Bereaved parents are a subset of parents. I would have never chosen to be in this special category of parents. I was very happy being a plain, vanilla parent without the drama.
Now that I have been in this special group for the last 30 months, I would like to share my observations based on the fact that at this point I have literally read the words or spoken in person to thousands of bereaved parents.
The first thing is one does not prepare to be in this subset. There is no planning. When becoming a parent, one has a least 8 months to start wrapping their brain around what kind of parent they might be. One becomes a bereaved parent in one, terrifying, nano second. It is like sitting in a chair and someone lighting a bomb under it. The thrust is so great, it blasts you into the air and slams you onto the floor, leaving you in a limp heap.
Can you see why it takes a long time to overcome a shock like that? How on earth could you go back to who you were before? From that point on, every time you sit in a chair, you are reminded to check for bombs. Have you ever had a colonoscopy prep? Have you forgotten it? Want to do it again? Ever? I rest my case.
Second, once the label of bereaved parent becomes attached to you, it feels like everyone can see the big, Scarlet D on your chest where your broken heart now lives. “There’s the woman/man with the Dead child.” you imagine others thinking. Because you feel like you live in a mine field of bombs now, you feel like surely everyone can see your Scarlet D, too.
You simultaneously want to be treated normally and specially. You can’t decide if you want others to include you in normal life or if you need to be set apart until you can trust your voice. This is a new world of split-personality. One second, things feel okay. The next second, you feel sucked back into a tunnel. For those not is this special set of parents, please give us grace. As in forever. Until we die. Because that is how long it will take for us to recover.
We will be able to go back to work, care for our other children, and do typical things, but we still have that huge Scarlet D hanging on our chest and it is cumbersome. We hate that stupid letter. Maybe at some point we will be able to trade it in for a more compact Scarlet D, but we are the ones who make the decision and it is not based on months or years. It is based on a measuring system that doesn’t have a name.
Third, we want to feel connected to the world with meaningful relationships. We have already lost one of the most meaningful relationships of our life. Now, it seems as if we lost everyone else in our life as well. Well meaning friends and relatives slowly drop away. after the funeral. The just do not understand how to best approach us anymore. The brave ones who do stay connected become a member of a new subset of friends. They are worth a thousand regular friends. God gave them a huge helping of compassion when he created their souls.
Bereaved parents share that they can become angry at the friends who drop away. With time, most learn to accept the fact that these friendships were based on who they were before their child died. Their friends haven’t sat in the surprise bomb chair. How could they understand what it feels like? They deserve some grace, too.
The good news for bereaved parents is all of the new free time gives us the opportunity to meet other parents who do understand. Last year, I had the experience of attending the National Bereaved Parents USA Annual Gathering where I also taught a one hour workshop. At the time, my husband and I were 21 months bereaved. We arrived for the opening breakfast feeling like the new kids but that feeling only lasted for about two seconds.
We were quickly folded into the mix. We were hugged in full body embraces by new acquaintances and it didn’t feel weird. I felt completely understood. There were tears, but they were the healing kind. I learned that I am capable of leaving the house and being with people as long as they can handle the new me. Have you ever heard special needs children return from a special needs camp and say it is the only week of the year where they feel “normal”? That is exactly how I felt that weekend. I heard other attendees say they wished that they lived in a place where they were surrounded by this many people who understood them. We can do regular things as long as we feel understood.
I am not the old extroverted me. I became an introverted version of myself and I am getting used to it. I have a deeper spiritual life that cannot be taught, only experienced. Although, I am still checking under chairs before I sit in it, I have accepted this is who I am now.
We all want to be understood regardless of what subset life has put us in whether that be bereaved parent/child, widowed, divorced, special needs, disabled, a different sexual orientation, a minority, etc. Our souls are all the same. Only our packaging is different.
Connection with others and understanding is all any of us want. We can all try harder to connect with every subset of life.
She writes about life, death, grief, and recovery.
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