One of a series of leaflets published by The Compassionate Friends When a child is young, they become our highest priority. We give up sleep, energy, privacy, time and interests, putting our child’s needs ahead of our own. We might put a career on hold, at least temporarily. Motherhood can expand our sense of who we are and what we might become. We will have been through a period of adjustment in our new role as a parent. The death of our child, from whatever cause, at whatever age, and no matter how long ago, is again life-changing. Perhaps we feel that we have lost a part of ourselves, because of the way our child was entwined with our identity. We are heartbroken and devastated. We may suffer from an overwhelming sense of failure. After all, we thought that we could protect them, but we were not able to. Whether we have been through a long all-consuming battle with our child’s illness or suffer from the trauma that a sudden death brings, the circumstances in which they died will be heartbreaking for us. We may be struggling to understand the despair that led our child to suicide, or the events that caused an avoidable death. Whatever age our child was when they died, we may feel angry at the unfairness of their death. This is against the natural order. Children should not die before their parents. We are also grieving for the future, which will not be what we had imagined it to be. A mother’s grief Our lives change forever when we first become mothers. Whether our baby was born within the previous 6 months or even 60 years ago, we remember the arrival of this little human being of our own flesh and blood who relied on us for care, love and protection.
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