Children aren’t supposed to die. Period. End of sentence. That’s all. Nothing more to say. But all of us know that it happens anyway. We’ve lived it and we are trying to survive it. It has changed us and everything about our existence.
Losing a child, no matter their age, absolutely destroys everything you ever thought you knew or believed. It shatters the very foundation that supported the life that you built. Children aren’t supposed to die. Parents aren’t supposed to bury their kids. It’s just wrong. It goes against the natural order of things.
Their death redefines how you measure time. It’s now measured by “before” and “after”. You want to continue to live in the before. You don’t know how to live in the after, nor do you want to learn.
You ask questions that have no answers. You search for meaning in a loss that defies explanation. You scream WHY to the heavens, only to never get an answer. You seek the purpose in this pain. Searching and never finding only compounds the anger, pain, guilt and emptiness that you already carry inside. There is no logic to this.
The world keeps moving, and everyone with it, but you are frozen in place. Stuck in that “before” time that you don’t want to leave. Your life feels forever broken. You exist in a world that feels foreign. What once were simple joys, now carry the burden of sorry and reminds you of your child's absence. The sound of your child’s absence is so loud it deafens every other sound. Everything screams at you that they should still be here.
People shy away from you, avoid you. They don’t know what to do or say to comfort you and that makes them uncomfortable. Maybe they’re afraid they may make you feel even sadder. We know that is not possible. Their solution is to just stay away and say or do nothing. The loneliness and isolation you already feel somehow feels even worse now.
As the days run into months, and then years, a new strength arises— like the phoenix rising out of the ashes. A strength you never knew was inside you. One that you never sought to possess but somehow it arose as you moved through each sad, empty, unbearable day. It doesn’t heal you; it doesn’t erase the pain; it won’t define a purpose for your pain. But it softens them and allows you to carry them and your child, as you learn to live with both love and loss woven into core of your being.
Lynn 04/25
Living With Child Loss
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