This is not an easy thing to
write about, but I feel it needs to be done, despite my discomfort.
I hope that this can be seen as a polite, yet vitally necessary,
public service announcement. I’d like to tell you the one
thing that you shouldn’t ever say to a parent who has lost a child,
through either miscarriage, stillbirth, or failed adoption.
Now, I know that seeing a person
grieving, whatever the cause, is hard. You want to be of
some comfort. So I understand the good intentions that are
there, I really do. I also understand that, often, there aren’t
concrete actions we can do for a person in such circumstances, so all
that is left to us are words. We want these words to be
comforting, healing and encouraging. That said, there is one
phrase that is none of those things. I have heard it myself a
time or two. It is the phrase “you didn’t know the child
well or very long” and variations on such wording.
I know that being hurtful is not
your impulse and when so many say this phrase, there is no malice
intended. However, that doesn’t detract from the negative
emotions this statement, and the sentiment behind it, bring. I
feel I can best explain why this is the case from my own life.
You see, last year, our family
thought we were going to adopt twin girls. We were sent videos
and pictures of them. We were committed to them. We loved
them. They were already our daughters and the sisters of our
two children. It didn’t matter that we had never seen
them in person. It didn’t matter that we had never held them
before. It didn’t matter that we had only known of their
existence for a few months. They were our girls.
So when we were told, abruptly
and unexpectedly, that the government in their country had decided
another family was better suited and that furthermore, we could not
appeal this decision, we were devastated. Our children had been
taken from us and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it!
When someone says, in effect, the sadness can’t really be that bad
because you didn’t really know them or you didn’t physically hold
them, etc., it frankly hurts and feels rather demeaning. I essentially now am put in a position where I have to justify my grief to you. It doesn’t matter how long or
short our time was with them or by what methods we interacted or how
much or little we knew about them. None of those factors
influenced our love for them or how much we grieved, and honestly are
still grieving, for them.
Let’s put this in a different
perspective for a moment here. You wouldn’t say such a
statement to a parent who, let’s say, tragically lost their
two-year-old to cancer. You wouldn’t, not even for a second,
think that just because the child was only two, instead of 12,
therefore, they shouldn’t be that sad. You wouldn’t let the
length of time they had known and loved their child be a factor in
assessing their grief, so why does this happen in the above mentioned situations?
As true as this is for myself, as
an adoptive mother, I feel it is compounded many times over for those
who have lost a child to miscarriage or stillbirth. I beg you,
do not express such words around them, no matter how kindly you mean
them. For these women, there is no possible way they could have
known their child more! They carried them; their bodies
nurtured and sustained that child! They literally felt that
child growing inside them! There is no connection that is as
personal and nothing more painful and poignant when it is severed!
If you are reading this and you have experienced this loss, please
don’t let anyone minimize or trivialize your grief!
The loss of a child, no matter
how it happens, is probably one of the most horrible events we can
endure. Let’s be mindful of the impact of our words.
Let’s be there for each other and help each other grieve fully and well.
