The Worst Loss of All...
The Worst Loss Of All
I want you to try to imagine the worst thing in the world, that your beloved child died...
Let me explain to you the reality…try to imagine, if you can, never
seeing your child again, never hearing their laugh, never hearing the
sound of their voice, never smelling the scent you have come to
recognize as your child.
Never hearing them say “I love you”…nothing - just silence, emptiness.
Now imagine never seeing your child’s smile, never seeing him/her upset or
happy, never watching him/her sleep…missing them so much that you are
twisted up inside and the pain stays with you 24/7, you smell their
pillow, their clothes, you look at their pictures and can only cry - what
happened, why!?.. You have never felt longing like this in your life!
Longing to hear his/her voice, to see his/her face again, and to know deep in
your soul you cannot fix it.
Now imagine every single thing that
used to give you joy and pleasure turns into hurt and despair overnight.
Not a gradual thing, but going from pleasure to pain, from happiness to
sadness, from peace to no peace, changing overnight. Everything you
loved now hurts like nothing you can explain… For example: music, I used to love music, it
gave me pleasure, I didn’t realize how much music was a part of my life
and how it is everywhere, now I cannot listen to it, it sears me like a
red hot knife with the pain of losing my child, it cuts me wide open..
like the old song, the day the music died, that’s me, and believe it or
not, almost every song reminds me of the void in my life without my
child, I am not unique in that pain - if you lost a child you would
know.
That is just one little example of how your life is affected by the loss of your child.
Just ONE example!
You feel the loss with every thought, every emotion, and the loss
bleeds into every aspect of your life. even with your other children,
you still love your other children just as much as always, but as hard
as it is, even they hurt you now, because when you see them you feel the
LOSS, the loss of the child that died not being with their siblings. It
doesn't’ fit, there is a piece missing, your whole life doesn’t fit
anymore. Everything that felt right, now feels wrong. And of course
there is always the missing, the horrible gut wrenching, out of your
control missing… As good parents we were always able to fix things or
make things better for our children... this we cannot fix, cannot make
it better. So on top of everything else you are feeling, you also feel
helpless...out of control and hopeless…and this is universal, every
parent that truly loves their child will feel this. Are you starting to
imagine now how it feels? and you are doing this exercise for 10
minutes, imagine, really imagine, feeling this way 24/7 - Day after day,
month after month, and no matter what you are doing or who you are
talking to, a tape of your child plays over and over in your mind. your
child when he was a baby, a laughing happy little boy, a cute young
teen, a wonderful young man and it always plays in your head and you do
not want to forget even a single second of your beautiful child’s
life…but that is a fear you have, that as time passes you will start to
forget…so now, please add FEAR to the list of emotions. This is what it
really feels like. a part of you has died, don’t just read the words,
FEEL them - died, gone forever… a real, beautiful, living part of you
has died… and you are still living, left behind to try to pick up the
pieces of your shattered life and not having a clue where to even begin.
No wonder a high percentage of marriages break up, parents have
breakdowns, turn to alcohol, drugs or a destructive way of life. NO
WONDER!!!!! A part of you does not exist any more and it is scary as
hell... that is why they say the loss of a child is like no other
loss... you cannot compare it to another loss, with other losses you
grieve and you are of course sad, but when your child dies, a part of
you ceases to exist, gone just like that, gone no warning, just gone.
And the life that you knew, the things you always felt, the things in
your life that made sense, that you held on to, that makes up who you
are - are Gone!!!
That is why when parents who have lost children
hear “I want the old you back”, “it’s been a year (a month, 6
months-whatever), and don’t you feel better yet?” “You are doing this to
yourself, you’re making it harder on yourself”, “grief can become a
selfish thing you know”, we can only shake our heads and feel sadness
and hopelessness, because there is no way our lives will ever be like it
was when our child was alive. No wonder bereaved parents isolate
themselves; we are just trying to hold on.
So were you able to
imagine for 10 minutes what it must feel like? Even 2 minutes is too
long to imagine the unimaginable, to feel the pain, I would not wish it
any anyone, but did you get a sense of how Life changing it is? Imagine
you feel this 24/7, not even getting a moments relief from it! Now go on
and put on your favorite CD to listen to, enjoy the music...go home
and hug your child, listen to them laugh, watch them smile, smell the
scent that you know is them and please do not tell me how I should feel
or that I am holding onto this, or that my friends/family must be tired
of watching me go through this, because if you haven’t lost a beloved
child of yours, you haven’t got a clue.
Now when you hear these words “the presence of his absence is everywhere”, will you finally understand?
~ written by Louise Lagerman & Diana Dimasi
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