Where am I going with this topic? The isolation that is imposed on families who have suffered the loss of a child, or sibling, by those around them is perhaps the most damaging effects of their grief recovery. There, I said it and now the Pandora box has been opened. Since our daughter died 5 years ago I have noticed this in other families going through the grieving process as those around them try to make them what they once were before the loss. They try to cheer them up, tell jokes, or attempt to divert them onto to other topics away from the loss. " Say how about those /Vikings?" or "what do you think about that string of warm weather we're been having?" are just some of the examples of comments I have heard over the years.
It seems that most are capable of only giving casual acknowledgment of their grieving while only a few are capable of actually sitting in the muck and the mire of the families grief for however long it would take before they have any sense of returning to normalcy they once were before their tragic loss.
I still profoundly remember after Maria died when the school chaplain sent a letter to all of the families at her school to not contact our family "because all of their needs were being met by their church". This was not our wish and it set us on a course that summer of isolation and pain that made us wonder if anyone out there even cared about us? I thought this was a only a mistake, but when my brother in law made a comment passed along from one family member to the next prior to our trip to California last summer to please not mention Maria's death to his new wife while we are there I realize this wasn't a mistake. Say what? How is it not possible to talk about our little girl who we spent the first 10 years raising or the sibling my son played with in those years? We think about her 24-7 and yet we can't talk about those memories with the people who also knew her?
The image that comes to my mind is our family waiting to board the ship, We're in this large room. There are hundreds of other families with looks of shock and sadness. These families didn't want to be in this room. No. They were not taking a cruise to Cancun, nor were they being greeted by the Disney character's prior to boarding. In their hand were the tickets given them to travel to the island where families who have lost children must go. As long as they are on this island then those around them will not have to handle how to express on-going condolences to them. This imposed isolation by those around them who simply want life to be like it was before the loss is unbearable for many suffering those losses.
It seems that when we lose a parent or grandparent we understand the process of how to grieve and offer condolences, but when a child dies there is no instructional manual we can turn to too help us. Simply, children are not suppose to die before us which means we cannot put our hands around that beastly thought.
To help you understand how you can better support those around you who must grapple with this unthinkable I have place a link to Compassionate Friends on my website www.soaringonwingsofeagles.weebly.com. I would encourage you to go that link so you have have a better idea how to support those who have suffered and continue to suffer with these types of losses.
Life does change forever when a child dies. We are not the people we once were before our loss, but having friends who are willing to walk with us through this painful journey and allow us to talk about our loss will help us recover quicker than being given a ticket to the island where families who have suffer losses of children go.
