The loss of a Child

I overhead a conversation that my husband was having last night with a friend about the loss of another friend’s son. He said "People say that they can't imagine the loss of a child but the opposite is true. You CAN imagine the loss and it hurts too much to comprehend!". This is so accurate. As I was sharing it with my mom today, I told her that people often don't understand how, after 27 years, I still talk about Robby. As if the time should make him go away. The best analogy came to me that really helped her, and I thought I would share it to help my friends understand a little better. The loss of a child is like an amputation of a limb (let's say, your right arm). At first the trauma hurts all of the time. The prospect of living the rest of your life without your right arm feels unimaginable and the idea that the pain will ever end, impossible! Time freezes and you can’t believe that you will ever have a “normal” life again. Everyone who knew you with your right arm surrounds you with support and encouragement, to help you deal with the loss of your arm. No one can imagine you without both arms either! In time though, you learn to do things with your left arm. The fresh wound heals and it doesn't consume your every waking moment. Time has marched on and you’ve adjusted to this “new normal”.

Your friends get used to seeing you with only one arm too and they barely think about it anymore. It’s like things are just back to “normal” and they assume that you’ve “dealt with it”. Some may even get tired of hearing about it, if you do bring it up. But in your dreams you still dream as if you are whole again. Never a day goes by that you don't remember what it was like to have all your limbs. Life was so much easier and carefree when you were whole but you have survived and even thrived in some ways, because you’ve been given deeper understandings about your strength and character. You’ve developed new empathy for others too. Your life has changed, for sure, and some of those changes have been good. Have you learned to live without your right arm? Yes. Do you miss your arm and still feel not quite whole, yes.... A child never goes away. They will always be a part of our families and who we are as human beings, for the rest of our days. We go on though. We find joy and happiness again. We don't want to wallow in sorrow the rest of our lives and we know our children would be disappointed in us if we did.

My prayer since the day Robby died is that I live a life that makes him proud. He only lived 2 1/2 years but he impacted the lives of more people than many people in their 80’s or 90’s have.

If our lives are eternal, as I believe they are, then it’s not the amount of time spent on this earth that matters. It’s the impact that we’ve had on others that’s important!