As you try to find your feet in this new world of loss, you will inevitably look around to your friends and family for support and comfort. Sometimes it can feel impossible to communicate our needs clearly, particularly in the early days or when our grief is especially choking, and those around us struggle to know what to say. This chapter is written with the idea that it can be shared with those you look to turn to, offering guidance and confidence in the support they can offer.
A loved one has experienced a huge loss. What do you do? How can you help? How do you ensure you bring comfort rather than add to the burden? Well,
You can be brave. You can gather courage in your belly and REACH OUT. Don’t send the half-hearted text fluffed with well wishes of ‘Call me if you need me’; understand that your friend can’t always find the strength to pick up the phone. She doesn’t want to be a burden, she doesn’t want to ruin your day with misery and tears. Yes, her silence might be an indication of her need for space, but as a friend it is your duty to find out.
You can say ‘I can’t imagine your pain’ rather than ‘I know how you feel’.
You can say ‘I don’t know why this had to happen’ rather than ‘Everything happens for a reason’.
You can understand that some phrases that are banded about are not actually of any comfort at all. Her baby is not ‘in a better place’; what better place is there than in a mother’s arms? It is easy to say ‘God needed another angel’ when he didn’t choose your own baby. You can refrain from saying ‘at least’ – ‘at least you have other children’, ‘at least you know you can get pregnant’, ‘at least you didn’t have to give birth’, ‘at least they lived for a while’, ‘at least you saw their eyes’ … There is no at least when your baby has died. There are things to be celebrated yes, but nothing is ever compensation for the loss.
You can take the time to put yourself in your friend’s shoes, as best as you can, and imagine what you would want to hear, what you would really want hear, not just repeat an outdated and miscalculated script. If you don’t know what to say then say exactly that: ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to say.’
You can open your ears. You can listen if your friend wants to talk about her baby, and listen if she doesn’t. You can anticipate that some days she may want to sit within her own bubble and other days she may be seeking the courage to step out of it. You can hear the same story and the same emotions on repeat and listen as though it was the first time you have ever heard them.
If your friend wants to talk about her baby, then you can ask her about her baby. You can ask how it felt to hold them; did they look like her mum or her dad, did they have any little quirks like long fingers or big feet, did they have any hair, what colour was it? You can look at the bump photographs and see two people, a mother and a baby, and you can understand that life began long before birth. You can look at the grainy scan picture and realise that this was the beginnings of a little beating life, no matter how tiny and blurred to the eye – this was your friend’s future. You can look at photographs of her baby without wincing. Photos of babies born prematurely, of those that have been stillborn or taken after a baby has died, may not look like the catalogue images we have been conditioned to see. You may notice the delicate pink paper-thin skin, the watercolours of bruising or the darkened lips, and these photographs may crush your heart, quite rightly so. But you can also see the loved baby, the wanted baby, the family photograph. You can shed a tear instead of a gasp, you can smile and comment, ‘How beautiful your baby is!’ You can be assured that all babies are beautiful whether dead or alive.
You can respect their grief. You can expect there will be days when she is happy and seemingly carefree, just as there will be days when she is glued to her duvet and hurting beyond belief. You can understand that there may be no rhyme or reason to her flow of emotions that day, that even the smallest reminder could be either a trigger or a comfort. You can know that time doesn’t always heal, there is no breaking through to the ‘other side’ of grief, there is no ‘getting over’ her loss. Like a shadow, her grief is with her always but just not always so visible. You can recognise that next year she will be hurting, and the year after that, and even in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time her heart will remain fractured. You can refrain from judging her grief, from suggesting she is grieving for too long or too hard. While time passes and her loss may feel like a long time ago, for her it is every day. You can know that talking about her baby doesn’t mean she is stuck in the past, it simply means she is carrying them with her into her future. Perhaps she will go on to have more children, but she will always be missing one.
You can let her own her pain. Have we experienced something similar? Perhaps our grandma died, our aunty or our cat. It’s not the same. It’s never the same. Losing your baby is out of the natural order of life, burying a child isn’t what we expect, not something we should have to do. Losing your baby is an experience within itself, there’s no comparison to be made. We can draw from our personal experiences, yes, but we cannot compare. You can know that losing her baby is painful for her and that pain is hers to own.
You can be patient. You can know that grief is relentless and ongoing. You can understand that you may not always understand. You can trust that your friend is finding her way, in her own way, and that will take time. You can share the highs, catch the lows. You can know that a day of smiling and fundraising and inspirational thoughts can coexist alongside shattered grief and desperation to hold her baby.
It doesn’t have to be one or the other, strong and weak, happy and sad, brave and fearful, they can all live beside each other. You can understand that they are irrevocably changed and yet still the same person we have always loved. You can recognise that her life will now and forever exist as a before and after, that she is no longer the person she once was. In the triumphs of the highs and the devastation of the lows, a whole new person has risen, an entirely altered life perspective and a whole new set of insecurities and doubt.
You can see that despite this monumental shift, your friend is still your friend. Different but the same. Still human, still doing daily chores and still laughing at your long-standing jokes, but now a little bruised around the heart, cancelling some plans because she’s tired, truly tired, and hibernating when the celebrations that roll around feel impossible.
You can join in her remembrance. You can celebrate her baby alongside her. You can tell her when you have been thinking about her baby, send a message as you pass by the butterfly or the snowflake or the flower that sparks their legacy. You can carry them with you on trips and holidays, write their names in the sand on your beach walk, and light a candle in their memory at the historical cathedral. You can remind her that her baby is never forgotten and is loved far and wide. You can speak her baby’s name with confidence and love. Never are we reminding her that her baby died, she will never forget that, instead you remind her that they lived, they are loved and they are remembered.
You can give them the gift of TIME. Great big slices of our lifetime boxed up with a huge generous bow. Time together, time apart, time remembering, time talking, time listening, time doing, time being. Lashings of time, carefully considered and gently distributed. You can keep the silent promise you made in your friendship to just be there. Whether you are putting together a food parcel in those dark days when eating is a chore, or smiling as your friend recalls the moment she first discovered she was pregnant. Physically, virtually, emotionally. You can be there.
And finally, the greatest gift you can give to a bereaved mother is the knowledge that her baby will be forever remembered. Whether your friend publicly shares her baby or keeps her loss so very private and close to her heart, you can bet your bottom dollar she is fearful her baby will be forgotten. You can follow her lead and include her baby in life events. Address a Christmas card to mother, father and baby. If that feels too bold then add ‘and remembering baby’. A mother and father NEVER forget their baby, can you ever imagine forgetting your own?
Living or not, once they are created their existence is forever. You can give your friend the greatest gift by simply remembering her baby.