Losing a child doesn’t permit you to ever be the same person you were before again. It is forever losing parts of your life. The past becomes memories that each have different meaning now. The present becomes exhausting, discouraging, and heavy to carry. The future holds both shattered dreams, uncertainty. You lack a piece of the meaning being a mother had. Even with other children, losing one leaves a huge hole in your identity. There is a common constant thread which is that you hurt in ways and depths that you never could have grasped before as possible. The dark tunnel of this journey doesn’t always show a distant light at the other end.
Grieving mothers need support that no one can understand until they are forced to travel the same path. It is different for a other than a father. We are the caregiver and nurturer. We have most likely carried and given birth to our child. The journey is not the same for a mother whose child was lost suddenly as it is for the mother that has watched their child battle a disease. Nor are feelings the same for a bereaved mother of a child of a young age lost to cancer who can protect them from knowledge about what may lie ahead. As a mom of a young adult fighting of the vicious beast of cancer that wasn’t an option for me. That mother also has a child that doesn’t understand what is happening, why they feel are going through surgery or scans, staying in the hospital, being made to feel sick from the “treatment”. My son Jordan was diagnosed at the age of 22. He was 5 mos from graduating college, practically sitting front and center to every nightmare ahead via google search. I dealt with too much knowledge creating anxiety beyond what anyone knows. Jordan his so much, so well because of his humility and a love for his friends. He tried to protect others from his pain. But as his mom, in the trenches of his care, the research for that 1 break that might cure him, I was right beside him at 2, 3 or 4 am when he woke me “freaking out”.
As I close this 1st post, I know that you may think it doesn’t apply to you because you don’t have children yet or all of yours are fine. But I would truly appreciate it if you would allow me to prepare you, just in case, someone someday that you care about is walking in my shoes. Just in case, that something which I would never want any of you to have to endure happens and you yourself are thrown on this same road with your child. But know for certain that I am here willing to help you with what I have learned and experienced because I wish I had someone like me available to hold my hand and listen to my thoughts when I became a grieving mother that understood this world all mothers of child loss now live in.