Parental grief at loss of child

Dear Editor,

I am responding to an article in KN Oct 26, by Mr. Adam Harris, `The day I did the unthinkable.’

“There is no more devastating loss than the death of a child. Sudden death is a contradiction to everything that is known to be true in life. Losing a child to sudden death is a disruption in the natural law and order of life. It is a heartbreak like no other.

“Parental grief is different from other losses—it is intensified, exaggerated and lengthened…. The loss of a child is the loss of innocence, the death of the most vulnerable and dependent. The death of a child signifies the loss of the future, of hopes and dreams, of new strength, and of perfection,” writes (Arnold and Gemma).

Rarely do we find a person like Mr. Adam Harris whom in the midst of grief, loss and tragedy is so brutally honest about his pain, suffering and struggles.

In his book, “Soaring into Magnificence -Cancer: From Illness to Holiness,” GHK Lall writes regarding his grief and the death of his wife: “drinking from a bitter cup is hard enough, not being bitter is another story altogether.”

In 1994, for Mr. Harris’s son, Alan, life had begun to go downhill. Sometimes as parents we could see a child’s life slowly slipping away, but there is nothing that we can do to change it. While some parents accept their powerlessness regarding the situation by preparing for the best but expecting the worst, others simply choose to ignore it and live in denial.

When a child dies, some parents feel guilt and shame for not being a better parent. To help parents to cope with their guilt, shame, grief, and loss of a child, I suggest to Mr. Harris to create a support group and a weekly newspaper column for parents who lose their children.

In Mr. Harris’s article, I hear a man who is asking for forgiveness and acknowledging his mistakes. He confesses: “There was a lot wrong with him (Alan). I quarrelled with him over his drinking; I beseeched him to stop but I kept pandering to his financial requests. There were times when he told me that he wanted money for gasoline when I knew otherwise, but I gave him.”

The lesson here for all of us parents is this: quarrelling and pandering doesn’t change children. We must accept the things we cannot change about our children and change the things we can.

Speaking about his grief, he writes, “I had to be strong,” I hear people say it a lot, but it’s not true. The truth is that during grief, we don’t have to be strong. It’s when we’re weak, that we then become strong.

When a child dies, parents blame each other. They also turn on each other, rather than turn to each other. Instead of needing each other, they needle each other, which makes the death and grief even more painful.

Grieving is a process, and it takes time, less time for some and longer time for others. It has a mind of its own. Don’t force it or try to speed up the process, just be patient and walk through it. It goes smoother, faster, and better that way.

GHK Lall added, “Grieving is a process, it cannot be hurried, must not be denied. And grieving is our way of mending through one enveloping blanket of anguish threaded with the embrace of countless memories that gives the courage to go forward. Grieving is honoring our dead, living our faith, and overcoming ourselves enough to trust and believe.”

Finally, Mr. Harris blamed himself for his son failures. Just because my father was not a good father doesn’t mean that I can’t become a good person. One other difficult thing for some parents to do is to not accept blame for our children’s failures. Every parent make mistakes. But this doesn’t mean that the parents have to accept all the blame for their children’s mistakes. Children have to accept some blame for their own mistakes too.

 Yours faithfully,

Anthony Pantlitz