I sat in an office engrossed in my work. My phone rang. The voice on the other end told me my son and his father had died. I turned to my co-worker to say what had happened, phoned a friend, talked to my boss and went home. By the end of the night, I was on a plane, and by the end of the next week, I was at work. I had the same job, the same flat, the same car. Everything was exactly the same, except that everything was completely different.
In my great shock, I appeared to function as normal. I painted on a smile and made jokes like nothing was happening. In fact, my act at work was so convincing that people started to question my sanity. In the evening, though, after I’d returned home and was left to my own devices, the pain would frequently render me incapacitated. No one saw that. No one saw the great amount of energy I used in *appearing* functional. My best friend, of course, knew. Once the funeral was over and I stopped having calls from others, my best friend was with me as things settled in. Grief is private, and for quite some time, I felt the need to stiffen my lip and keep my grief hidden.
I felt guilty for not grieving openly. Did it mean I hadn’t loved Andy enough? Was I being disrespectful to him? Discounting his life in some way? Quite a while after Andy’s death, the great heaving sobs I’d expected in the first place finally came out, and I lost the ability to hide the pain from anyone. Long after that ‘accepted’ grieving period had ended, the true depth of my loss surrounded me and I began to grieve as others had expected me to. I expected that of myself as well.
My point is, no one grieves the same way. No one experiences loss the same way. That’s so very important to understand. Parental grief lasts a lifetime, so there’s no need to hurry it along the way. There’s no need to set in place parameters or rules. The death of a child breaks every rule imaginable.
I’m writing this because I *needed* someone to tell me that my expectation of myself to grieve openly but to stay strong all at once was not the product of an insane mind. It was merely how I was processing things at the time. I needed someone in those early days to remind me that’s it OK to cry, but it’s also OK *not* to cry, provided you eventually release those emotions. Most of all, I needed someone to explain to me that my loss was exactly that– mine. No one has the right to dictate my grief. Sometimes *I* don’t even know where it’s taking me.
If you’ve lost a child, your grief is as unique as your child was. Listen to yourself, and do what you need to do, even if that means waiting long past what others might call the ‘acceptable’ grief period to let the difficult emotions guide you toward the tragedy you’re facing.
