Motherhood – Understand The Grief Of Loss Of Child

The thought of writing about motherhood today made me feel it was appropriate to write about the emotions of a mother that had just lost her child. Most parents feel it is wrong to outlive their children, with especially mothers experiencing grief in waves throughout their life.

Here are a few points worth understanding: 

• The extent of loss on the death of a child is not determined by how long the child lived, but by the changes his/her loss brings in the family life, with mothers experience a sense of emptiness. Mothers may experience disbelief, intense shock, confusion and even denial, even if the death of the child is expected.

• Parents especially mothers find it very difficult to come to terms with reality; the death is of a older child or an adolescent child who was beginning to realize his/her full potential makes the parent feel that they have lost a close friend, and an irreplaceable source of emotional and practical support. The loss of an only child may make the parent feel they have lost their identity as parents; this intense grief could lead to overwhelming despair and sadness, making it very difficult to do the day to day tasks. 

• Sometimes if the child has died in an accident or due to an illness, parents especially mothers may experience an extreme guilt of having failed as the child’s protector and how things could have been done differently. This sort of guilt is also experienced by parents that have been very strict in the upbringing of their children.

• In case of an older child a mother feels that all hopes and dreams regarding the child have been slashed to the ground, so mothers could face feelings of bitterness, unfairness and anger at a life left unfulfilled. Some parents especially mothers could feel life has been too cruel to them; they could also feel a sense of resentment towards parents that have healthy children of the age of their dead child.

• It is difficult to categorize the way a mother reacts to grief or expresses her feelings; I have found that certain mothers have an extreme feeling that life has no meaning on the death of their child and may feel they have to join their child and be released of the pain. Some also start questioning or lose their faith or spiritual belief, while still others start dreaming of their dead child and experience their child’s presence near them.

• Some more ways of experiencing the grief of a dead child could be a fear or dread in being alone and overprotecting their surviving children and feeling a sense of isolation and loneliness even when people are around; this comes from the thought that no one understands how they feel.

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