I want to talk about Josie. I want to write so much about her but the things that I have to say make me want to weep and stick in my throat and tie my fingers.
She’s six now. Last week, on Bonfire Night, we had presents and a party with a couple of local families and we made it as special as we could for her.
She’s having a terrible time. When Freddie died, she locked it up and hid it away and told us she didn’t care and didn’t have a brother and we just did our best to love her and be there for her. It’s hard to know what to do for a five year old when the world caves in; I’ve reason to suppose that refusing to speak of it with her would have been the wrong thing and we tried to give her openings, tried to include her in the grief without sucking her down.
But I knew that she was hurting, because of all of them, she had the most invested in it; she kissed my tummy goodnight every night and he would kick at her more than at any of the others.
She doesn’t understand, she just doesn’t understand. Now, suddenly, the grief is tumbling out and she cannot stop crying. The night before her birthday it started, although I had seen it star to pool and well up in her from a few weeks before. I can’t tell exactly what started it. It might have been my fault becasue I faltered when perhaps I should have been stronger and asked her if she was okay with doing something that had been allocated to her, something I thought might have triggered her. She said she was fine with it, indeed she still seems excited, but either I planted the seed, or the seed was there just waiting to be made into something that would hurt.
The night before her birthday she started to cry. She sat on my lap and sobbed and sobbed, sobbing for him for her, for the baby that isn’t yet in my tummy, for all the things she wanted for him and all the things that have changed. And it just hasn’t stopped. She’s worried about going to the shops in case she sees babies, cried all evening after seeing a friend with a baby last week, has sat on my lap and sobbed, asking question after question that she hasn’t known the answers to but hasn’t known how to ask.
She didn’t know if he was sick when he was born or if he got sick after. She didn’t know if he got a germ and if he did, did that mean that daddy and Fran having germs this week might make them die too. She didn’t know if he cried or if he hurt or if he was ever okay.
I don’t know what we could have done differently. We’ve tried to be there for her and we’ve tried to keep talking about him but she hasn’t wanted to know. She’s slid away from me at any opening I’ve given her, she refused to acknowledge anything about it. I don’t know what we can do differently now. I’ve done what I can; I let her have his toys, which she wanted and sleeps with and I have to kiss them goodnight every night. She kisses my necklace each night and she kisses me from him.
I think she’s hurting because she loves her boy baby toys but right now they sting her and she doesn’t know whether to give them up or keep them. I think she’s hurting because she doesn’t know now if she cares less if she doesn’t cry one night. I think she is confused about whether we love him because we don’t talk of him every day, whether we care about it or if we’ve moved on. How do you explain to a six year old that you just learn to live with the pain but it doesn’t make it better?
I feel so responsible. This is such an impossible burden for such a little girl. How on earth can I help her get through this?
I don’t know if answering a question in a magazine quiz today that yes, she did have a little brother or sister, means she’s turned a corner or is just on the crest of a wave of crushing grief.
Josie, I hope one day you’ll read this and know that I cared. That I love you, that I’m worrying about you, that I think you are beautiful and amazing and strong and brave. That I think you’ll be okay and next year your birthday won’t hurt you or me so much as it did this year. That I’m trying, for you more than anyone else, to given you another baby to love. That I love you and I want it to be okay and I’m sorry, so very very sorry, that this has happened to you and to all of us. That I’m watching and trying to work out if we can fix you or if you need something else from somewhere else. That I’m here, robbing you of your privacy over this, in the hope that someone who knows you and loves you or someone who knows how it feels to be you, can give me some advice on how to help you.
And that I hope, despite everything, that being six with fireworks and friends and cake baked with more love than any little girl could need, did make up a bit for what you didn’t have that day.
So ####### painful. Words fail me. My now 12 year old was 7 when he suffered a great loss in his life that totally shook his world. He showed his grief only when he felt others were strong around him, I noticed. I was carrying my own grief at the time, couldn’t process it the way I wanted to, it took over. Whenever I felt I had turned some sort of corner, that was when he would disintegrate, and completely, howling for days on end, as if he’d been holding it all in in all that time? And when he did let go, the pain..seeing him in that state.. The incredible loss, his horror, the open heart…all I could do was to hold him, no platitudes made it better, just had to hold him. Somehow years passed and I know he still feels that way ‘underneath’ but he’s worked out ways to handle it. I have considered getting bereavement counseling for him (tidily sidestepping that we are in this together!). But he appears to be handling it. Can bereavement counseling for kids help, I wonder? My fear is that it will undo any healing he has made. Sorry to ramble, my heart goes out to Josie, and a wish and a hope and a prayer that the pain eases and peace comes somehow.
I think you did and are doing everything you can and ought to do. Everyone grieves in a different way, and you are allowing her and supporting her as she goes through this. It says much about you that she’s been able to now cry (and cry and cry 🙁 ) and ask all the unaskable and unanswerble questions.
Hugs for her, and for you because I can see how distressing it is 🙁
I have no suggestions or advice I’m afraid. Just that maybe – tell her – it’s ok. you learn to live with it, no, it doesn’t exactly get better, on the other hand, she’ll never forget him, her love for him was and is still real and will never ever disapear. xx
Mamacrow has said it perfectly, and I would have said just the same. It WILL get better, for her, for you, and Freddie WILL be with you all forever, whatever happens, and it’ll get easier to cope with over time. For now, it is good that she’s crying I think – bottling never helps anyone. It is wonderful that she’s able to ask you her questions and I am sure your open honesty will help her to put it all into place over time.
Many hugs, as ever.
I suppose she needs tangible things right now. Structure, routines and answers. I remember one night when I was six and it suddenly hit me that one day my Mummy and Daddy would have grey hair. Then it hit me that one day they would die. And I sobbed from my toes all night. I don’t know what triggered it, because no one we knew had died. I think it’s part of that time in a child’s life when they suddenly realise that people are mortal. And it’s frightening because all of a sudden there are no certainties in life. And I suppose having your Dad disappearing will also be confusing her?
I’ll just state the obvious :: create solid routines, be the rock she needs. Tell her lies if it makes her feel better. Tell her Freddie has just gone to another room, a room we aren’t allowed into yet, but that she can talk to him anytime, and one day she will see him again. How about a little niche in the house somewhere with something that says ‘Freddie’ a private place where she can talk to him, say good morning, goodnight.
Don’t blame yourself either. Just put the hours of solid parenting in and trust that it will work out OK. YOu’re a good Mummy, Merry. She WILL be OK.
xx
PS echo what EF said – the fact that she is showing it is a sign her subconscious really feels safe enough to let it out. It’s painful to watch but it’s probably down to good, solid, loving parenting that she has opened up this quickly.
xx
Yes. She will be well and you will be well. You all will. I think you are handling it all so honestly, I am glad for your girls that you have been able to be so present for them, as well as for your very necessary grief … I have lost a baby, as you know, but I have also lost a baby brother. I was Josie: five and a half years old, the youngest of four. I was heavily invested in my mother’s pregnancy — I couldn’t wait for that baby! I can still remember what her belly felt like beneath my hand. And then he died, within days of being born. His birthday is next week. But my family wasn’t healthy and strong like yours. Mine was, to be polite, a mess. I remember one family cry, but then it was buried. My mother did some really good things in the coming years, she began a support group for other baby loss parents, it has helped untold numbers of people over the years since. But she divorced herself from her living children, and from her own grief too, I think. They say we all grieve differently and that is true I am sure. She could not bring herself to name him until he would have been in his teens. Life was supposed to be “normal” — it was as if he had never existed. We weren’t allowed to love him.
I think you are doing so well. And Josie is going to be fine, she will. You all need time; you all, clearly, have so much love, and a strong foundation. The tumult will ease. And you will carry Freddie with love, too, through the years.
Wishing you peace this night,
~ Ellie
I have no words of advice but wanted to send you some hugs anyway. Watching our children grieve is so awful. I’ll be praying for you sweet daughter. (Hugs)
Oh Merry, you are such an amazing mother, and your love for all of your children shines through in every word you write here. I feel certain that Josie feels your love, and as someone said above, it’s probably a sign of what a solid, safe home she feels in you that she is allowing her grief to reveal itself now. It must be so painful to watch her hurting.
sending much love, as always,
sarah
Love and hugs xxx Its all I have to offer and I wish it was more.
So very hard to witness our children grieving, and with the little ones especially, knowing that as they grow, their understanding grows and their grief becomes fresh again.
x
Merry ~ again huge ((hugs)) for you and for Josie. I think you are handling her grief, and your own, totally as you should be. I believe that actually Josie is doing all the right things to ‘work-out’ her grief; the role play, the tears, the fear and the anger, the questions and kisses ~ are all healthy signs of emotional healing. Much as it hurts to watch her just now, it’s actually right that she is travelling this road, not just standing in bewilderment staring at it stretching out beyond her. If she travels it, she will reach it’s end! And much as the memory & love for Freddie will never leave her (or any of you), the ‘desperateness’ of it all will ~ and understanding will come.
I have a friend who lost her son at 2yo, her daughter was 6 at the time. It was HARD, but children are amazing and they have ways of ‘sorting’ stuff in their heads that leave us adults looking on in astonishment!
Much love to you all
Cx
Merry, you are doing all the right things. I know Josie will be fine because she has an amazing mother and a wonderful family, but I’m sorry she is hurting so much now. I think the rituals and the role play are the way forward – follow her lead…
You are doing fine…be there for her, listen to her, support her. You are all still grieving and it’s a long journey. We lost a baby at 18 weeks gestation, when my daughter was only just 3 years old. It’s hard, so hard.
Your little girl just needs to explore her feelings, to come to terms with them. It’s good that she is able to do that with your support. Keep the communication channels open.
We found a book – ‘Goodbye Mog’ – very useful in helping us to explain what had happened. It’s not aligned to any particular belief system, but explains death in a gentle way. It helped to encourage her to ask questions.
D
x
Merry I wish I words of advice, but I am sending to you strength and support as you clamor through this. Poor Josie- what a sweet girl- it hurts to know how much pain our own living children feel alongside us.
I hope that this relief will be a release of pressure that she surely needed to let go of, and that she will be able to grieve with all of the support and love of her beautiful family.
Just to say thanks for all the comments and I’ll come back later to chat more 🙂
i think that everyone is right, that you are doing exactly the right things. you’re right; refusing to speak of it with her would have been terribly wrong, but so would forcing her to talk have been. you’ve given her openings, which is why she has felt able to let her grief out now.
i know it’s hard to believe when your daughter is crying so, so much, but you are doing exactly what she needs, and you’re doing an amazing job.
Hi Merry,
I am so sorry you and Josie are going through this curent heartache. Sometimes it feels to me like the heartache doesn’t decrease, it just changes flavour every now and then. It sounds like you have done a beautiful job in supporting Josie in her grief, and I’m sure you’ll continue to do so. We can only do what we can do, can’t we, in the midst of our own foggy-headed pain, and in the face of the ever-changing natue of the grief our kiddies are prepared to show us.
Our eldest X was 5 when her baby sister died and is 6 now. She went through a very rough patch 6 months after the death, and displayed a lot of anger and rage at the time. I can only tell you what we have found to be helpful, although I have a feeling that you’ll have considered this stuff already:
1. We thought X needed an adult outside our family to talk to about her own grief, and we hooked her up with her school chaplain who she met with one-on-one regularly for the first 6 months. Part of their time together went towards X writing a book about her baby sister’s life and death, which she illustrated herself. X has then used her book to share her feelings with trusted adults, and initiate conversations with people about her sister.
2. X did the ‘Seasons for Growth’ program at her school and really benefitted from that.
http://www.goodgrief.org.au/SeasonsforGrowth/tabid/58/Default.aspx
3. X also used books to start conversations with adults around us about her sister’s life and death and about her thoughts and concerns about it. I know there are heaps of good books out there, but our favourites were ‘When Dinosaurs Die’ http://www.best-childrens-books.com/when-dinosaurs-die.html which X has come back to again and again in the 11 months since her sister’s death, and ‘We Were Gonna Have a Baby But We had an Angel Instead’ http://www.griefwatch.com/pl/plinfo/angel_instead.htm
4. Like you, I went with a ‘better out than in’ policy about our children’s grief. As long as the grief was / is coming out somehow, I was / am less worried about it. I’ve now realised that sometimes the grief doesn’t come out and that’s Ok too, and doesn’t mean their grief is ‘done’.
5. For X, her sister’s grave is an important place, although for a long time she didn’t want to go there at all and of course we didn’t ever make her. She draws pictures of her sister’s grave and talks about it. She also have very complex ideas about where her sister is now that she’s dead and who she is with etc. I can;t tell you how many coloured pencil drawings we have here of smiling angels! Fine with me, whatever helps her.
6. At the 6 month mark when X’s angry behaviour was off the richter scale, I realised that for all the gazillions of times I had told her that it is Ok to be sad about her sister’s death, I had never told her it was Ok to be angry about it. I started saying that more explicity to her, and that seemed to help a little bit, if only that it reminded me of where the fire in her belly was coming from so I didn’t get really angry back at her.
That’s what helped for us, as well as staying connected with other BLMs and using SIDs and Kids for ideas sometimes. In the end though X just had / has her own dreadful grief to plod through, like everyone else it the family. Of course it breaks my heart to watch her and her other (surviving) sister go through it, and I HATE IT that this is the hand of cards they have been dealt, but I am trying to trust their resiliance and capacity to get through this. Watching your other children grieve the death of your child is one more branch of this awful grief tree thing, isn’t it. We’ve all had our hearts broken enough already, don’t you think, and I don’t do well with seeing any of my kids distressed these days after that godawful NICU experience.
Anyhoo, wishing you some peace in admist all the grief and the challenges. I think you’re doing a fantastic job in awful circumstances. Josie has had her heart broken, but she is good loving hands with you.