents have pieced together clips from their videos and those of friends or relatives to make a composite of their child's life.

More than anything, follow your own lead, do what allows you some relief. If you need to tell your story over and over, seek out those who will listen. If you need to reflect upon your child's life, privately and for great lengths of time, then indulge yourself in solitude.

When you begin to regain some degree of peace and strength, consider contributing some part of yourself--your knowledge, affection, or skills--to a child or an adult in need, someone who could experience self worth as a result of your attention, guidance, and kindness.

Regardless of the brevity of your child's life, you can build a legacy out of the love you hold by allowing it to spill over into the lives of those you don't even know yet. As one mother put it, "You can gather the love you have and use it to lighten the darkened spirit of a neglected child who has never been the source of anyone's pride."

Whether or not you choose to put your grief into action in this way will be just one of the choices you consider as you work to reshape your future. Regardless of the direction you choose, you'll continue to tap those same powerful resources that helped you to this point. "Surviving his death has brought me this far," a young father said, "now I owe it to my son to go forward with as much perseverance and vision as possible."

Trust yourself to do the same, to follow the path that honors your heart.

~ Carol Staudacher is an author and grief educator whose regular column for Beliefnet focuses on the adult grieving process. Her books include "Men and Grief" and "Beyond Grief: A Guide for Recovering From the Death of a Loved One".

WHEN A CHILD DIES (Part 1 of 2)

~ by Carol Staudacher

When A Child Dies - Surviving the Death of Dreams Part 1 of 2

"It's not supposed to be this way," the mother of a dying teenager cried. "I wasn't meant to live longer than my daughter. But now I have to."

How do you survive the death of your child? As a parent, you're supposed to be the provider, the nurturer, the protector, the mentor, the guide. You invest love and hope and certain beliefs in your son or daughter. But most of all, you do not outlive your child.

When tragedy strikes and you do bury a child, you're faced with reconstructing a life that has been suddenly robbed of its parental responsibilities and joys. The source of a certain kind of reciprocal love in your life is now absent. Your child may have loved openly or buoyantly, or been reserved and quietly affectionate. He or she may have been a typical teenager--aloof, moody, even a bit defiant, loving reluctantly. Your adult child may have doubled in the role of your sister, brother, friend, or caregiver. In any case, the place you reserved in the center of your heart and soul for your unique son or daughter is now aching.

Parents who lose a child to miscarriage or infant death experience a different, wrenching loss--often made more painful by people's awkward efforts to suggest that the brevity of a child's life should limit the extent of grief. But parental bonds begin with the dreams and hopes we carry for our unborn children. You probably enjoyed months of anticipation. You may have set up a nursery, had showers, enjoyed the eagerness of potential grandparents. For you and all who shared your joy, the loss and grief are very real.

Regardless of the age of the child, when you lose a son or daughter, part of your self is gone. In the case of mothers, part of your physical self is gone--the body that grew and quickened within you. For both fathers and mothers, your sense of family has undergone severe change.

There are hopes to abandon, expectations to dismiss, and a whole array of profound emotional responses that both confuse and weaken the strongest and most determined of adult survivors.

Often parents have severe feelings of anger directed at others they see as having some direct responsibility for their son or daughter's death. These may include members of the medical community, relatives, the child's friends, even organizations or institutions.

It's crucial to talk about your strongest emotions with someone you trust. Avoid friends and relatives who do not have the capacity to acknowledge your feelings of despair, sadness, longing, regret--or even guilt. You do not have any obligation to listen to someone tell you that you are lucky because you have other children, or that you can get pregnant again, or that there must be some way your child's accident was "part of God's plan," or that your child's illness could have been cured or averted. You have lost your child, and you need to talk to others who have done the same, those whose pain parallels yours, whose understanding will be deep and supportive.

~ Carol Staudacher is an author and grief educator whose regular column for Beliefnet focuses on the adult grieving process. Her books include "Men and Grief" and "Beyond Grief: A Guide for Recovering From the Death of a Loved One".