This is How Healing Can Be Possible After the Death of A Child
A Mother’s grief; a child’s death… the path of acceptance in healing.
What is Grief?
An uncontrollable manifestation of your heart; full of love for another living being, now without that source of love and that living being — to love.
A child may be your first introduction to unequivocal, unconditional, and unwavering love. This love is like no other. This love and the grief of loss of this love is immobilizing, unrelenting, and all-consuming. It may shatter your beliefs and destroy your will; your faith, and what holds meaning if your life, if you allow it.
What allows a parent to come back from this edge; this unfathomable experience, is a decision; a decision to allow for acceptance — even if one can never find ‘just’ explanation or forbearing meaning. If you hold acceptance, for what has already happened, for what is unchangeable; then you are able to exist in the same space as what was once your life.
Life is never quite the same; it will never be the same. You have been broken. You can heal and laugh again but not for some time. The grief, the loss, the unbearable and inconceivable pain is your first and all-consuming point of focus. You may continue to hold thoughts that cause you to suffer; thoughts of what you may have done wrong, thoughts of what you could have done better, thoughts of when you did not love enough or completely.
You can live in the torment of suffering indefinitely because you will always be able to find your humanness; and in that, your error, your anger, moments in which you lacked control as a parent, moments in which you were not able to be at your best; directed at this pure, innocent, beautiful being that you love so much.
Your child has taught you through their perfect entry into this world how to love; how to love so completely and without the conditions that you hold for others and possibly for yourself. Now you fight through the pain and suffering of this tormented loss, and as well guilt, anger and sadness. This is all too much.
You may choose to blame another; to blame god; the situation, or life itself. However, blame only adds fire to your pain, it intensifies your suffering and misguides the real work of living in the acceptance of “what is” as you continue to mourn; to process the uncontrollable bombardment of feelings, and to desperately find acceptance and peace.
Blame does not allow for acceptance; nor the love that you still hold for this child — to be felt — in the ‘here and now’. In blame, you will have created a depleted and hollow void, that only serves to inflict self-torture.
Blame removes the loving memories that surface; the memories that remind you of the most incredible privilege; that is — to love another so deeply and completely. Without these beautiful, ‘heart overflowing with love-filled’ memories for you to call upon and to be grateful for, there is little to hold you together; to find solace in, as you seek to live in the reality of the present moment, and the life that you will live without this child.
Q: How does one find the path of acceptance for a loss of such magnitude?
A: Acceptance arises in the present moment; in your ability to acknowledge “what is”; to begin here.
Acceptance is not “getting over” your loss. Acceptance is an accurate perspective in which to review the time and place for where you currently are; for what “is” in this moment. Know that there is a bridge to this awakened state that will rise up from within you the moment that you transcend into acceptance — nothing more, nothing less.
Acceptance is where you will be able to exist once again; to enjoy moments of laughter and happiness, and to feel the peace for ‘what is’ and remains, with much beauty and love.
Acceptance is ‘to receive’, ‘to endure’, ‘to recognize as true’.
Acceptance is …nothing more; simply the acknowledgement of “what is”. First to feel the unbearable loss of great love; then to remember the consecutive path into solace, comfort, and strength - to thrive in the power of acceptance; together with the feelings of unconditional love that you continue to hold in your heart — with gratitude. For nothing can subdue the intensity of a mother’s love.
Namaste
Acknowledging that it is both fathers and mothers who experience unbearable pain in the loss of a child, I felt compelled to focus on the perspective of a mother at this time. I hope that this writing may offer great comfort and help for both fathers and mothers in grieving.
for: Vanessa Laine Bryant and Pamela Bryant; and all mothers (and fathers) who have lost a child unexpectedly, tragically. May you find peace … in acceptance.
Find Dorothy here: www.dorothyratusny, The Wisdom Blog, and The WISDOM podcast.
