People are single parents for various reasons including separation, divorce, bereavement, or choice. All of these circumstances can bring their own particular difficulties when trying to cope with the death of a child. If parents have separated or divorced, children may have had contact with both parents, but if contact with one parent has been lost, there may be guilt, regrets or recriminations. Either or both parents may even feel that their child would still be alive had their relationship not foundered. The loss of a child may bring contact with an ex partner who has been no part of the other parent's life for many years; these issues from the past can bring added complications and difficult emotions at an already traumatic time. When a child dies, parents will experience a profound sense of isolation, but for those who are the sole carer for their family there is a double loneliness.

Some parents may be alone because their partner has died, so the death of a child is a second bereavement. This new bereavement may evoke memories of the earlier grief for the parent and siblings of the child who has died, which may result in worries about the family's survival, on top of the intense feelings of sadness and loss. Others may have chosen to be a single parent family, or circumstances may have put them in that position.

If you have lost your only child, you may feel a loss of status or a sense of disorientation, that your family has been wiped out and that your very identity has come into question. Can you still call yourself a parent when you have no living child? The answer of course is “yes”, although it may not feel like that. If you have a surviving child, or children, you may wish for another adult to confide in and to help the family while you are in such acute distress.

The early days

Some of the difficult aspects about coping alone centre around the need for another adult being close enough to be able to share the practical tasks. Everyone needs help with the organisation and decision-making that surround a death; there are choices to be made, but sometimes people feel too deep in shock and grief to be capable of functioning at all. Parents also need someone who can share the memories and act as a sounding board as they go over and over the last few days, and recount the tiny details which help them to face the impossible reality of what has happened. It helps to have someone who knows what is meant when you ask, “Do you remember…?”

When it all gets too much to deal with, it is particularly difficult if there is no one around, even just having someone to shout at! Another adult in the house at least means that if you have to go out for a short walk or just take a nap, there is someone available to hold the fort, look after the other children, take telephone calls and so on. As a bereaved single parent, you may sometimes feel that there is not enough of you to go around; your remaining children may feel that you are ‘not there' for them, but there may not be anyone else to fill the gap. Support from outside the home can be a great help; close friends and family may provide this in emotional as well as practical ways. It will help to share thoughts and feelings with them, to cry together and not to be so afraid of upsetting each other that you bottle up your grief.

Some people may be compelled to return to work before they are ready to do so, especially if they are the main financial support for the family. They may worry about losing their job if they do not return, or not doing the job adequately as a result of being preoccupied, forgetful and exhausted. Sometimes people try so desperately to appear normal that they do not see that support is available, and that people can be sympathetic and helpful if they are given the opportunity. Colleagues and friends often do not know what to say or do, and may need some guidance. (See The Compassionate Friends' (TCF) leaflet Back at work .)

Things that help

Being a single parent has equipped you with strengths that could now come to your aid. Many of you will already have learnt to organise and motivate yourselves and these inner resources will be helpful in the weeks, months and years following your bereavement.

If you are used to sharing things with your other children, you will continue to do so. You may have to overcome your protective instincts to shield them from your grief and find the courage to share painful but important memories with them. Compiling a Memory Book, with photographs, letters and little items can be a help for many people. The TCF leaflet Our surviving children provides further information.

You may seek, or be offered, professional help. This one-to-one support can provide the time to focus on your own emotional needs, rather than the needs of those you care for.

Finding ways to comfort and distract yourself can sometimes help. Activities that were previously pleasurable can provide you with a chance to relax and take stock, even if this is something simple such as soaking in the bath, listening to favourite music, watching sport or going to the gym. You may feel guilty the first time you realise you have laughed or experienced some brief respite from the misery of grief, but it will happen at some stage and it does not mean that you are forgetting your lost child or ‘moving on'.

Many people, whether they have religious beliefs or not, find their thoughts turning to the profound questions of existence at this time. Meditation, attending a place of worship, or talking to a religious leader may help to bring spiritual comfort. Conversely, some people lose their faith after a bereavement.

Your extended family may come to your aid at this time, though not always in the form you had hoped for. You need to be open to new approaches, to try to accept good intentions from wherever they come, and not to allow past conflicts to prevent you from accepting sources of help. At times like this, you need all the support that you can get and things that may have seemed important in the past can often seem trivial in comparison to the situation in which you now find yourself.

Friends can be a lifeline in these difficult times, but they often need help in understanding how they can best support you. Perhaps you will have to explain that you need them just to be there, maybe not even talking much, and that you do not necessarily want to be taken out and ‘cheered up'. You may welcome their practical support in terms of helping with household chores and so on, but you also need your friends for more than that: you need them to be alongside you and to be accepting of your current feelings, whatever they are. For some people this is too hard; they want you to be ‘better' and back to your old self. They may be fearful for their own family or have suffered losses in their own pasts, which make your present state of grief too painful for them to bear. Some of these friends will return later, and you will probably discover some important new ones in the meantime.

The Compassionate Friends offers a different sort of help. We are all bereaved parents and understand how it feels to lose a child. This shared experience does not have to be explained; we know that each of us needs to tell the story of our child, to be reassured that we are not going mad, that it helps to know that others have survived this dreadful experience. Support is offered in a variety of ways. There are Local Contacts, local groups, a quarterly journal, a Postal Library, a website and a range of leaflets such as this one. Our Annual Gathering, and occasional Retreats, provide opportunities to meet other bereaved parents, to share experiences and to make new friends. No two stories are the same, but there are similarities of circumstance, problems and possible solutions; it can help to learn from others how they dealt with their child's room and belongings, how they coped with returning to work, what helped their other children. Your Contact may also know of other local support organisations for single parents.

Gradually, over the years, we learn to live without the physical presence of our dearly loved son or daughter. We come to understand that we can face the future without leaving them behind, and that they are a permanent presence in our lives. They remain in our hearts for ever, and we never cease to love them.

The Compassionate Friends is grateful to those who have written to us with their own experience. Further information may be obtained from:

The Compassionate Friends

A company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales, no 04029535; Registered charity no 1082335

53 North Street, Bristol, BS3 1EN

Office 0845 120 3785 Fax 0845 120 3786

Helpline 0845 123 2304

www.tcf.org.uk info@tcf.org.uk

TCF Postal Library:

Under1roof, Ground Floor, 5a New Road Avenue

Chatham, Kent, ME4 6BG

Telephone 01634 814146 library@tcf.org.uk

The agony of grief (single mother's loss of her 17-year-old ‘sporty' son). Jewell Nickie Jackson, San Antonio (USA), The Watercress Press 1986. ISBN 0-934955-02-6

Parting is not goodbye (lone parent's account of son's unexpected death). Kelly Osmont and Marilyn McFarlane, Portland (Oregon, USA), Nobility Press 1986. ISBN 0-941211-01-0

Single-parent grief (for women and men who are single and dealing with the death of a child in miscarriage, as an infant or as an older child).

Sherokee Ilse, Saint Paul (Minnesota, USA), A Place to Remember/ deRuyter-Nelson Publications, Inc., 1994. ISBN unknown

This leaflet is sponsored by the Ferndown TCF Group in memory of

beloved daughters and brothers

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