To Those Who Say, "Get on with your life"...

Very well said! I had someone actually say to me a couple of weeks ago, "well enough time has passed you must be pretty much over it by now!" I felt like smacking him in the face, but I was at work and probably would have gotten fired! I just said, "I don't think I will EVER get over it!

every bit of grief is valid, and always will be... losing a child is a forever heartbreak... :(

Carol, thanks for posting this to Heartbreak Hotel. The worst thing anyone can say to someone grieving "on with your life'. Grieving is a process, it takes time.

Carol, My son was killed while doing a Job I trained him for, his death was a crushing blow, and after more than ten years is still hurts. The kindest thing I have ever heard from anyone is, "I am so sorry for your loss." It enables me to embrace the sadness that I cannot set aside, and must accept as a part of my life. The alternative is paralysis.

I read your poem, and felt an immediate bond to "her" because my heart is in the same place. She has been added to an ever growing list of Mothers and Fathers who have lost a child. A list that I keep in my heart to remind me that I am not alone in my grief.

I suppose a quote from my late son might help to ease the pain, "My ultimate enemy is my past, unresolved."

Sam kept an undated journal, and in the last of them he also wrote this,

PAIN.

Want to cry
Do not want
to loose mask.

Others around
will not know
how to deal
with ME.

Carol, I hope I have helped a little.

Karl

No one has the right to tell another person how to feel after they lose someone they love. Parents are not in this world to survive their children, and losing your child must be a pain I cannot imagine. All I can say is: I'm so sorry. But remember that your son lives through you, and through your words, and as long as you remember him, he will be with you.

I can hear what you are saying. I have not lived through this dreadful experience but my daughter lost her twin sons at birth and I grieved for the loss of the boys and for her pain.

You can never be 'whole' again as the ones who died took part of your heart.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Some of us don't think before speaking. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing this. Some people can be so clueless, but I try to tell myself it's just because they don't like to see us in pain and would like us to "get over it" and move on. Grief is a process and there's no time table - except over time hopefully the pain will lessen and be easier to deal with.

I can't even begin to imagine. I just know that you will never "get over it, " or even "get on with your life". I imagine you will just try to keep going. I'm sorry for your pain & loss.

I can't imagine the pain either, and I hope I never have to.

Karl, Thank you so much for sharing your son's words with me. It helped tremendously. And you are right, to hear someone say, I am sorry for your loss is the best. And to have someone just listen. You don't have to say anything..just listen. That is something my family cannot do. They feel they have to do something. And I do understand.

Everyone wants to help. Unfortunatey the only help is for them to let you know they will always be there for you and to listen.

Thank you for all that posted. It means more than you know for you to take the time to share your thoughts.

Carol. I lost my only son of 19 to an automobile incident ... I have come to not say accident any more because since what I then thought to have been an 'accident' back in 1988, I have since had a spiritual awakening and now know that all things have a reason within the realm of God from the spiritual perspective (not religious in my case) ...

Soon after it happened (the accident), I had a therapist tell me that it would take about 5 years for me to get over the grief ... I thought at the time, 'how the hell do 'you' know that ?' ... but I did find in retrospect, that around 5 years later I had pretty well accepted it all ... I had put it behind me and got on with life only then recognizing many of the benefits I had received from other compassionate people's love and the wisdom and insights from it all ... but some years after that even is when I found God withIN my own self as my higher Self ... and truly came to understand and fully accept everything ... knowing then what I had only suspected and hoped for before, that there will be a complete and improved re-unification down the road of time ... we are not even now apart, it just seems so. IMnsHO.

But I do grant you that as his mother, your mourning may well be much different than mine ... I know my wife's was ... everyone has their own uniquely personal experience.

My best to you and yours ... Peace, j.

Powerful write.

Grief is a very real and important part of the process

grief is a lifetime process. My grandmother told me that it is hard enough to outlive your younger siblings, and the people you knew in school. It is entirely another thing when you start burying your children. Nothing replaces the hole, and nothing makes it go away. You learn to go on, and to take care of those that are left. Now that she is 89, she has now buried 4 siblings (all younger) and 3 of her children and her husband. She said she is here until God calls her home, and she knows then that she will see her children again, and then will her heart be all it once was. God bless you and your family during these dark times and through the things people carelessly say.

Thank you Jerry. Yes, I do believe a mother losing her child has to be right up there at the top of tragedies. If it gets any worse I do not want to know about it.

Lisa, Thanks for sharing your grandmother's thoughts. Oh how I wish my gm was still here. She was full of wisdom.

I believe that a good mother who grieves as you, should be canonized as a true saint. When I think of the depth of love to which this kind of grief is equal, it opens up a greater understanding of love's power; not only does love heal but it devastatingly wounds.

"she IS,
but she IS NOT, all at once."

How excellently said, Carol! Grief does a work in us like no other. It is a necessary emotion that has its own time frame. Thank you for so pertinently describing this personal catastrophe.

Hugs

I do not believe anyone would knowingly try to cause anyone heartache...people just do not know what to say when they bump into you at the grocery store, church or school and so sometimes they say the oddest thing that cuts right to your heart.

On July 12, 1997 we lost our son to aplastic anemia. We were very lucky...after the wake and scattering of ashes, we left for a remote cabin in upper Maine with three other families...here we were protected from conversations we did not want to hear. The day before school started I was busy in my classroom writing nametags, bus slips and all the other things a teacher does before school and a volunteer for another teacher stopped in and casually said, " Oh, your going to start the school year...it looks as though you've gotten over it!" My response was cruel ..."Burying a son is not the same as chicken pox!" I later learned that this woman was devastated...and I really feel bad now...but my feelings were RAW and her words just hit me like a tornado.

Ten years have passed...it does get better as the years go by...that's all I can say. Do I talk to him everyday...yup! Does Will "mimic "A's" dancing and crazy antics and expressions...to get me laughing...yup, he does.

The one thing I have learned is everybody grieves differently and they need their own time and space to adjust.

You are right Elizabeth, everyone grieves in their own way. Most important of all is that you grieve. I have family members who have never started their grieving. It is really sad. They think if they don't think or talk about it, it didn't happen???
It is reality and one day they will wake up and it will hit them like a brick wall.

But, we are all different aren't we?

Carol, there are no words I can say to relieve your loss all I can do is offer my prayers to comfort your heart and soul.

I know from watching my biological mother who lost her second child, a girl, grieving for a sister I never knew. I had one brother born before my sister and then my biological mother in a desperate attempt to replace my sister produced 10 more boys before I was born but I was never able to fill that void for her either.

Again, my prayers are with you.

Thank you Debra. Nothing can ever fill the hole left in your heart when you lose a child. I hope your Mom is OK.

I only had one child but I have been told no matter how many you have, you still grieve a lifetime for the ones you lose.

I know first hand what it is to lose a child. I rejoice in her life as much as I grieve in her death... and no one can take that away from me. I find that most people are considerate but if someone isnt I remind myself to let it slide off me because I can still see her little face and I will never stop loving her. She was a gift. (My Olivia)