13 December 2023, 19.00 – 20.30

Online via Zoom

THE LOSS OF AN OLDER ADULT CHILD

We do apologise but this online group is not suitable for anyone bereaved 3 months or less. 

Losing a child of any age is devastating. The death of an adult child, who has lived their own life, has a circle of friends, perhaps a career and a family, brings particular issues for us as parents.

For example, we may have to contend with some unexpected responses. One of these is that some people seem to believe that, because our child was an adult, the pain of losing them is therefore much less. They can't see that the role of a parent lasts for all of our lives.

The death of our child, regardless of age, leaves us with love we can no longer give them and at times a feeling that in some vital way we failed to keep them from harm. In addition, our relationship with them could have matured from parent/child to one of friendship, and we will miss them on many levels.

If our child died before they started their own family, we may be grieving for an expected future that will now never be. If our son or daughter was our only child, we may have lost the possibility of ever having grandchildren. If they had children of their own, our role as grandparents may change, temporarily or permanently.

No matter who our child was; no matter what they accomplished in their lives or how they behaved; no matter that some actions made us proud or some caused us sadness, they were still our child, and we will always love them. We honour their memories as we live our lives now.

In time, we will find that as the intense pain of our grief ceases to be constant we will be more able to enjoy happy memories that our child has left.

This session is a facilitated online group using Zoom conferencing software. 

Unfortunately due to the nature of online groups we will be limiting the number of attendees and booking is via our website only.  We will confirm your attendance by email.

We will be giving priority to those who have not attended an online TCF group before.

Once you book you will receive more details closer to the meeting date. Just a reminder to check your spam or junk email folders if you haven't received the link for the online meeting by the day of the meeting. Please contact info@tcf.org.uk if you have any questions or queries.

Please can we ask that you join the group using a desktop computer, a laptop or a tablet. We do apologise but it is not appropriate to join a Zoom sharing session using a mobile phone as you will not be able to see the other participants in the session.

Please note that these online events are run by bereaved parent volunteers. Our volunteers are not professionals and so what we offer is a uniquely warm, comforting and supportive online group organised and facilitated by parents who have also experienced the loss of a child and have found understanding and hope themselves through The Compassionate Friends.

If you are newly bereaved:
Please note, our online support group meetings may not be the most appropriate form of support for very newly bereaved parents. We know how vulnerable we can be in the early weeks and months of our grief and how raw the pain and heartache can feel.

In an online support environment, we will of course do all we can to express our empathy to newly bereaved parents verbally but we won't be able to offer the very important physical presence and contact that physical groups can offer especially when parents become very upset. Our online meetings tend to be shorter than physical meetings which also means that we won't have as much time to hear from all group members in the ways in which we would do if we were meeting face to face.

We know that in the early days of our grief, there is a strong need to tell our 'story' about the loss of our precious child. We know that this is a very important part of grieving - however, our support groups, whether online or face to face can only offer the opportunity to say a little about your loss and in not too much detail so as to enable everyone to have a chance to speak and also to minimise the risk of anyone attending being re-traumatised around their own loss by hearing graphic details of someone else's loss. It would help to know how early you are in your loss and whether you are already receiving TCF support - what we don't wish to do is increase the vulnerability of any bereaved parent by not managing your expectations about what our support group offers and is unable to offer. We may make contact if we need to explore with you whether our online group support is the most appropriate way to support you at this stage in your loss.

Please note this group is for bereaved parents in the UK only - if you want to join from abroad please contact us on events@tcf.org.uk

Some comments from an earlier group:

"I was apprehensive about taking part but actually found it easier to participate than I'd imagined"