You don’t stop having a parent when they die. You are and always will be their child. In the same way, you don’t stop having a child when they die. You are and always will be their parent. Family lasts as long as love—forever.
This grief awareness print explains that grief lasts as long as death, and you will always be your child’s parent, even and especially after their death.
This grief awareness print explains that grief lasts as long as death, and you will always be your child’s parent, even and especially after their death.
I know this isn’t the intention, but this passage in Ecclesiastes 3:4 kind of rubs me the wrong way. Why must there be a time for grieving, or any of these things? Why can’t the time be always? There is time for everything under the sun. It is ALWAYS time for grieving.
Of course you miss them! They are gone, and they shouldn’t be.
Don’t ever feel ashamed for that. There is no time limit on grief.
STILL grieving? Yes, I am still grieving. I am still grieving, because the work of grief is never done. I am still grieving, because I put into my grief what I cannot put into life with my son. I am still grieving, because he is STILL, and will always, be dead...
I was sitting with the patient advocate, and I was surprised to see the tears in his eyes, and they weren’t entirely for me. It turns out he had also lost a child to stillbirth—30 YEARS AGO. And he STILL grieved. Because there is no time limit on grief.
Sometimes I feel like kindness is confused with self-care—long walks and bubble baths. Time alone to watch TV. These things are part of kindness, sure. But such a small piece.
The death of my child is an event that lives with me; his absence is palpable; his presence is missing. And this is when I truly began to understand this monster called grief. You ask how one gets past losing a baby, and my answer is still—no. You don’t.
People like to talk about healing after loss, but “healing” from the death of my child is about as likely as regrowing a missing limb. It’s not happening.
I’ve seen this quote in many places, and it has always felt wrong to me. Especially if we acknowledge grief as tied intrinsically to love, then we understand that grief CAN’T be a passage; grief simply IS.
I know what you want to talk about. I know how it pains you when others try to chase your words away. It isn’t a question of guilt. It’s fact — if you had chosen to listen, I would be alive.
Death has never been my friend. The necessity of her existence is no more comfort than my own. I don’t hate her, but I look at her the way she looks at Disease. We are all harbingers. We all bring Pain.
When a Type A personality grieves, at some point grief becomes her job. She finds old focus and determination. She reads books and attacks her grief with her previous energy.
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