Long term illness

One of a series of leaflets published by The Compassionate Friends Young children do not understand the finality of death. If their sibling has been in hospital for a long time, to them it might seem as though the only change is that we no longer visit the hospital. We have to try to understand their thoughts and fears, to recognise their need for repetition of the key facts about death, and to be brave enough to share our own grief with them. We must reassure them that it is all right to cry, and that while loving hugs do not take away the pain, they are better than weeping alone. We need to be aware that as perception of death changes with increasing maturity, new more appropriate explanations may be necessary. In some ways it can be harder to share grief with our older teenage children. For them, friends will be very important, and we have to respect their choices. They will benefit from times when they visit friends and escape the atmosphere of sadness at home, but they also need to feel included within the embrace of a loving family. Whatever their ages, our children may be helped by support from professional counsellors to enable them to talk freely about their own feelings and find their own ways to mourn. (Organisations such as Winston’s Wish are very helpful). Caring for ourselves While our child has been ill, we will have been juggling the daily routines of the rest of the household, but with our sick child’s care taking priority. Friends may have helped us to have short periods of time away from the caring, but these have been interludes. Now we must give ourselves time to mourn the death of our child, to reflect upon the past months and years, and take time to adjust to our loss. It may seem less painful to launch ourselves into another frenzy of activity, perhaps fund-raising for a charity researching into our