Sometimes bad things happen.
We don’t like to think about it, but they do.
Sometimes life is happily after.
Sometimes—life makes you want to die.
Sometimes both these things are true.
Some people go through a difficult pregnancy and forget all the difficulties when their screaming child is placed in their arms.
Some people go through an easy pregnancy and come home from the hospital without a living child.
These things happen, and more often than we’d like to think.
Some people wait and plan and build their lives around being the most prepared parent to their newborn child.
Sometimes they get to be that person they envisioned.
Sometimes they become someone else entirely.
Both roads are possible.
Some people move from a miscarriage to a healthy pregnancy, and rejoice in the giggles of a rainbow-swaddled child.
Some people move from a miscarriage to another miscarriage, and then unexplained infertility.
Subsequent children aren’t a guarantee.
Some people ‘move on’ and find healing and peace after significant tragedy.
Some people carry their loss and love with them forever, at peace with being perfectly imperfect.
Both paths are valid.
Sometimes hard things happen and there is nothing we can do about them—except to be present.
Sometimes great things happen and we are present for those things too.
The importance is in the acknowledgment.
Acknowledgement—because ALL of these things are possible.
ALL of these things can happen to any one of us, at any given time.
ALL of these things can come in unexpectedly and change our worlds—prepared or not.
Acknowledgement—because sometimes bad things happen,
And we cannot look away.
Related Posts:
Resources Homepage for Friends and Family
Notes for the Support Team
The Phone Call you Never Expect to Receive: Supporting a Loved One after the Loss of a Child
10 Things to Say to a Loved One after the Death of their Child
Graphics Blog: Death Isn’t Rumpelstiltskin
Downloadable graphics for “Sometimes Bad Things Happen”:
