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Grief and Coping How I've Coped My Own Grief
Making Connections
Understanding Guilt
How I've Coped I sometimes talk to my son in the house and I say “You know what? I’m not sure what to do about this situation, but send me a sign and guide me if you can. I think you can.” I think he can. I think God works in ways of letting people know what the right thing to do is. And I know he’s not God but I’ll talk to him sometimes, and ask if he can maybe help me, help guide me. So I still, even though he’s not with me everyday, look to him as if he has the connection to me. And that helps a lot. -Mother I used to say before that grief is like a tunnel and when you get to the end of the tunnel, you’re done. But you’re not. When you get to the end of the tunnel, you’ve gotten to a point where you can accept what has gone on. It’s not like the beginning of the grief is at the other end of the tunnel, and now you’re so much further away from it and you’re great. That’s not necessarily what it means, but you’ve made it through. It is dark and it’s scary, and it will literally knock you to your knees, but you will get up. You have to. There’s no other choice. I guess that’s the beauty of human nature. -Mother I would take these long walks along this particular stretch, which for us had meaning about this one tree and our son. For me, it was really great to walk by this tree and to do this stretch in the morning. I would do that for myself and just say “this is time you can think about whatever you want to think about you don’t have to worry about anything else or anyone else and you can just take time for yourself.” Those walks I remember. They were just for me so that was important. -Mother My Own Grief I remember thinking that the best place to cry was in the shower because nobody could hear me and nobody would bother me so no one would really know how bad I felt. That worked for a while, but the more you sort of choke back the way you feel, the worse it becomes. You’re going hit that rock bottom whether you fight it tooth and nail or whether you just accept it, you’re going to hit rock bottom, and it’s not going to be the day that your child dies, it’s going to be two months later, three months later… -Mother I do yoga and tai chi, and I’m trying to get back into doing some art, just something. You find that you have no energy when the grieving process is so exhausting so I’m trying to fill the well, if that makes sense. My reserves are empty, so I’m kind of trying to recharge my batteries. That’s what I’m finding is helpful in my journey in recovery. -Mother I guess immediately after Paulina died, there was shock and denial. I didn’t have the anger so much at that point. I went into my automatic coping mode. We were in a different country. We had to move, it was awful. The strength of what you’ve gone through with Paulina, the resilience that you've built by going in to the ICU every day, and giving your baby as much positive energy as you can, you still have that; and it takes a long time for your body to come out of that flight or fight mode. I would probably say that I’m only just unwinding a little bit from running on adrenaline for nearly a year. -Mother A Greater Appreciation for What You Had The gift was her presence. She was completely silent but she was with us. There is a mystery of the human presence that is far beyond this conversation. My daughter reported that she could talk to Jackie about anything and Jackie would listen. When you have someone who cannot speak but can reciprocate love, you get down to some of the basics of humanity. We consider life to be a gift from God. Life is valuable, but for us we saw mysteries of the human interaction that we would not have seen. There is a depth of relationship that exists between each one of us and Jackie that almost doesn’t exist between us in our lives because we are preoccupied. There’s a depth of relationship that takes place and appreciation of life that I think we had some notion of before she died, but in the absence of that you have a greater appreciation for what you had. -Father There Are No Shoulds in Grieving For me it was really important to know I could go through this long road the way I chose to start it, and not to feel obligated to do the funeral, or not to feel obligated to do what other people think I should do. Rather, do what feels most comfortable at the moment. Then just take it like that day to day, day to day, because there is no one right way to do it. -Mother Making Connections Being a Mother Was the Only Thing That Mattered There was a group of mothers that I met at Children’s Hospital who I don’t even know what countries they were from and they didn’t speak much English. One day, they saw me just crying and having a tough day. They came and scooped me up and said “no, no, don’t do this. You don’t do this, come with us.” We went out for coffee. They couldn’t figure out the American money and I couldn’t understand what they were saying but we all were there because we had a child. It was an amazing connection. No matter what was going on with all the politics and the war and everything this is what it was about. It was just so meaningful to me that they were there. Being a mother was the only thing that mattered. -Mother The woman that cuts my hair had a daughter die at six months old from heart disease. We spoke a little bit about her experience and we shared stories back and forth, which was helpful. Somebody to listen. It wasn’t an organized community thing. It just happened to be coincidence that I got my hair cut where she worked. -Mother It's Good to Know They're Still Ok It’s good to know that other people have had a child die and they’re still ok. Friends of mine have given my name to other people they know that have had children die and they’ve called me. It’s good to know that I’ve been able to help other people just by having gone through the same thing. -Mother I find myself not wanting to connect with other bereaved parents. I don’t know if it’s because I want to keep my story to myself because it’s so special. Hearing someone else’s story like mine might make my situation less unique and less special. It’s very bizarre but I think that’s why I’ve resisted. When a chance meeting occurs, I go on with it and don’t have any trouble with hearing the story. I want to share it, but I don’t want to share it with other people who might say “We had it worse.” -Mother Understanding Guilt As a mother, you have an inbuilt guilt machine that goes into overdrive when something goes wrong. Yeah, “if I hadn’t gone past a diesel truck” or something as ridiculous, like “if I’d worn blue on Wednesday,” it’s just silly little things that make no sense but you can’t help it because that’s what you’re meant to do. -Mother Get counseling to help you process your grief with your spouse and on your own. You will process it differently. My husband and I were very different. I had a lot of feelings of guilt that I was a bad mother because I could not “heal” or “help” my daughter. -Mother I remember the first time that I realized I didn’t have to drive to the hospital. And I remember thinking that’s kind of nice that I don’t have to come to the hospital. I remember feeling so guilty that I thought that because I still, as much as I love not having to drive here everyday, I still would do it and I would happily do it. So being happy that I didn’t have to do it didn’t mean I was happy that my son had died. But when you first have that thought, like this woman I was talking to, and she said the first time after their daughter died they were able to go out to eat, because their daughter had a lot of feeding issues. And she said “I feel so guilty that I thought ‘wow this is nice.’” And I said “Thinking ‘wow this is nice’ doesn’t mean 'oh wow, it’s kind of nice that she’s dead.'” You know, I don’t ever think “I’m glad my child died.” No, of course not. But you know you get to a point where I’m glad he’s not in pain, even though I would take him back that way like that. Just because I can accept that I like the fact that I don’t have to drive here doesn’t mean that I wished this to happen. There is a huge amount of guilt that any parent carries. -Mother I appreciate that no one should have to make those difficult decisions, least of all for their kids. Most adults haven’t even had those discussions never mind for someone they’re in charge of that they’re supposed to protect and secure, and feel like they can keep anything from happening to them. I think it adds to the amount of guilt that parents feel after their death. The guilt is inevitable. Their parents are going to find something that they should have done or “What if? What if? What if?” I think it just adds to that. The heaviness of the weight of the decisions, always wondering “Did I tell them it was ok too soon? Did we pull the plug too early? Should I have given it another week? Did I try everything? What didn’t I do? Should I have talked to another doctor? Should I have...” -Mother |
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Hospital Boston Department of Psychiatry. All Rights Reserved. The information on this website should not be taken as medical advice, which can only be given to you by your personal health care professional. Updated: May 22, 2008 |
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