Parent Counseling

Death of a Child:
Challenges Posed in Parents’ Pursuit of Healing

Of every family member I’ve ever seen in my 30 years, parents who have lost a child have the most difficult time seeking help from a professional grief counselor.  Think about it…

There is not a normal parent on the planet who will entertain the thought of losing one of their children for more than a millisecond before that thought is banished.  Even then, this brief glimpse into that horror puts dread in the pit of that parent’s stomach.

When it actually happens, the impact of the words, ‘Your child has died,’ is nearly impossible to put into words.  First, it’s hard to find adequate descriptive words because this loss is unfathomable, unnatural: it’s never suppose to happen that a child of any age dies before a parent.  Secondly, with each spoken word, the reality of their loss is magnified and becomes more concrete – which seems impossible, in-&-of-itself.

A whole new meaning is given to the words, ‘My world is shattered.’   Physically stunned and immobilized, some parents have described themselves to me as ‘dissolving into a puddle,’ unable to move.  Still others become ‘robot-like,’ too numb to believe this new reality.

This is why parents delay seeking out professional help – except maybe to obtain anxiety or anti-depressant medications. They can barely talk – except to family and close friends who must be told – unable to hear, much less use, the words died or dead.  Unable to speak about the unthinkable for months, sometimes years, parents are the most at risk for getting stuck in their grief  [See Parent Guilt, Leslie’s Blog and Grief Counseling ].

Parents need an experienced grief professional, sensitive to and knowledgeable of their beliefs and emotions.  When parents finally reach out for professional help, they do so because remaining in their pain-filled ‘life-style’ – which for some it has become – is inconceivable and yet, they see no real alternative but to remain there.  What is behind this irony?  It’s all about what parents believe.

In my experience, more than any other group I’ve helped, parents fear healing, – but not because they’re crazy, which some parents have confessed they do feel at times!  They fear healing because they believe it must result in severing their attachment to their Beloved Child, and that’s not a viable option.  It is this belief that makes parents resistant to escaping the very pain they seek freedom from.  As one parent so poignantly described to me her resistance, ‘healing feels like I’m leaving my child standing all alone on a dock, waiving goodbye, as I  slowly sail away, forever.’   For this parent and most all others, staying in pain is the price to be paid in order to remain securely attached to their child.  Hence their mighty resistance, as the above descriptive imagery makes so clear and understandable.  Until they can be convinced otherwise, far too many bereaved parents remain ‘skeptically’ open-minded and stuck in their grief [See Adult Counseling, Loss From Death].

We all understand that our children are our future: we look to them for comfort, protection and security as we travel through our sunset years.  We look to them for our next joyous role as grandparents, fulfilling the dreams and plans that spin from this next adventure in life.  Our children support us as we face our own mortality.  But with their untimely death, not only do parents lose that precious relationship with their child that can never be replaced or duplicated, they also lose all of this – the future as it was envisioned.  No wonder the death of a child is so devastating.

And that’s the exact  reason why parents so need to allow an experienced and compassionate grief counselor into their lives.