October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month and with it comes stories from mothers and fathers who have been touched by this type of grief. We hear from clergy who speak up to remind the faithful that we can do better in supporting families affected by this type of death, loss and grief. There is still yet another voice in this conversation that seems to get overlooked in the rush to support mothers and fathers. It is the voice of the siblings. This is something I am more attentive to because I am a bereaved mother who is parenting a bereaved sibling. Because of my experience navigating this path I find myself drawn to bringing awareness to this aspect of family grief associated with pregnancy and infant loss.
When supporting children as they
grieve, it is important to remember their experience is as unique as they
are. What we know about children’s grief
is a guide and we must take into consideration the child’s own emotional and
intellectual maturity. Alongside this,
it is important to equip parents so that they may help their children grieve.
Clergy can be a helpful partner to parents in this process.
It has been little over 5 years
since our Hope died. Our oldest was not
quite three when Hope died. People told me that CJ would not remember. That she
was too little. I know those words were meant to comfort me. They were spoken
to lessen my grief stricken anxiety over how I would help her grieve the death
of her little brother or sister while in the midst of my own grief. However, they were wrong, CJ does remember,
she remembers quite a lot. CJ still will sometimes talk about that week after
Hope’s death, remembering me being so sad and Grammie and Grandpa telling her I
just needed some time alone. She
remembers coming into my room and seeing me crying. As CJ has gotten older, some of the details
may be fuzzy, but there is one detail that is very clear for her. There is a little brother or sister missing
from her life. For my compassionate and nurturing daughter who looked forward
to being a big sister, this is her forever grief.
I looked for resources for parents
and children related to sibling grief specific to early pregnancy loss. I found
very little, in fact I was able to find only one children’s book that I felt
was applicable. My husband and I found
ourselves navigating our daughter’s unique grief without a map or compass. Instead I find myself relying on my knowledge
of general children’s grief and my skills as a chaplain to translate that to
CJ’s unique grief. You may notice that I speak in the present tense. That is
intentional because the first thing I learned was that her grief grows with
her. With each emotional milestone and
greater maturity she asks more questions about what happened to Hope and why
she died. With this comes another season of grief at her new level of
understanding.
To be brutally honest, this is
hard! I have to go back into the depths
of her grief, over and over again. I have to engage hard questions about what
happened. I have to remember honestly
how I felt and share that, because CJ wants to know the truth. And my truth
helps her know what ever she is feeling is ok. It’s hard because her need for
this conversation never comes at a convenient time. And honestly sometimes I
just don’t want to do this again. But I value her need for a healthy grief
process so I will do it over and over again. I will do this because it means
Hope is important enough to CJ and our family to keep remembering Hope.
Time has taught us that we need to
give CJ concrete ways to express her grief and create ways for her to
memorialize Hope for each new re-grieving she goes through. Building our back yard labyrinth, dedicated
as Hope’s Labyrinth, the year after Hope died was a good start. Now CJ wants to write a book about her experience
being Hope’s sister and how she feels about Hope dying. Part of this may just be her wanting to be
like mommy and write a book, but I am confident that it is also part of her own
process of maturing grief. Knowing the benefits of writing one’s story, I will
help her write hers.
Hope’s importance to CJ is often
seen in her desire to share about Hope with others. This usually happens when something around
her reminds her of Hope or if someone else is talking about siblings. When she
shares I feel the palpable discomfort of the person. And I cringe just a
little, but I don’t shut CJ down, instead I honor her need to share about her
sister (CJ has imagined Hope to be a girl). If CJ talks about Hope with you, I
all I would ask is that you simply say you’re sorry Hope died and listen with
caring. All CJ really wants is an
acknowledgment that she is recognized as a sister.
CJ got to see Hope on the sonogram
three days before Hope died. Because of
this CJ started to form her identity as a sister. It is the loss of active
sister roll that she grieves more than anything. The loss of a role is a difficult thing to
grieve as adults – let alone for a kid. So she and I spend a lot of time
talking about how she misses being a sister. I find myself reminding her she is
still Hope’s sister, just like I am still Hope’s mom. We also spend a lot of
time talking about how our small church family is also part of our family. We
explore the opportunities she has to be a good role model and like a big sister
to the younger children at church. She
has a deep need to nurture, and it is a challenge to find ways to fulfill that
need. People have suggested pets, and we had a fish for a while, it helped –
until it died. She keeps asking for a dog.
We know one is most likely in our future in hopes that will help with her
need to nurture others. We are still trying to figure out this aspect of her
grief journey and it is only time that will give the healing being sought.
We quickly learned to be attentive
to situations that would remind CJ of Hope.
For her the big one is the start of school each year as she sees older
kids dropping off their younger brothers and sisters. We found it helpful to engage the knowledge
and support of her school social worker. We also realized it was good for CJ to
have a safe place other than us to talk about Hope. It gives us the room we need to breath and
regroup. Now with three years of starts of school under our collective belts,
we know we need to have the reminder conversation with her about how the start
of school reminds her of Hope. We help
her remember her coping plan for the first week of school. We also know that once CJ gets through that
first week, the grief will once again lessen.
Our journey has taught me that just
like my own personal grief, CJ’s grief will take its own course and have its
own timeline. In my uncertainty as a parent I must trust in God’s grace and
believe that her healing is coming from our compassionate listening and space
giving to her grief.
Now it is time for us all to learn
from her young voice. It is time to remember that the sisters and brothers
grieve too.
