February 2018

Anecdote 19: How to behave around someone who lost a child, part four

Anecdotes from Avi

Introduction

During the last anecdote we likened the loss of a child to the permanent loss of dancer’s legs. We will now conclude our discussion of how to behave around a bereaved parent with a set of dos and don’ts.

Dos and don’ts

When you are around, or with, a bereaved parent and you are together in order to discuss a specific purpose, then keep that purpose in mind. If you are together for a social meeting and have no specific reason other than being together, you should behave with the bereaved parent as you would behave around anyone else. The subject of the loss child may be brought up and discussed, it is not a taboo subject. In other words be yourself.

Don’ts

Your job is not to assume that you need to cheer the bereaved parent up
Your job is not to do one better and tell a story of a loss in your life
It is not your job to dictate how the bereaved parent should feel.
It is not your job to repeat every time you meet a bereaved parent that such a tragedy should happen to no parent

Dos

Allow the bereaved parent to have a burst of sadness, tears or cry without you needing to “fix” it or cheer the bereaved parent up. At times an event will trigger a memory in the bereaved parent. The emotions that are wrapped around the lost child are intense and as such may result in an uncontrolled burst of emotions. Those emotions will subside, the bereaved parent will regain control. What you can do is give that bereaved parent the gift of time and space and allow the bereaved parent to regain composure. After Peggy found Ben’s lifeless body we called 911 and started CPR in an attempt to bring Ben back to life, the paramedics arrived shortly thereafter and determined that Ben is gone at which point the police wanted no one in Ben’s room. Nevertheless, Peggy refused to leave Ben’s side because she did not want Ben left alone. A year, or so, later during lunch, a lady told me about the loss of her father and how busy she was arranging the funeral and burial. All this time she was so busy she could not think about the loss of her father. Then when people left the funeral home it was the first time she could wrestle with the loss itself and she could not bring herself to leave her dad’s coffin’s side, because she did not want her father left alone. When I heard the story I thought of Peggy and burst in tears. The lady allowed me the time to finish my tears. I explained what raw emotion her story touched.
If the lost child died due to an overdose, the term “junkie” for a drug user is a painful description for a bereaved parent. So is the opinion that “junkies do not deserve to live”. Bereaved parents tend to learn about addiction and in general believe the scientific diagnosis that addiction is a mental disease and like any other disease the addicted person deserves treatment. A bereaved parent may not be in the mood or may not have the mental energy to argue the scientific findings with a person who wants to express their opinion with no scientific backing.

We thank you for taking the time to read these anecdotes.

Prev: Part three

Avi,

The BTFMovement

You are not invincible –Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

February 2018

Anecdote 18: How to behave around someone who lost a child, part three

Anecdotes from Avi

Prev: part two Next: part four

Introduction

During the last anecdote we discussed our human inability to understand an emotion that we did not experience. We will now try to relate the emotion of a loss of a child with another experience.

Loss of a child

A bereaved parent, has in a way lost a part of herself/himself. Especially a senseless loss, like loss due to an overdose. This loss is wrapped with trauma, sorrow, self-pity, regrets, guilt and constantly going over in one’s mind “what if I said …”, “what if I did …”, “what if I understood …” and “only if my spouse did/understand/do …”.

The emotions, the pain, the trauma wrapped around a loss of a child are invisible to others mostly because most of us do not experience such a loss and obviously it leaves no external visible marks. We all know sadness, disappointment and heartbreak, they all pass away with time. These experiences of sadness, disappointment and heartbreak do not reflect on the emotions of a loss of a child.

For the sake of this discussion let’s liken the loss of a child to a dancer who spent years perfecting her dancing skills, worked hard at perfecting these skills and sacrificed practically everything else in life for these skills; then due to an accident, she lost her legs and now is confined to a wheelchair. The difference between the loss of a child and the dancer’s loss of legs is that the loss of legs is a visible condition while the loss of a child is an invisible condition.

A dancer who lost her legs now needs to learn to live her life without the use of her legs and without constantly working on her dream–dancing. Similarly, a parent who lost a child needs to learn to live without the child and without the work toward the future of that child and future grandchildren from the lost child. When the dancer says: “I don’t feel the same” people around her “understand”. When the dancer says: “I still cry over the loss of my legs and my inability to dance” even years after the accident, no one feels that she needs to be schooled about how she should feel, or that she needs to “move on”.

The memory of the lost child

The parent who lost a child wishes above all that the memory of the child will not be lost. A lady who lost her daughter wrote on Facebook: “If you mention my daughter’s name I may cry, but if you don’t I will be devastated.”

Next anecdote: We will conclude our discussion with dos and don’ts.

Prev: part two Next: part four

Avi,

The BTFMovement

You are not invincible –Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

January 2018

Anecdote 17: How to behave around someone who lost a child, part two

Anecdotes from Avi

prev: part one next: part three

Introduction

During the previous anecdote we introduced a name for a parent who lost a child as “Bereaved parent”.

Understanding emotions

We, as people, are very good at feeling empathy toward someone else. We “understand” how someone feels because we have gone through that experience ourselves. We know how we felt while and after we have passed through an experience and as such we believe that others feel the same way, when they go through a similar experience. Moreover, we re-feel those emotions when we see (or understand) that someone is going through the experience that we had gone through. In the absence of going through the experience we cannot “understand” how someone else feels.

We know the feeling when we see someone who is elated because they achieved an A grade on an exam or report card and we know the feeling when we see someone hurt because they were cheated by a cunning sales person. However, we do not know the feeling of weightlessness.

During a talk show the interviewer asked an astronaut how does weightlessness feel? More than it “feels great” and “pleasurable” the astronaut could not explain “how it feels”. Better yet, the astronaut’s wife could not explain it either and she elected to tell that her husband needs to relearn that if he leaves the toothpaste tube in mid-air, it will not stay there.

During birth giving the nurses told Peggy, my wife, to let the contraction build up. After Ben was born I asked Peggy if “letting the contraction build up” made sense to which she replied: “Yes it does”. Though she could not explain the process of letting the contraction build up, at least not in a way that I understand. It seems that a physical feeling is just as hard to explain as an emotional feeling, to someone who did not go through the experience.

In general, we as a society, accept that if we did not experience it then we don’t “understand” it. It is generally accepted that men do not understand the feeling, the emotions, the experience of pregnancy and giving birth. Men do not understand how it feels to have a baby roll inside or feel a baby kick on the inside; the pain, the exhaustion, the euphoria of giving birth or the joy of first breast feeding; and in general, we, as a society, do not expect men to understand any of it.

When it comes to a loss of a child many times people feel that they are responsible for uplifting the spirit of a bereaved parent. At times people feel bad about the state of the bereaved parent and are afraid of making things worse by saying or doing the wrong thing, therefore some people end up shunning the bereaved parent.

Next anecdote: We will draw an analogy in an attempt to exemplify the emotions around the loss of a child.

prev: part one next: part three

Avi,

The BTFMovement

You are not invincible –Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

December 2017

Anecdote 16: How to behave around someone who lost a child, part one

Anecdotes from Avi

Prev: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part eleven Next: Part two

Introduction

We are starting a new topic and as usual we take no responsibility for the actions you take to help yourself and your children. The information I share here is true as it relates to my wife and I, our experience and the knowledge I amassed since our son, Ben, passed on. With that I expect that you apply the information that I share as it best applies to you and your situation. With that let’s get started.

At times people do not know what to say or how to act and react with a parent who lost a child. At times people feel that they need to say something “smart” so that the person who lost a child will feel better; sometimes people try to dictate how the person who lost a child should feel; at times people try to put a time limit to mourning; and at times someone needs to do “a one better” by reporting, to the mourning parent(s), about a loss of someone or someones in their lives. I will try to bring to light the side of the parent who lost a child, something that most folks did not get to experience (and we all hope that they never do) and deal with the question of how to behave and what to say to someone who lost a child.

Nomenclature

A person who lost his parents is an orphan, a woman who lost her husband is a widow, a man who lost his wife is a widower, but a parent who lost a child has no descriptive word in the English language. In order to talk about the subject without constantly writing the sentence “a parent who lost a child” I will borrow a phrase from Hebrew “bereaved parent” (הורה שכול).

Next anecdote: we will discuss: understanding emotions

Avi,

The BTFMovement

Prev: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part eleven Next: Part two

You are not invincible –Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny