just wanted to share with you something that people who have never grieved, may not understand. In fact, to be honest, probably most people who have not lost a child, may not understand this. As
just wanted to share with you something that people who have never grieved, may not understand. In fact, to be honest, probably most people who have not lost a child, may not understand this.
As a rule, most people follow the seven stages of grief;
Shock
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Testing
Acceptance
Everyone grieves differently; so may not follow the cycle as stated but may experience it in a different order and may jump backwards and forwards from one to another – that’s completely normal.
People grieve, then life returns back normal. Back to work, back to the shopping, back to the everyday conversation.
Some people end up in counselling to help them process what has happened, in particular when it was a sudden loss.
Sometimes, it just pops back up out of the blue – even when you are quite far down the line from your loss experience.
This happened to me this week, at a wedding. For me, a lot of my sadness now lays with the what ifs and the misses. This week it was a miss, something that she was never going to be able to do and something that I was never going to be able see.
I was enjoying the wedding (it was a friend of Jake’s) and I had been absolutely fine (albeit a few secret tears when the brides – it was a double wedding – walked down the aisle). Then there was a sudden thought of “Millie will never walk down an aisle to marry someone that she has fallen in love with“. But I recomposed myself and smiled watching the groom smile watching his bride walk to him.
It was the dances, the first dance – awww it was like a dagger to my heart and sometimes it just hits so hard, I have to hold it so tight inside so that other people don’t see (they probably do, I just like to think that they don’t). I could feel the tears coming and my chest was so tight, I just held on to Anaya (my 4 month old daughter) who I had been playing with and stood up quickly and went outside for some fresh air. This is my coping mechanism, I often remove myself from situations then I don’t sit there crying (especially on people’s happy days like wedding days). It’s not that I don’t like people seeing my cry, so many people have seen me cry over Millie – it’s that I don’t want to be made a fuss over – especially if people don’t know me and I have to explain my story – for me, it’s just easier to go and take a breather and recompose myself and then return to whatever it is that I have left and carry on.
This is just a bit of insight to what it’s like for a grieving mum (and maybe for dad’s too, I don’t know because I can’t give you that perspective). I personally think that this is where there is a lack of understanding for parents who have lost a child, people don’t know what to say or how to act around us sometimes.
For me, I don’t want sympathy, I honestly cannot stand that but empathy goes a long way and I think a lot of parents in my situation may think the same (correct me if I am wrong).
Do you know what the difference between empathy and sympathy is? I’ve explained it below.
Sympathy – A sense of feeling sorry for the situation that the person may be in, a feeling of pity.
Empathy – To be able to understand the other person’s feelings, even though you may not have been in their situation, you are able to see things from their perspective.
Feel free to leave your comments!
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No words of wisdom here, I just wanted to send you a big hug.. I’m constantly in awe of your courage and strength – of course there will be days when you don’t feel brave or strong at all – but you always keep going. Such a beautiful Mum that Millie will always be proud of xx
Thank you so much for your lovely comments x