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ginger dee
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« on: May 14, 2008, 08:06:35 AM » |
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"A Grieving Parents Wish List" Bereaved Parents Wish List
I wish my daughter hadn’t died. I wish I had her back I wish you wouldn’t be afraid to speak her name. My child lived and was very important to me. I need to hear that she was important to you also.
If I cry and get emotional when you talk about my child, I wish you knew that it isn’t because you have hurt me. My child’s death is the cause of my tears. You have talked about my child and you have allowed me to share my grief. I thank you for both.
Being a bereaved parent is not contagious, so I wish you wouldn’t shy away from me. I need you now more than ever. Please don’t run away if I ask you to listen, talking to me and listening will not cause anything to happen to you or to your children. Please don’t treat me as if I was an alien, I’m just looking to feel normal any way I can.
Please don’t offer to be there if you don’t really intend to, because I may need you on a bad day. And I wouldn’t ever want to make you feel obligated to listen.
If you don’t know what to say to me, then Please don’t say anything. I would rather not hear anything, than for you to feel uncomfortable with me. And please I wish you wouldn’t say “ she’s in a better place” These words are very difficult for me because in my heart there is no better place for her than with me.
I need diversions, so I do want to hear about you, but I also want you to hear about me. I might be sad and I might cry, but I wish you would let me talk about my child; my favorite topic of the day.
I know that you think of and pray for me often. I also know that my child’s death pains you too. I wish you would let me know these things through a phone call, a card or note, or a real big hug. I wish you wouldn’t expect my grief to be over. These first years are traumatic for me, but I wish you could understand that my grief will never be over. I will suffer the death of my child until the day I die.
I am working hard in my recovery, but I wish you could understand that I will never fully recover. I will always miss my child and I will always grieve that she is dead.
I wish you wouldn’t expect me “not to think about it” or “be happy”. Neither will happen for a very long time, so don’t frustrate yourself.
I don’t want to have a “Pity Party”, but I do wish you would let me grieve. I must hurt before I can heal.
I wish you understood that my life has shattered. I know it is miserable for you to be around me when I am feeling miserable. Please just be as patient with me as I am with you.
When I say “I’m doing okay”, I wish you could understand that I don’t “feel “okay and that I struggle daily . I wish you knew that all the grief reactions I am having are very normal. Depression, anger, hopelessness and overwhelming sadness are all to be expected. So please excuse me when I am quiet or withdrawn or irritable or cranky.
Your advice to “take it one day at a time” is excellent advice.
However, a day is too much and too fast for me right now. I wish you could truly understand that I’m doing good to handle an hour at a time. If I seem rude it is certainly not my intent. Sometimes the world around me goes to fast and I need to get off the ride and go slower. When I walk away, I wish you would let me find a quiet place to spend time alone. I wish you understood that grief changes people. When my child died, a big piece of me died with her. I am not the same person I was before she died and I will never be that person again.
I wish you could understand that right now my soul and my heart are broken and I may never recover the pieces that once completed me. I just need for you to understand that sometimes I just want to talk about her and if you could listen then it would help me on my way.
I wish very much that you could understand~ Understand my loss and my grief. But, I hope daily that you will never truly understand.
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