Inarticulate Comfort

Inarticulate – not able to express clearly what you want to say.  (Macmillan Dictionary)

Death – and the accompanying deep grief affecting those caught in its wake – is no respecter of persons. It affects people from all age ranges, economic status, race, religion, gender and political ideology. No one is immune, and the death of a dearly loved one is devastating and the resulting grief is deep, long-lasting and life-changing.

Equally true is that people surrounding those who deeply grieve usually don’t know how to respond. Death and deep grief make people EXTREMELY uncomfortable. People from all age ranges, economic status, race, religion, gender and political ideology get awkward around people who deeply grieve. They don’t know what to say to the griever. They duck down grocery aisles to try to avoid the griever. They look straight through or past the griever, as if they didn’t see the person. They disappear. They back away and observe from a distance. They stare at the griever and talk to each other about the griever from across the room or wherever, while never actually approaching or contacting. They care, but don’t know what to do. They say nothing or they do nothing out of fear of doing or saying the wrong thing. They say stupid or insensitive or inarticulate things, albeit with good intentions. As Angela Miller wrote on the Still Standing website:

If only there was a way for the world to learn how to speak compassionately to the brokenhearted.  What many people believe is a comforting statement, most often is not…There seems to be a large gap between intention and what’s actually being communicated to those of us who are hurting. (http://stillstandingmag.com/2014/01/6-things-never-say-bereaved-parent/)

We have experienced all of these, and so I know them well. My own mother didn’t know what to say to me and called me maybe four times that first year. One time, I could tell she put some thought into what she wanted to say and had written down some talking points to assist her in talking to me. It wasn’t that she didn’t care; she care immensely. Her own heart was broken over the death of her grandson. She felt helpless to provide any level of comfort to her family. She lived far away and had to rely on the phone to communicate. With all her heart, she wanted to comfort me, but she didn’t know what to say to me. She didn’t want to make me cry and she didn’t know how to help.

I’m not condemning or judging anyone. I simply am stating a truth. I’m a person who sees both sides of the coin. Because of that, from the beginning I have understood with my head that it was difficult to be around us. I understood it was not easy or do to say the right thing. I understood. Just because I understood it didn’t make it any easier for us. Because my head understood doesn’t mean my heart understood. I still bear the scars from being left so alone at a time when I needed most to know someone cared enough to apply the salve of kindness to my broken heart. I have worked hard to forgive and extend grace to those who were uncomfortable around us and caused secondary losses and scars.

I’m not sure which is worse – to have someone disappear and say/do nothing, or to have someone fumble around trying to say something meaningful to communicate their sorrow at our loss. I think it may be worse to have someone disappear and say/do nothing. At least if someone is talking to you, there’s a possibility for support and meaningful communication. At least you know they care.

I’ve tried to stay away from anything political on my blog, and so my comments here are not intended to be political in nature. I just have to say, though, that this whole kerfuffle with President Trump, his condolence call to the widow of the serviceman who died in Niger, and the actions of Rep. Frederica Wilson really bothers me. It grieves my heart for there to be so much ugliness and political grandstanding in the face of such deep grief and horrific loss.

Inarticulate though he may have been in trying to offer comfort, I tend to give President Trump the benefit of the doubt in making such a difficult call. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy thing to do, and I have read reports that he tried to get advice on how to go about it and what to say. As Angela Miller (above) said, “There seems to be a large gap between intention and what’s actually being communicated to those of us who are hurting.” That President Trump may have had a gap between his intentions and what he communicated is no surprise to me. It happens to a LOT of people. I know and understand this gap intimately. My attitude is more along the line, “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.” In other words, can any of us guarantee that we would have been the perfect, shining example on how to make such a condolence call? Can we guarantee that we would not have offered inarticulate comfort?

The actions of Rep. Frederica Wilson, though, absolutely make me sick. I see no other way to interpret her actions than to use the death of a serviceman for her own personal political capital. She is not the first politician to do so. She has laughed about the situation and called herself a “rock star” because of the attention she has garnered. I feel like she keeps stirring the pot so she is in the spotlight. She has attacked chief of staff John Kelly, who lost a son in Afghanistan. She’s on talk show after talk show, making one inflammatory accusation after another. And President Trump’s response and the response of other people to the attacks of Rep. Wilson haven’t help de-escalate the situation. There are very few clean hands here, and more insensitivity than sensitivity. I feel like the loss of a life has taken a back seat to politics and political grandstanding.

Emotions run high following such a tragic loss. Emotions are raw and grievers are hypersensitive. Things that happen hurt more, especially when they are negative, and the pain goes deeper. The loss of this life is being played out in a public forum. My heart goes out to this serviceman’s family and the families of the other servicemen who died in this horrific attack in service to our country. It’s such a sad, sad situation, and painful to watch.

This has been front-page news for more than a week now. I remember the newspaper articles about Jason’s accident, calls from reporters wanting statements from the grieving parents to sensationalize the stories they were writing, seeing a photograph of Jason and Alina on the front page of the Sunday Seattle Times, giving a statement to the judge in front of a packed courtroom, seeing pictures and reading articles in newspapers about the accident and the sentencing of the young man who killed Jason and Alina.

But, after the attention has moved on to something else and all of the press has gone home, the fact remains that someone has lost a dearly loved person and the grief resulting from that loss will go on for a very long time. The proverbial “fifteen minutes of fame” is infinitesimally small compared to the years of grief. The attention fades away, but the grief remains.

May God have mercy on us all and give us comfort in our losses.

~Becky

© 2017 Rebecca R. Carney

 

Platitudes/Cliches

I am not nor have I ever been a fan of platitudes or cliches – those short, little sayings that are supposed to convey something meaningful. You know the ones – like the one to the left here, or “Everything happens for a reason,” or “God never gives you more than you can handle.” They are meant to be inspirational, I’m sure, but I find them to be conversation-stopping, bumper sticker-style statements of little value and no sense. For example, what exactly does “You were given this life because you were strong enough to live it” mean? I don’t see myself as strong. And as for being “given this life” because I’m “strong enough to live it,” I live this life because it’s the only one I have. It makes no sense to me.

I think every parent who has lost a child has heard his or her fair share of these types of things. Platitudes and cliches are some of the least helpful – and possibly very hurtful – things a bereaved parent can hear. I understand that people don’t know what to say, so they resort to cliches. As Leeann Penny says in her post entitled 12 Grief Cliches and the reasons they suck, “Clichés are human attempts to make the hugeness of life and death easy to manage and understand.  This cannot be done, it hurts more than it helps. The phrases are something that people who “don’t get it” say in attempt to make it all better, to put a magical bandaid on it and reduce the raw awkwardness. They usually come to us with good intentions. As a society we aren’t all that comfortable with pain in progress, we like a bow, we like a quick happy ending.  We need to get over that.”

 

Today, a friend shared a Facebook post by Max Lucado:

For those of you who may be mourning and grieving true loss this week, I first want to say, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for this very real pain. I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know but I can remind you of something.

In God’s plan every life is long enough and every death is timely. And though you and I might wish for a longer life, God knows better. And—this is important—though you and I may wish a longer life for our loved ones, they don’t. Ironically, the first to accept God’s decision of death is the one who dies. While we are shaking heads in disbelief, they are lifting hands in worship. While we are mourning at a grave, they are marveling at heaven. While we are questioning God, they are praising God.

“In God’s plan every life is long enough and every death is timely.”

Here is the response I posted:

Tomorrow is our son’s birthday. He would have been 35 years old. He and his best friend died instantly when a drunk driver broadsided them on March 3, 2002. 19 years old – the best son, brother, friend anyone could ever ask for. Kind, funny, smart, beautiful blue eyes, great hugs and beautiful smiles. The best. Absolute best.

There’s so much I could say about what we walked through after Jason died, but I am not sure it would be fully comprehended except by those who have walked a similar path and would fall on deaf ears for others. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jason is with God, with my parents, with the baby we lost, with his best friend and all those who have gone before. I know that we will one day see him again in that land where there will be no more death, tears, mourning, crying or pain.

Jason’s death, though, affected me so much more and on such a deeper level than the deaths of my parents. When we had to put my dad in a nursing home, it was such an incredibly difficult thing to watch this strong, independent man in such circumstances. I literally prayed God would take him home. Dad was ready to go, wanted to go. My mom’s death was not unexpected, and we had a wonderful day with her the day she died. “Timely,” I guess one would say.

One never thinks the death of their child is “timely,” though, or that their child has lived long enough and was supposed to die in that moment in time. To say that I have struggled with my faith and in reconciling what I believed as a Christian with the death of our son at the age of 19 would be an understatement. I had believed that “the fervent prayer” availed much. I prayed and prayed and prayed for our kids, for their friends, for their lives, for their future spouses, for their protection, for my family. I woke up at 3 a.m. most days, got up out of bed, went downstairs and fervently prayed for my family. I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that God would protect our children. Until He didn’t, and Jason died.

It didn’t help (and, as a matter of fact, caused a lot of damage) that nearly everyone we knew disappeared. Our closest family lived more than 2000 miles away and, once they had to go home, I guess we had an expectation that our church and homeschool “family” and friends would be there for us. That didn’t happen. In retrospect, I’m not sure how realstic those expectations were; most of them were dealing with the deaths of their friends, too. Nevertheless, never have I felt more like a pariah in my life than I did after Jason died. I felt like I was falling down a black hole and there was no one to stop my fall. I remember begging God to send someone – anyone – to apply a salve of kindness to my broken heart and to the rest of my family’s hearts and lives. I truly, truly understand that most people didn’t know what to do or say or were dealing with their own losses, but it was a very difficult and lonely time for us.

I struggle, especially concerning the death of a child, with the whole “God must have a greater purpose” or “It was God’s will” attitude concerning death that Christians sometimes tend to adopt. While others may find comfort in being told, “In God’s plan every life is long enough and every death is timely,” I must admit that I don’t find comfort at all in it. At times, I think these types of platitudes help the person saying them more than the person hearing them. In essence, I think the person hearing it can hear condemnation or judgment at not “accepting” the death of their loved one as “God’s will” rather than as an encouragement. It’s interpreted as “encouragement” to move on, and that can be very hurtful. I also would venture to say that most parents who have lost a child are very good at putting on a mask so that others don’t see how deep their grief truly is and so that they are not judged for how deeply or how long they grieve. Very early on, I felt like I had to hide the depth of my grief to make it palatable in order for others to even want to be around me. I felt like my choice was to mask my grief or else I would be alone or judged.

As far as teaching something in the Christian community, I would rather see encouragement for people to “weep with those who weep” rather than encouraging the bereaved to accept the death of their loved one as God’s will and to move on. I feel like the empathetic teaching of truly supporting – and continuing to support – those walking through deep grief is sadly lacking. The bereaved don’t need someone to try to fix them or encourage them to accept or move on; they just need someone willing to be present, to listen and to care.

Just my two cents…

© 2017 Rebecca R. Carney

 

 

 

The struggle is real

This deep, dark, hidden lake of grief inside of me

fills up with gathered tears until they no longer be contained

and they flow over the dam and and down my face

 

I turn up the music on the radio in my car, loud

in an effort to drown out the sadness and regret

that has taken up residence in my soul on this day

 

I struggle to hide behind a mask of self-preservation, grief hidden

unseen by people who have little understanding and even less tolerance

of she who continues to grieve or continues to hurt beyond unrealistic timetables

 

The struggle is real and does not end on this side of heaven

for those misunderstood and judged by those who think they know better

by those who want grief to stay hidden, to be more palatable by swallowing some cliche

 

My heart is heavy today for things that might have been

things that should be, things that will never be

things that I wish with all my heart I could change

 

I miss you with all my heart today and every day

my precious boy, my sunshine, my hugger, my encourager

Jason David Carney, July 30, 1982 – March 3, 2002

 

© 2017 Rebecca R. Carney

What I wish I could say…

I found this post to be so honest, straightforward and written with incredible clarity. Worth passing on.

chickydoodles

I wish I could say I’ve found meaning in my tragic loss of my child.
I haven’t.
I wish I could say someday I will.
I won’t.
Oh you beg to differ?
You’re wrong.

View original post 994 more words

Yes, you can die of a broken heart

When Carrie Fisher died this week, followed shortly by her mother, Debbie Reynolds, many people wrote about Debbie Reynolds dying of a broken heart. One headline I read proclaimed, “Debbie Reynolds Last Words…’I Want to be with Carrie’.” She was at her son’s house, planning her daughter’s funeral when she supposedly spoke these words and then died fifteen minutes later. Another article quoted Debbie Reynolds’ book, Unsinkable: “It’s not natural to outlive your child…This has always been my greatest fear. Too many mothers have lost their children, for thousands of different reasons. I don’t know if I could survive that.”

I could almost see a collective nodding in agreement from every person who has had a child die – understanding what it’s like to want to join your child following his or her death, and knowing that it’s not natural to outlive your child. In her column in the Washington Post, On Parenting, about Debbie Reynolds dying of a broken heart, Lexi Berndt writes, “Within the community of bereaved parents, there was a profound sense of understanding.” I understood.

One of the things that’s not talked much about following the death of a child is how difficult it is to go on living. Some experience physical difficulties. Some experience psychological difficulties. Some have a crisis of faith. Some parents have suicidal thoughts and want to die, even though they have never had a suicidal thought in their lives before. I don’t think many follow through, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t cross their minds.

For me, early on, a thought would cross my mind once in a while, especially when I drove by the crash site (which all of us had to do nearly every day), how much I wished I could just drive in front of a big semi truck and die so I wouldn’t have to feel the overwhelming, crushing pain and grief of Jason’s death. It shocked me that I would even think such a thing! I had never had anything close to such a thought before in my life. Also, my doctor had prescribed sleeping pills for me and I very intentionally made sure i took one at night and put the bottle away so I wouldn’t take too many. I can’t lie – it was tempting at times to take the whole bottle so I wouldn’t feel such crushing pain any more. But, I intentionally chose to live.

Another article headline declared, “Broken heart syndrome is a real condition.” The article states: ” ‘It is a real disease,’ said Dr. David Winter, with Baylor Scott & White Health. ‘And we see this in tragic cases such as the Debbie Reynolds’ case…With a huge emotional outburst, stress hormones can go out in massive quantities to the blood…And in some people, more common in women, that can affect the heart…A sudden major stress to the body can cause a heart to stop, slow down, not pump effectively or even stop completely with a fatal irregular rhythm.’ ”

I believe it. I truly believe someone can die of a broken heart. My neighbor had a stroke following the death of her son. She didn’t die, but she’s never fully recovered from the stroke.

I know for sure that health can be impacted by deep grief following the death of a child. Research supports this fact. In his article, “Healing Your Body: Physical Practices for Mourners,” Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D. writes:

When you are in mourning, you usually feel under-rested and overwhelmed. Your body is probably letting you know it feels distress. You may feel you have no strength left for your own basic needs, let alone the needs of others. Actually, one literal definition of the word “grievous” is “causing physical suffering.” Yes, right now your body is telling you it has, just like your heart, been “torn apart” and has some special needs!

Your body is so very wise. It will try to slow you down and invite you to authentically mourn the losses that touch your life. The emotions of grief are often experienced as bodily-felt energies. We mourn life losses from the inside out. In our experience as a physician and grief counselor, it is only when we care for ourselves physically that we can integrate our losses emotionally and spiritually. Allow us to introduce you to how your body attempts to slow you down and prepare you to mourn your life losses.

Among the most common physical responses to loss are trouble sleeping and low energy. It is so common we even have a fancy term for it-the “lethargy of grief.” You are probably finding that your normal sleep patterns have been thrown off. Perhaps you are having difficulty getting to sleep, but even more commonly, you may wake up early in the morning and have trouble getting back to sleep. During your grief journey your body needs more rest than usual. You may also find yourself getting tired more quickly-sometimes even at the start of the day.

Sleeping normally after a loss would be unusual. If you think about it, sleep is the primary way in which we release control. When you experience a life loss, you feel a great loss of control. At a subconscious level, you may notwant to lose any more control by sleeping. So sleep problems are very natural in the face of life losses.

Muscle aches and pains, shortness of breath, feelings of emptiness in your stomach, tightness in your throat or chest, digestive problems, sensitivity to noise, heart palpitations, queasiness, nausea, headaches, increased allergy symptoms, changes in appetite, weight loss or gain, agitation, and generalized tension-these are all ways your body may react to losses that you encounter in life.

The stress of grief can suppress your immune system and make you more vulnerable to physical problems. If you have a chronic existing health challenge, it may become worse. Right now you may not feel in control of how your body is responding. Your body is communicating with you about the special needsit has right now. Befriending and mindfully giving attention to your physical symptoms will allow you to discover your body’s native intelligence.

After Jason died, I felt like I had either a huge weight on my chest or a tight band around my chest, and this made it difficult for me to breathe. I started taking small, shallow breaths. It wasn’t until many months later that I realized that I was breathing shallowly and that my grief was affecting how I breathed, and I took steps to breathe more deeply so I could get adequate oxygen.

One thing I will say about the article that quotes Dr. Winter. At the end of the article, it quotes him as saying, “”To sit there and grieve and get very emotionally upset can be deleterious to you and can even cause sudden death.” When I read this, I pictured a person just sitting there and allowing (encouraging) herself to get overwrought and overworked with grief, beyond what she should have. I’m sure this happens, but it also, in my opinion, makes it sound like we have full control over grief and that we should not grieve or we should control our grief or not become “very emotionally upset.” This quote hit me as very condescending. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t feel like I had a lot of control over my grief for a long time, and I find this intimation that grief is controllable offensive. We need to make sure we allow people to grieve in a healthy manner and not encourage them to stuff it down.

Grief not only affects us emotionally. It affects us physically. To say that the death of a child breaks our hearts is more than just a trite saying. Jason’s death nearly killed me. Sometimes, as in the case of Debbie Reynolds, we can actually die of a broken heart.

~Becky

© 2016 Rebecca R. Carney

 

Articles quoted and additional reading:

http://www.tmz.com/2016/12/28/debbie-reynolds-tmz-000/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/29/debbie-reynolds-said-outliving-daughter-carrie-fisher-greatest/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2016/12/30/debbie-reynolds-and-parent-grief-a-narrative-of-love/?utm_term=.cb25d66214e6

http://www.king5.com/news/health/yes-you-can-die-of-a-broken-heart/380451938

http://psychcentral.com/lib/your-health-and-grief/

http://griefwords.com/index.cgi?action=page&page=articles%2Fhealing_body.html&site_id=2

 

 

Trust, Once Broken, is Not Easily Mended

When the kids were little, I tried to teach them the incredible value of trust. Miriam-Webster dictionary gives one definition of trust as “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something; one in which confidence is placed (my emphasis on words in italics).” Trust is the basis of our close, meaningful friendships and relationships. Trust is the basis of a successful relationship between employer and employee.Trust is imperative in the relationship between spouses and between family members.

As a way of communicating this intangible concept to the kids, I used a couple of visual examples to show the consequences of breaking someone’s trust. We set up a pattern with dominos on the dining room table, the kind where you touch the first one to knock it over and that starts a chain reaction of the rest falling over. I wanted to show them that one action could affect many things. One action can lead to broken trust and can create an series of unintended consequences, much like the falling dominos.

I also showed them one of my glass flower vases and asked them what they thought would happen if I smashed it on the ground. We talked about whether or not it could ever be put back together again. Even if we were able to find all the pieces and put them back together (which would be highly unlikely), it would never look or function the same. Once broken, not easily mended.

In my last post, I wrote about secondary losses. Following the death of a child, one of these secondary losses can be the loss of friendship, either immediately following the death of the child or as times goes by. The saying ” grief changes your address book” is true.  Initially, people may not know what to do or say, so they stay away. As time goes by, people may get tired of how long it takes to “get over” the death of a child and decide to move on. Either way, it’s fairly common to lose friends following the death of a child. (The online magazine, Still Standing, has an excellent article on this topic.)

I’ve also written about the loss of friendship after Jason died. Losing friends following the death of a child is hard. I recently read an article about the psychology behind people leaving alone people in crisis. The article quotes Barbara M. Sourkes, associate professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine: “When you’re confronted by someone else’s horror, there’s a sense that it’s close to home.” Too close to home, I would add. The article also lists reasons people may disappear – people don’t like to feel helpless, awkwardness around crises, feeling too much empathy in picturing that it could happen to them or their children, or creating distance so that it doesn’t seem real (out of sight/out of mind), feeling guilty that they’re so glad its not them, or feeling like if they stay away from the crisis that it won’t happen to them. Whatever the reason is or whenever the reason people disappear doesn’t make the loss any easier.

In some ways, I think people were waiting until we were “better,” waiting until enough time passed until…what??…until we weren’t so sad? I don’t know. There really is no such thing as “getting better.” One gal told me she wanted to make sure we had enough family time. Christmas 2002, nearly 10 months after Jason died, we had a few more people that usual call. At the time, I felt like people felt like it was safe to try to reconnect, but we weren’t the same people they used to know. Those relationships just weren’t the same.

When people walked away from us, I lost a lot of respect for them. It was hard feeling abandoned by those we expected to support us. Trust was broken. Our confidence in their ability to be true, kind, compassionate friends was broken. Those relationships were broken because of the broken trust. It was hard to feel like they really wanted to be in our lives, that they really wanted to be true friends again. If they really wanted to be our friends, why would they have abandoned us? As I said in my “toolbox” post, I am very guarded. I keep my shield close at hand, ready to put it up to protect my heart. That makes it really hard to let people in and trust that they really do care. It’s a hard thing to start trusting again.

I’ve really tried recently to be more open and trusting. I’ve tried to remove bricks from the walls I’ve put up around myself over the years – walls of protection and self-preservation. I’ve tried to allow people into my life. I’ve tried to be friendly and open to new friendships. It’s a really hard thing to do, this allowing people to be close to me. I’m really guarded. I don’t know if they can handle the brokenness in my life. I don’t know if they will think enough time has passed since Jason died that it shouldn’t bother me any more. I don’t want to be judged or to become a project to be “made better.” I don’t know if they will accept me for who I am. I don’t know if I can trust them to be there for me. It’s just so dang hard for me to do.

I recently confided something in a gal I thought to be a friend. She immediately passed it on to someone else, who came to talk to me about it. It was a trust-shattering moment. I continue to try to forgive that breach of trust, but I no longer look at that friendship the same. I no longer feel that relationship is worthy of my trust.

Trust is a huge issue for me. I want to be trustworthy – worthy of people entrusting things to me, knowing I will handle that trust with care. I want to have people around me that are trustworthy – worthy of entrusting them with my brokenness and fragile heart, knowing they will handle my trust with care.

Things are no longer simple following the death of a child. Navigating this life is more like canoeing down rapids than paddling on a calm lake. We have to be diligent and careful moving down this life-path. It’s like our radar always is on, scanning for things that might rock our boat. For example, Jason’s birthday is coming up, and I have learned that things that don’t normally bother me might make me sad. I have to be aware of that. I have to be aware of emotional triggers.

I have to read what’s the content of movies or TV shows. After Jason died, I couldn’t watch movies or TV shows that had car crashes in them. I couldn’t watch loud movies. I couldn’t watch movies about children dying (still can’t). I can’t watch high stress movies or TV shows. When scenes are particularly tense, I still have to close my eyes and breathe deeply until the scene is over.

I have to determine if I can trust someone. I have to judge conversations with people I have just met as to whether or not I should mention Jason. When someone asks me about how many children I have, can they handle the fact that I have a child who died? Is this a passing conversation with someone who moves on or is this someone who might stick around a while? If I do talk about Jason’s death, will they disappear like people did just after Jason died? Can I trust this person enough with my heart to believe that they won’t inflict further hurt? Will they not shatter my trust? Who can I trust?

People make mistakes. I understand that. We are all human and need to extend grace to each other. I’ve worked really hard on forgiving those that have hurt us. But, I also understand that trust once broken is not easily mended. It’s hard to let people that have broken our trust back into our hearts and into our lives.  It’s just never quite the same. Once that glass vase drops, it’s hard to put the pieces back together.

~Becky

© 2016 Rebecca R. Carney

 

Photo credits:

Domino photo – https://www.videoblocks.com/video/line-of-white-dominoes-falling-ykoznpb/

Shattered glass photo – www.gettyimages.com

Articles quoted:

miriam webster trust

http://stillstandingmag.com/2014/08/losing-friends-child-loss/

 

The High Cost of Losing a Child

I think it’s safe to say that those who have not experienced the death of the child can understand, on some level, that it is a huge, incomprehensible loss. I’m not sure anyone outside the “club no one wants to join” – the “club” of parents whose children have died – can truly understand the impact of such loss, though. I would never wish that understanding on anyone, because that would mean they would have to walk this horrible walk of grief. But, I also think it is safe to say that there is even less understanding regarding secondary losses following the death of a child.

Before Jason died, I never could have imagined the walk we have had to walk. It’s been a rough one, and saying that is an understatement. Jason’s death has affected our family in so many ways. Our lives were shattered when Jason died. And then it seemed like so many other things have broken off and shattered, too, along the way. Friendships. Income. Loss of identity. So many additional losses. Secondary losses.

I think the whole secondary loss thing caught me by surprise. These additional losses were really hard to process. Friends who disappeared. People who avoided us. Questioning my faith. Too many losses to count. I’ve written about some of these secondary losses over the years. It’s difficult to understand how someone who has suffered such a huge loss would continue to have additional losses piled on top. Losses on top of more losses. It’s hard to comprehend and process so much loss. The secondary losses make the load of grief even heavier to bear.

I recently read a good article that talks about secondary losses. The author explains that secondary losses are a result of the primary loss. Our grief encompasses both the primary loss AND the secondary losses. The secondary losses are precipitated by the primary loss (the death of our child), but they become a part of our overall grief.

The author writes, “Though it is easy to think that our grief is solely the grief of losing the person we cared for so deeply, our grief is also the pain of the other losses that were a result of the death.” One grief, many  parts. Yes, I grieve Jason’s death. His death is the big, huge hole in our lives and is the main reason for my grief. But his death also created other losses that I grieve.  I miss friends I used to have. I miss our home. I miss the feeling of security. Had Jason not died, I would not have experienced these and many more losses. All of these secondary losses are interconnected to the primary loss to some degree.

The also author states, “Understanding the possibility of experiencing grief from these secondary losses can help build self-awareness and help identify complexities of our own grief.  Once we have identified these losses we are better equipped to face and mourn them.  We begin to understand that the whole of our grief is comprised of many parts, including the primary loss and the secondary losses.” (http://www.whatsyourgrief.com/secondary-loss-one-loss-isnt-enough/)

I’m not sure I agree completely with this particular concept that we can build a self-awareness in order to be better prepared for secondary losses, especially right after the death of a child. And I’m not sure why there would be a reason to anticipate we would want to prepare for such losses if we didn’t know our child was going to die. Perhaps this would help in the event of a terminally ill child, but, wouldn’t the parent be dealing with enough anyway? I don’t know. Sometimes there’s just no way to prepare for certain things.

I don’t think it would have been helpful to me if someone had come up to me early on in this grief journey, right after Jason died, and said to me, “Just wanted you to be aware that you will probably experience additional losses in your life besides the loss/death of Jason, so you had better prepare your self for it.” I was so overwhelmed by Jason’s death, in and of itself, that I don’t think I could have handled it and probably would have rejected the concept of more loss. At some point, we all will deal with secondary losses; I guess it’s just a matter of timing. It didn’t help me, for example, when I went to a local Compassionate Friends group right after Jason died, to hear one gal say to me (after I had explained to the group why I had started to attend), “Oh, you’re just a baby (in your grief process).” I realize now that, at the time she said that to me, I was just a few steps into this journey and that I had (and still have) a long journey ahead of me. At the time, though, it was not a helpful comment and was poor timing. (I never went back to that group.)

But, I still think she has some good things to say about understanding and identifying secondary losses. I also think it’s important to understand that the primary loss of the death of a child can create secondary losses. Those secondary losses may be immediate or the may happen over time. For example, our loss of friendships was more or less immediate. Another mother told me that she had great support after the death of her daughter, but then nearly all of her friends disappeared over time as they got tired of hearing about her grief and felt like she was not “getting over it” quickly enough. No one will experience the same grief or the same losses, whether primary or secondary.

I hope you will take time to read the article: Secondary Loss – one loss isn’t enough??!! As always, I appreciate your input.

~Becky

© 2016 Rebecca R. Carney