We all hear that the worst pain is the loss of a child and that it is a pain that will never go away. Then you lose a child. How do you even begin to cope, let alone heal, when you’ve been conditioned to believe it is something “you will never get over”? In this article, I will only look at a couple of thought patterns that can interrupt the healing and keep the suffering alive.
There is a helplessness that goes with the loss of a child because as a parent you were always the protector and the caregiver. That helplessness makes the grieving more difficult. The parent more often than not wants to turn inward and ask what they could’ve done to prevent, rescue or save the child. Those questions can keep the suffering alive. Whether the child has died in a car accident, from suicide, from an overdose, or from illness, the parents still have thoughts of what could have been done to prevent the death of a child. The internal questions that come about as a result of the helplessness, can cause thoughts that bring back the pain of the loss rather than the healing. In order to heal from the loss of a child the parents must be ready to accept a new beginning in the way they think about their child. They have to be willing to let go of the point of death and get back to the life the child gave them and the life they gave the child.
A second thought that can keep the suffering of loss active occurs because society and culture may teach that if a parent really loves the child they will suffer and grieve for a long period. This thought is very controlling. It doesn’t allow the parents to move beyond their suffering for fear that if they do, they have lost touch with the love of their child! There is nothing that could be further from the truth. When parents are suffering they cannot additionally feel the love of the child. The two feelings cannot coexist. When you’re feeling love you cannot suffer. When you are suffering you cannot feel the love. Love and joy exist beyond the suffering. The child was about love and joy. Especially now that they are on the other side, the child wants nothing less than love, joy, and acceptance in life and for one another. If that is understandable, then it is easy to also understand that the suffering takes away from developing a new relationship with the child who is on the other side. It temporarily stops the healing from occurring.
I am very aware that for parents who have lost a child, you may feel as if you have endless questions and may feel as if you are swimming upstream in emotion. There is a lot to healing the loss of a child. The two above-described thoughts are just a brief example of some healing that you can put in motion. One step at a time in the healing will move you through to the other side of the pain.
Then there are the siblings of the lost child! Next blog will address how the loss of one child can affect the other children!
I wish you all a day of love and unity. I am available to help anyone through their time of deep suffering.
I invite you to a Facebook Live event on Thursday, November 16th at 1 PM. Please CLICK HERE on that date and join me and Transformational Therapist Patricia Haman for more discussion and exploration on this topic.
