Almost 7 months since I lost my everything.
I know it’s still early but it seems like forever and both yesterday.
I don’t know if it’s a period when lots of significant dates are happening or if it’s Spring and my first summer without her, or thinking back to the horrendous summer we had last year or just the absolute terror of the first anniversary looming ahead but I am still in pieces.
My heart still lurches and drops to the pit of my stomach when I hear/see/smell anything remotely connected to her. I am constantly fighting back the tears and I’m terrified I won’t make it to the safety of my room before I completely break down and fall to the floor sobbing with the ache of the empty chasm in my soul.
I still try to fool myself into thinking she hasn’t gone and avoid all her photos, music and words.
There is so much pain I keep inside, so much I cannot say and so much I cannot write. I cannot see the point in living when life can only cause me pain. I just want to be with her, hold her and tell her to never leave me again. I want this world to stop.
My heart hurts for you.
Although I don’t completely understand. I have recently lost my nephew under very tragic circumstances. Our family is very close and my nephews are like children to me. All our boys are immensely close.
I’m grieving losing him and I’m also grieving for my sister. Watching the pain she is going through is incomprehensible to most people. The devastating affect on the whole family goes far beyond most people’s worst nightmares.
It’s too soon for her to start a child bereavement group as it’s needs to be 3 months after your loss. But have you tried a local parental bereavement group.? To speak with others who have experienced the loss of a child. It may be a comfort to listen to other parents and how they are managing to cope with life . Sending you heartfelt thoughts
I have a sister who adored my girl too, she has two grown up sons so my daughter was a joy to her.
I have tried counselling and I recently attended a group for bereaved parents but neither helped. The counsellor couldn’t understand my grief could be so different to losing a parent and I’m afraid the group are all internalising their own grief. I found I was swamped by parents wanting to share their pain and talk about their child that it left no room for me to share mine. Which is why I’m asking is it just me?
I cannot seem to find solace or comfort anywhere, no one or no thing can help.
I am still ripped apart by a single innocent
word in a ‘normal’ conversation that transports me back to another time, it can spark a happy memory or it can be of a time
when she was racked with pain, both have
the same effect… overwhelming sadness and loss.
I feel pathetic to be honest because this is where I am trapped and I am incapable of
anything else, I lack the energy and the motivation.
Hold your sister up and never leave her side.
There are no words or actions people can say or do.
Although it’s extremely early days for my sister , she has found a mum ( mother of her son’s friend ) who lost a son 18 months ago . She has found some comfort in speaking with her regularly. They had never spoken before this happened. She is watching how she has somehow managing to carry on.
Understandly, she has distanced her self from most of us at the moment. Whicj has been difficult as we are extremely close, we spoke every day.
I can do nothing but be here for her when she is ready. I hope you can find someone you can talk to, who can give you some bit of hope on how to carry on through this.
Do you have anyone at home with you?
It’s perfectly normal to retreat from family and friends I think. As much as you loved your nephew and as much as you are grieving too, you can never fully understand the grief of losing a child until it happens to you.
My daughter was first diagnosed with cancer when she was just eight years old so I thought I had a pretty good idea of how devastating it would be to lose a child. I also became friends with other parents whose children had cancer. When two of these friends lost their children I thought I was understanding, supportive and had an idea of what their pain was… I was not even in the same universe when it came to understanding.
It wasn’t because I didn’t care but because to feel just the slightest degree of the pain of losing a child is too much, no one survives this pain without losing themselves, that great big gaping black hole in the core of our being is the part our children take with them.
Your sister will need you, I know she will seek out others who will know her pain but she will always need her family.
I have one sister and two brothers, I have not seen one brother since my daughter’s funeral and the other only twice. It hurts.
I don’t always want to see them but I always want to know they are there when I do.
I have one other daughter, she has moved back home with me. We live in the same space but grieve a different person, she grieves a sister, I grieve a child. She understands and for that I am eternally grateful, I feel she deserves better than I am able to give.