Grieving the loss of a child is unimaginable. It’s a club no one wants to belong to, a life no one longs to live, a journey no one signs up for. We feel alone but there are many. We feel alone in this world full of people whose lives turn out the way they planned.
Like we are the only ones wandering, meandering through the grocery stores, watching from the outside. We see other people’s children grow. We celebrate alongside our friends as their children graduate, get married, have children. We listen as they lament teenage years. We smile. We watch as we grow old.
Broken dreams and shattered expectations, losing a child is being thrown deep into an unknown. The order of life is altered. It shouldn’t be this way. Coffins shouldn’t be made so small.
I watch and listen. Never feeling complete, always wondering, always wandering just a bit.
Wouldn’t things be different now? Shouldn’t things be? More complete. Life should feel safer somehow.
Or is this the way? The way to grieve? The way to breathe? The way to allow a heart to beat after the loss of a child?
Am I alone? The only one? Is grief supposed to last this long? Am I too sad? Is there hope? Healing? Happiness again?
You are not alone, my friend. This is grief. This is loss. This is the backwards order of our lives. We are the ones left behind. We are the ones who have lost a child. And sometimes it just hurts.
It hurts like hell while we wait for heaven. It makes no sense and feels out of control and we feel out of place and here we are again.
One step forward, joy and hope, happiness, sunlight streaming in. Two steps back, despair and regret, what if and what now and why creeping in.
So how do we do this one life well again? After child loss and all that follows? After devastation and redirection? Shattered dreams and unexpected?
After being jolted from comfort and normalcy and all that life once was…how do we grieve the loss of a child?
Acknowledge the Pain
Child loss is painful. Perhaps there was suffering before loss. Perhaps, like mine, your child was sick and with a body so broken, you begged for mercy. The suffering was too much. The pain was explicit. The weariness of fighting so long and so hard for your precious child’s body to heal was overwhelming.
Or perhaps it was sudden. One breath and then none. Loss and devastation and reality hitting like the strongest storm on a beautiful day. Shattering all expectations of what we can count on, life became unrecognizable at best.
Just know that it’s okay to be sad and angry and confused. It’s okay to feel suffering and pain. It’s okay ten minutes in and ten years in and more.
Don’t Belittle Your Loss
Please don’t compare the five-years full of conversations with my son, the Thao sized hole he left in our family, to the one your child left in yours. Your five-week old or fifteen-year old or fifty-year old left a void that will never be filled.
It is painful. It is backwards. It will hurt forever and always.
Let Yourself Grieve
There will be hard days and good days. There will be days when the sun shines and days when you may not feel like getting out of bed. There will be days you cry and days you can’t say his name and days that feel almost normal.
There are days that feel the same, you feel the same, old self peeping through.
And then there might be feelings of guilt. Because it really just seems unfair to live the same, to feel joy, to see the sun shining through the rain. Life will just never be the same. Life is now full of grieving, a loss life, a child loss life.
I am a loss mama, grief mama, adoptive mama, homeschool mama, wife, sister, daughter. This is just who I am now. This is just who you are now.
Don’t Sit in it
Don’t stay in the sadness, the lonely despair. Don’t sit in it and dwell in it and stay in it. Don’t linger. Don’t let it define you, consume you, be you.
Because you are more than the loss mama or grief dad, you are also the parent of a child who lived and breathed and loved you.
And you now have the choice to live the rest of your own life well. To honor her. To honor him. To make love known and make your life (and theirs) matter. You are their legacy.
But how? How can I pull myself out of bed when there’s nothing left to live for? When it feels as though my heart stopped when his did? When I wanted it to be my breath taken from my lungs, not his?
Surround Yourself with Hope
Find community, your friends and family, grief support groups, faith.
Your friends and family don’t know what you need unless you tell them. Make it known. Get up. Get dressed. Make your bed. Drink water. Go for a walk. Strive for more.
It’s okay to sit in silence as long as you’re not always sitting alone. Join a grief group online or in your community. Find a church. Find your faith.
Take a breath, remember him. Say her name. We will get through this suffering one day at a time. Together.
– Tiffany Nardoni
Grieving the Loss of a Child Quotes
In moments of heartache, words from others can provide a sense of comfort, understanding, and even a glimmer of healing. Below are quotes that speak to the depth of loss and the enduring love that remains.
- “What we have once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” —Helen Keller
- “The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.” —Irving Berlin
- “There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart.” —Mahatma Gandhi
- “Grief never ends, but it changes. It’s a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith—it is the price of love.” —Unknown
- “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.” —Washington Irving
- “I love you every day. And now I will miss you every day.” —Mitch Albom
- “Grief is the last act of love we can give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief, there was great love.” —Unknown
- “How very softly you tiptoed into my world, almost silently, only a moment you stayed. But what an imprint your footsteps have left upon my heart.” —Dorothy Ferguson
- “Your child may be gone from your sight, but they will never be gone from your heart.” —Unknown
- “I held you every second of your life, and I will love you for every second of mine.” —Unknown
- “Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.” —W.S. Merwin
- “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” —Thomas Campbell
- “What is grief, if not love persevering?” —Vision, WandaVision
- “Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” —Vicki Harrison
