One of a series of leaflets published by The Compassionate Friends Do be patient if your offers of help are not accepted immediately. They may be unable to respond while they are in deep shock. Ask again later. Do remember the needs of surviving siblings, no matter their age. They too are grieving. Their parents may not have the emotional strength to focus as much as they wish on their other children’s needs. Do stay around for the “long haul”, not only for the first few months. Do realise that birthdays, anniversaries and many other special days, such as Christmas Day, Mother’s and Father’s Day, can be very sad times. Do continue to talk about their child as the years go by. If not, after a few years it can feel that everyone else has forgotten about their beloved child. Do expect that the parent is forever changed, and that their grief journey will be long. There is a commonly held belief that grief is a time-limited process to be got through and that it has stages which follow steadily, one after another, but grief is much messier than this. Grieving for a child is a chaotic rollercoaster of a journey. There are ups and downs, one step forward, several steps back. Grief never ends, just as love never ends, although it does become more manageable. “Some people see grief as a problem that needs solving. They want to fix us. This might come from a place of good intentions, but grief cannot be ‘fixed.’ Grief is an experience to be supported, not solved.”
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