Grief remains one of the most misunderstood emotional journeys of modern times. Even those grieving can struggle to get a handle on it, and those who are yet to truly experience such a deeply personal and all-consuming grief will potentially have real difficulty in grasping it at all. While I do sense a slow shift in the understanding of grief in society, it is still woefully miss-marketed, and grieving the loss of your own baby adds a whole other painful and confusing dimension. It goes without saying that every single person grieves in their own way, there is no right or wrong way to mourn our loss, and while it is simply impossible to write a single chapter tailored for each individual, the basic truths remain universal.
The first thing to get our heads around is the fact that grief is not a passing phase, but rather something we carry with us forever. Sometimes it will feel gritty and dark, a weight that pulls us down into our darkest and loneliest moments, and sometimes it will feel light enough to draw inspiration from. Either way, grief is a journey, an experience, something that remains part of us for our entire lifetime.
If that sounds scary then you can consider that your grief is simply a reflection of your love. Without love there is no grief, and of course you will always love your baby and therefore you will always grieve. Grief lasts forever because love lasts forever. I don’t really believe in a ‘grieving period’, in fact I think we should rub this phrase out the Western dictionary and be done with it. The idea that when someone dies we grieve for a bit, gradually feel better and then eventually heal is painfully misleading, and yet it still often remains the expected norm. Phrases like ‘time is a healer’ and ‘the first year is the worst’ are neither truthful nor helpful for a person grieving their baby.
Our grief is fluid. It fluctuates, rises and falls, with passing anniversaries and milestones. Sometimes it exists only as background noise, a soft ongoing hum, other times we are at the mercy of an entire full volume concert.
This doesn’t mean you must brace yourself for a lifetime of absolutely agonising grief, but it does mean we can prepare ourselves to let go of the notion that it will end. We are grieving when we sit soaked in tears on the nursery floor, we are grieving when we laugh with our friends. Sometimes an all-consuming pain, sometimes a gentle ache, but always it is there. The notion that grief is a phase, something to push through until we reach the other side, is utterly misplaced. We can begin to accept that grief has no finish line, when we lose our baby there will never be a moment when we are finished grieving, never will the time come when we say ‘I’m OK now, I’m not sad about my loss anymore’. You will never ‘get over’ the loss of your baby, and that is OK.
To those around you there is a need to fix things, and grief can be seen as a problem to solve. But, of course, the grieving know that you cannot solve a broken heart just as you cannot replace a missing loved one. There is no solving grief, there is only experiencing grief. It’s difficult for those around us to witness, particularly when they are dealing with their own grief too.
Some people may shy away from your grief, too intimidated by the feat of comforting a bereaved parent, too frightened to be reminded of their own mortality, too wary of saying or doing the wrong thing.
We have to make our own personal choices on how we react to those we lose among the shattered remains of our loss, but I’m always aware of the magnitude of such an emotional bombshell and the difficulty some people will ultimately have in navigating that. In other words, there are some friends or family that may never be able to help comfort us because of their own emotional limitations. No one ever expects a baby to die and no one really expects a pregnancy to end in its infancy. No one is ever prepared to deal with it. We can never truly expect others to understand our personal pain, and while there are likely to be some friends and family we can turn to at any moment, there are also likely to be relationships left behind after loss.
When our whole world is altered so drastically, we may discover that some friendships are no longer so easily compatible. My experience of this is that a huge event can pull people apart, but that time and space can bring them back together. It is easier to not write people off altogether, and instead to put them aside with the understanding that the loss of a baby is devastating in many more ways than just the obvious black and white.
We may face hurtful comments. There is the usual role call: ‘Everything happens for a reason’, ‘God needed another angel’, ‘It wasn’t meant to be’ and, perhaps the most hurtful, ‘At least it happened early on’. When comments like this are thrown around, it is our duty to reply with gentle honesty and a good intention, to explain carefully why these statements aren’t comforting. People say these things because they don’t know what else to say.
It’s not easy—comments like these inflict huge amounts of pain. While we could easily reply with anger, we are likely to lose a friend and they are likely to be left feeling awful. If it is possible, we can take time after the comment to gather our thoughts rather than responding immediately. Comfort was offered but it was not received, we can now take the chance to honour our babies by talking openly and providing the chance for both parties to reflect. You can see this as part of your baby’s lasting legacy; to educate, alter perspectives and deepen understanding. Our babies are at it again, teaching those around us about life and death.
You can build a positive relationship with your grief. There is a saying, ‘Grief is just love with no place to go’, and it’s spot on. In this sense, you can remember that grief is a necessity, your baby is important to you and they deserve your love and that is inclusive of your grief. It is incredibly difficult to manage at times, a searing burn that demands attention, but always, even at its most painful, it exists because of the love you have for your baby. It is part of your connection to your baby.
There is no right way to live with grief, but it is undeniable that we will be living with grief for the rest of our lives now, and so we can begin to accept that we will have ‘good moments’ and ‘bad moments’, but neither are right or wrong. I found that people often commented about how strong I was when I was fundraising and writing uplifting and inspirational posts, but at times when I was feeling drowned and missing my son so deeply, I was met with ‘chin up’ comments or advised to speak with a therapist. Of course, therapy is absolutely a sensible path when grieving, but really it felt as though when I was upset I was considered to be ‘weak’.
What I came to realise over time was that grieving in all its aspects takes great strength, and weak and strong are not mutually exclusive. When I was working with charities I was strong, when I cried on the nursery floor clutching my baby’s empty clothes I was strong. And so are you. Because it takes strength to accept those painful feelings into your heart and to face the devastating fact that your own flesh and blood has died.
When I miscarried I hibernated, I wanted to be as physically invisible as I felt. That was not weak, that was recognition of what my heart required; that wasn’t me escaping, it was me taking refuge. Confronting grief with all its harsh realities is strong, allowing yourself to feel weak is strong, just living takes strength when you lose your baby. You may come to realise that you do not want to part with your grief as it is united with your baby, and we ultimately hold tight anything that connects us with them.
Your grief is representative of your love. It is natural, part of your baby’s legacy and a piece of them you will always carry with you.
Something noticeable within the world of the grieving is the shift in other people’s attitude over time. I remember when my baby boy first died there was an overwhelming outpouring of love from people close to us. The death of a newborn baby was just too sad to comprehend, people sent messages of love, gifts in his memory, his nursery was decorated in cards and flowers. It was in the immediate aftermath that people around me felt his loss the greatest. And yet my own personal experience was one of initial shock and muddled denial. Motivated by the love for my son and in a state of disbelief, I felt numb to the pain. In the beginning my grief was raw yet gentle, I woke up crying and I fell asleep crying. Those early days of grief were both devastating and proactive all at the same time, heartbroken yet motivated to continue his legacy. Of course everyone’s experience differs, but I was so protected by shock that I barely cried at my own baby’s funeral, and yet a few weeks into life with our newborn baby daughter I found myself so choked by grief I was literally gasping for air. I needed support in the initial first days, yes, and I also still need it years later.
But I slowly found that people’s attitudes to my grief altered over time. What began as ‘call me anytime’ and ‘you’re doing so well’ slowly hardened into confusion and ‘perhaps you should see a doctor’. When friends saw me feeling low and asked what was wrong, I wanted to scream, ‘My baby died and he’s still dead. Time has passed but I’m still hurting.’ I know they meant well, but grief is so ongoing, it is relentless and repetitive. You may begin to feel increasingly left behind.
Just a few weeks after Winter died I distinctly remember seeing my Facebook feed awash with friends’ nights out and daft throw-away updates, and I genuinely wondered how the hell everyone else could go about life so nonchalantly. Had they forgotten my baby was dead? How could the world be so insensitive and carry on so brazenly while I was destined to always live a life without my child? Grief does ultimately bring with it an element of selfishness, after all we are the only ones so entirely absorbed in our own world, and life for others does, quite rightly, go on. Regardless, this experience can leave you feeling isolated and angry.
When you grieve you want the whole world to grieve with you, your baby is so important and their loss so monumental.
At times when I was feeling this loneliness, as though no one else cared enough, I thought instead about others around me who had lost a loved one. I took a moment to think about how my experience of their loss was different to their own experience in that moment – I had carried on living my life while theirs had forever changed, but still I had thought of them often and reached out at times. When your baby dies, you are the first crack in the ice, you are at the centre of the loss. But that crack extends, it continues to fragment and blister, and continually those around you are affected in one way or another, it is just so difficult to see when our own bubble is so clouded and fogged with our own personal pain. Those around you don’t forget, they are simply living a different experience to you. They are not living the same experience and so they cannot feel the same experience and vice-versa. They do not feel it the same, so they cannot live it the same.
There is a saying ‘Grief is the price we pay for love’ and of course our babies are so deeply and unconditionally loved that our grief will continue to exist as long as we do. When we really consider it, love always ends with grief. We love those around us knowing that we will one day be separated by death, and yet still we choose to love them. Why? Because the experience of that love is worth the pain in the ending, our grief is the legacy of our love. Here are some tips to help you make sense of your grief:
Remain confident in your knowledge that there is no right or wrong way to grieve.
Remove time limits and expectations on your grief.
Take this opportunity to gently educate those around you. When a friend misjudges your emotions and can’t understand your pain, you can explain it to them. If someone makes a comment that doesn’t sit well with your grief, you can tell them.
Remember that grief is love, grieving isn’t negative, it is necessary.