Motherhood has brought on a whole new component to my grief journey, parenting while grieving, as I am faced with the loss and grief my children experience as a result of my parents being gone.
My oldest daughter, almost 6, is very insightful and emotional, and at around the age of 4 started making the connection between mommy’s parents being in heaven and the fact that mommy will someday die too. When you’re driving down the road with your 4-year-old and 1-year-old singing music class songs, the last question you expect is…”Mommy, since your mom and dad died before you were a mommy, does that mean that you will die before I am a mommy?”
Wow! Talk about the question that felt like somebody punched me in the stomach. My eyes immediately welled up with tears and my heart burned for what my daughter was realizing. I remember being 5, 6, 7 years old after my mom died and waking up in the middle of the night petrified that my dad, my sister, or I was going to die too. The last thing I want for my children is for them to experience that same fear and here I was, facing that reality.
And then the tough part comes…reassuring my 4-year-old that mommy will be with her for a very long time, even though I know there is no certainty to that statement. That initial question was the benchmark for many conversations between my daughter and me about why Grandma Tina and Grandpa Larry died, how it is not fair that she never got to meet them, and her needing reassurance that mommy and daddy aren’t going anywhere.
These are the questions that wake up the most unexpected emotions and remind me how important it is to remember that grief is a journey and not a task with an end date because at the age of 4, I was a grieving child, and at the age of 36, I am a grieving mother trying to help my children understand the complex emotions of their own grief.
~Cindy Schoell
Would you like to share your story? Please get in touch with Kate's Club! KC has free grief support with grief resources, grief counseling resources, grief training, and volunteer work in Atlanta and surrounding places in Georgia. Kate's Club is a growing nonprofit in Atlanta with grief specialists for kids and young adults going through bereavement. Our goal is to make a world where it is okay to grieve.