Our grief following the accidental death of our child

One of a series of leaflets published by The Compassionate Friends There might have been agonising decisions about organ donation or switching off life support. If our child was married or in a civil partnership, this will have been their partner’s responsibility. If our child was a minor or single, and/or had not expressed their prior wishes, these were our decisions to make. (Under current law in England, Wales and Scotland, those over the age of 18 are presumed to consent to organ donation, unless they have specifically opted out.) There are no words to describe how painful this can be for everyone involved. While we might be glad that our child could help other people live, thinking about the procedures involved could have made donation a very difficult choice. In addition, sometimes our wishes will have differed from our child’s other parent or their adult partner. Our child’s body Our child may have died before we had a chance to see them again. We were faced with the unimaginable decision of whether to visit our child in the mortuary, later on at the funeral home, or not at all. There is no wrong or right answer to this; it is a personal choice. What happens next Letting other people know One of our first priorities is informing other people about what has happened. This will be difficult and painful. We will most likely want to convey the news in a personal way to family and closest friends, perhaps through phone calls. For the rest of our social circle, making a list of the people we need to tell, or even writing out a message to send to multiple people at once, might make the task more manageable. Someone we trust might be able to take on much of this work on our behalf.