As a dad who lost a child this is what I think will play out in Connecticut

This coming week is going to be hard on anyone touched by the tragedies coming out of New Town, Connecticut. Who can ever forget the breaking news of a deranged gun men breaking into a elementary school and killing 20 impressionable children and 7 adults who tried to prevent him from the attacks.


Who can ever forget seeing the faces of distraught and emotionally exhausted mom's and dad's as they walked away from the school having just learned that their child was one of those who died in the attacks. Grief will not be easy for any of these families.


This week many of these 5-10 year old's will be buried. These families will be riding a supernatural strength as they make their funeral arrangements so much so that many of their friends, untouched by tragedy, will remark about how well they are doing despite losing a child. Some of these families will experience financial havoc along with their emotional pain as some of them won't have life insurance to pay for the funeral and burial expenses. In a conversation I had with a funeral home director following the death of our daughter I was surprise to hear this fact. None of us expect to bury a child.


They will continue to ride the supernatural strength through the day of the funeral where some of the dad's will want to say something about their child despite the Pastor cautioning him about the possibility of being overcome with emotion and not being able to finish their speech. Only when they agreed that the Pastor can step forward to finish what he was saying do they agree on this arrangement.


Once the final clump of dirt has been tossed into the grave of their child and everyone goes their own ways do the parents begin to feel the supernatural strength leave them and a significant depression overtakes them. That first week they will have problems sleeping. Tossing and turning they will be unable to escape the images of what they imagine are their child's final moments before he or she died. Some parents will sleep with an article of their child's clothing hoping to smell their scent in disparate attempt to feel their child's closeness. Husbands and wives will begin to grieve like polar opposites. Husbands vent their anger and try to place blame what caused these tragedies. Wive's will desire to attempt to get through the grief by crying. Because of their anger husbands will not be able to provide the comfort their wive's will need at this juncture of their grief.


The surviving children in these families will struggle as well. Many of them will wonder why mommy and daddy stopped loving them. They see mommy sleeping long hours and when she is awake her eyes will be puffy red. They will noticed that their mom doesn't wear her contacts and how different she looks with her glasses on. Their children will struggle for many months when they return to school. They will go to school wondering why all of their classmates are happy while they have this stomach ache and this overwhelming sadness. Gone is their child like innocence that others untouched by tragedy still have. The good news, if there is one, is many of these children will have a delayed grief. It is almost as though a protective sheathing has been placed around them until mom and dad have completed their painful grief process.


If there are teenagers in these families many of these will attempt to delay their grief by being a parent in these homes. Watching their mom and dad deal with their grief they will attempt to put on a macho exterior and pretend that everything is normal. They will take out their grief by playing video games or worst experiment with drugs and alcohol. Some may become addicted to alcohol because it helps deaden the pain they feel.


Some of these families may even reject God because 'why would God allow my child to die in this horrific manner? Some will draw nearer to God and continue to go to church. Church will not be the same for them as it was when their family was healthy and they were dropping their children off at Sunday school. They will sit in the Sanctuary on Sunday being unable to sing certain songs because they were songs about praise and for them they have nothing to praise God about in the midst of tragedy.


These families will need friends who are willing to travel the entire distance of their grief, no matter how long it takes for them to get through the grief. They will need friends who are willing to sit in silence and provide comfort when comfort is needed. The father's touched by tragedy will need good male friends who are willing to listen to him tell and retell the story of their loss, no matter how many times he has heard it. These dad's will need friends to allow them to ventilate the anger they are unable to vent with their wife who is processing her grief differently.


Recovering from grief and trauma will be hard to do without some psychological intervention. Practically of these families will need to be involved in individual therapy and grief groups to help them recover. Their surviving children should be encouraged to participate in children's grief groups the same night mom and dad attend.


For our family it has been 5 1/2 years since Maria died. Our family chose to draw near to God in this time of crisis. In the beginning it was painful going to church and hearing people talk about their vacations and what each of their children are doing while we continued to be in the throes of grief. Simply putting one foot in front of the other we began to enjoy the friends we had before our daughter's death We were comforted with the thought that Maria had beaten all of us to heaven and that one day we would see her again.


The families that were marred by this tragedy must cling to the same hope. It is this hope of seeing their deceased child again one day that will enable them to continue living.

Posted by Todd Gabrielson at 4:33 AM