Showing How to Grieve

Grieving as a parent, and what that means

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

One thing I’ve been thankful for, and have found myself with more occasions to be thankful for as I journey deeper into marriage and family life, is that my mother always told us when she had a miscarriage.

Those children had names, were loved, and remained a part of our family. We were able to bury two of them, in little cloth shrouds shaped like envelopes that Mom sewed from scraps of printed cotton.

When I grew up, married, and began to have children of my own, I went into it knowing, even expecting, that I would lose some of my own children before they were born.

This, I think, has protected me from being blindsided by the reality of loss when it's occurred. I’ve had a template or script of sorts to follow, at least a place to start.

This doesn't mean I've been prepared for everything.

It hasn't kept away the shock of how suddenly it can happen, everything seemingly fine one day and crashing down the next.

It hasn't kept me from the physical pain, or from having to undergo procedures I've all but had nightmares about.

It hasn't kept me from sobbing myself into numb exhaustion, or from watching my husband try to hide his own tears from me and the kids.

It hasn't protected us from having to share the news with our living children, or from having to help them navigate their grief in the midst of our own.

It hasn't stopped me from being on the receiving end of real compassion from so many people- family, friends, even the medical professionals tasked with my care.

It hasn't stopped me from discovering more reasons to be thankful for my husband as he stands beside me.

Accepting the possibility of a cross ahead of time helps ready us to bear it, but it remains a cross, heavy and painful to carry. There's grace in it as well; one of the strangest things about a sorrow like this one are all the small moments of grace that run through it, like granite shot through with gold.

My husband and I are trying to be open with our sorrow, to give our children what my parents gave me; a warning that the cross will come, and an example of how to begin to bear it when it does. It won't protect them from pain or prepare them for everything, but it will give them a starting place when they encounter it. In the aftermath of a grief that's still unfolding, it's the one thing we know so far we need to do.