Navigating Grief: Finding Solace After Losing a Child to Suicide

Navigating Grief: Finding Solace After Losing a Child to Suicide

ABOUT THIS POST: Navigating Grief: Finding Solace After Losing a Child to Suicide is about “building a life of love around the loss.” (David Kessler) The personal narratives, expert insights about grief, and practical recommendations for ways to continue the love offer a sobering yet supportive reminder of the challenges parents face.

A source of support and guidance, Navigating Grief: Finding Solace After Losing a Child to Suicide lets parents know that they are not alone in their pain, offering a glimmer of hope as they embark on the difficult journey of healing and resilience.

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Remember, you hurt so much because your grief represents the size of your love for the child you lost. You grieve so much because you love them so much.

Beth Brown, My Forever Son

Navigating Grief: Building a Life of Love Around the Loss

I Remember Sunshine

I remember sunshine. Once upon a time and 20 years too short, I didn’t have a hole in my heart to fill. I remember awakening to sunshine. Birds sing-songing their morning choruses. Joy in the nesting season. Joy in raising their young. Creaking boards on the hardwood floor, all familiar sounds on the way to the kitchen where surrounded by Cerulean blue and School-bus yellow walls, happiness dwells.

Ceramic red, green, and yellow chili peppers (which are all connected as part of an artistic sculpture from New Mexico) adorn the yellow walls by the stove. Water swooshes in the bright red tea kettle, whistling and singing its “Good Morning” refrain. Irish Breakfast tea steeps in my favorite blue stoneware mug. As always, good, strong, hearty–dependable. Life was dependable.

Note to Self: Life will never be the same, but remembering sunshine, joy, and love will, in its own time, return. The pain in the beginning feels bottomless, heart-wrenching, soul-crushing. Grief is exhausting, heavy, seemingly unending.

Yet remember, you hurt so much because your grief represents the size of your love for the child you lost. You grieve so much because you love them so much.

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Navigating Grief: Finding Ways to Continue the Love

“You may be looking for ways to continue bonds with your loved one,” writes Litsa Williams, a grief counselor and contributing writer for What’s Your Grief? She’s written 16 tips for Continuing the Bond with Those We’ve Lost, suggesting ways to continue the bond of love.

Grief doesn’t just go away, but continuing the bond through these and other ways can help process the overwhelming feelings that come with loss.

Here are a few of the 16 Tips for Continuing the Bond with Those We’ve Lost:

1. Talk to Them.

Really! It’s okay—it doesn’t mean you’re crazy! The fact that we don’t have a post about this is mind-boggling to me because talking to a loved one who died is something we certainly do, it is something many (dare I say most?) grievers do, and it can bring a lot of comfort during the moments you miss them most.  So talk away, be it out loud or in your head. This is a common way we continue a relationship with your loved one.

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2. Write Letters to the Person You Lost.  

This is something you can do in a journal, on the computer, or in actual letters. There is an online resource to make writing even easier for you called AfterTalk where you can write privately to loved ones using their interactive writing tools. You can do it weekly, monthly, annually… whatever works for you. 

You can keep the letters or you can get rid of them.  If you choose the latter and you have physical letters, you can do it in creative ways: You can tear them up and collage with them, paint over them in an art journal, or whatever else works for you. No matter where you write them or what you do with them, these letters keep you connected with your loved one in the present. If you are looking for inspiration, check out this post on thought catalog: “An Open Letter to My Dead Best Friend”.

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3. Keep Photos of the Person Around.  

This may seem absurdly obvious, but there will be people who make you feel uncomfortable about keeping photos. For example, a woman who wrote in to Ask Amy expressing concern that her widowed boyfriend still had pictures of his wife around.  She didn’t ask our opinion, but luckily we decided to share what we thought anyway.  Keeping photos around keeps us connected with our loved one and often helps us remember the ways that person continues to influence our lives.

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4. Incorporate Your Loved One into Events and Special Days. 

For example, check out our suggestions for how you can remember your loved one on your wedding day. Or consider leaving an empty chair at holiday meals (or doing something else!) to honor your loved one. Discuss as a family other ways that you may want to involve your loved one’s memory at special events. You will certainly be thinking of them on these big days, so there is no reason to keep that inside if you want to find a more open way to involve your loved one in the event.

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5. Imagine What Advice They Would Give You When Making Tough Decisions.  

Big decisions are often overwhelming and, when you have lost the person who you would have talked it over with, it can be especially hard. Imagining a conversation with them, what they would have said, and the advice they might have given can help us feel connected and also help make big life choices a little easier.

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6. Talk About Them with New People, Who Never Got to Know Your Loved One.   

There will often be new and important people in your life who did not know your loved one.  It may be new friends, a significant other, or children who never had the opportunity to meet your loved one when they were alive.   

Find ways to tell new people about your loved one, sharing stories or photos. This is a way that your loved one’s legacy continues and you continue to keep them in your life as you move forward.  

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7. Live Your Life in a Way You Know They Would Be Proud Of. 

Be it a spouse, a parent, grandparent, child, or friend, we often struggle knowing our loved one won’t be there for accomplishments and milestones. Taking time to recognize that your loved one would be proud of you for a specific accomplishment can be comforting and remind us how we continue to be connected to our loved one.

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8. Finish a Project They Were Working On. 

Read More

Litsa Williams, 16 Tips for Continuing Bonds with Those We’ve Lost, What’s Your Grief?

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Navigating Grief: Continued Bonds Change as We Grow Around Our Grief

11 Years Out

I’ve been at this awhile. It’s been 11 years since I lost my son to suicide. Here’s what I know: My grief didn’t go anywhere, but I’ve learned to live around losing my son by doing so many of the ideas presented below. I still talk to my son; still write letters, especially on his birthday and memorial date; and I write poems; still compose songs for child loss, and write My Forever Son blog.

I wear a memorial bracelet for my son, sometimes make some of his favorite foods (pancakes for supper), and still light a candle each night.

Ways to Honor Deceased Loved Ones

Eleanor Haley, who writes about grief from a grief counselor’s perspective, suggests 64 Ways to Honor Deceased Loved Ones in her article for What’s Your Grief? Haley states that “Research has actually found that these individual, private rituals are surprisingly helpful in grief.”

Haley continues discussing the benefit of continued bonds with the loved ones we’ve lost: 

Grief is ongoing – this is one principle that is acknowledged by grief theorists, grieving professionals, and grieving people alike. The theory of continued bonds suggests that many people find comfort and connection through actions and rituals that help them honor deceased loved ones. And these connections evolve and change with time, just as we change. The thing that brought comfort in year one may be something completely different than in year six. 

Eleanor Haley, 64 Ways to Honor Deceased Loved Ones, What’s Your Grief?

Here are some of Eleanor Haley’s 64 Ways to Honor Deceased Loved Ones:

64 Ways to Honor Deceased Loved Ones

1. Listen to one of their favorite songs or albums. 
2. Adapt a small detail of their routines into your own. 
3. Journal your sensory memory of them. 
4. Share a story of why a random moment in the day reminded you of them.
5. Try out their favorite activity or hobby.  
6. Write a poem about them. 
7. Recreate or order their favorite dish. 
8. Plant a tree. 
9. Wear a memorial bracelet (can be their name, a quote, a symbol, etc).
10. Read their favorite book. 
11. Light a candle.  

Read More

Eleanor Haley, 64 Ways to Honor Deceased Loved Ones, What’s Your Grief?

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Navigating Grief: Finding Solace After Losing a Child to Suicide

Moving through the Heaviness of Grief

Losing my son to suicide left a hole in my heart, a void so expansive as to consume all that I was. I felt like an outline, lightly penciled in, a mere tracing around the darkness that was the loss of my son and now the whole of my life.

In the darkness, my grief consumed me. I no longer recognized days of the week, seasons of the year, all the beauty inherent in the colors and shapes of nature. Sleeping, remembering, focusing, eating, working, even breathing became impossible.

I did not choose grief. Grief chose me. Grief is the physiological response to loss.

Growing Around Grief

…grief is exactly the same size as it was to start. But her life around it is larger. The grief and loss never felt smaller, but her life slowly felt bigger. It grew around her loss. Her grief was always there, as large as ever, and she still spent time within it. As her life had slowly expanded around her loss, she was now able to experience life in the larger part of the circle as well. With this, the ‘Growth Around Grief’ concept was born.

Growing Around Grief, What’s Your Grief?
Understanding Grief / Understanding Grief : Litsa

The idea of growing around grief, of my life growing bigger around my grief, makes sense. When I first lost my son, my world stopped. Time stopped. My world came to an abrupt halt, and my world became small and insular.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world did go on. I would eventually be able to rejoin life (be able to smile again, go back to work, go out with friends, regain my focus, think outside my grief), but my grief hadn’t gone anywhere:

I had simply had enough time, talk, and tears to move through the acute pain of early grief.

Learning What Grief Is

According to the National Library of Medicine, The terms grief, mourning, and bereavement have slightly different meanings:

• Grief is a person’s emotional response to loss.
• Mourning is an outward expression of that grief, including cultural and religious customs surrounding the death. Mourning is also the process of adapting to life after loss.
• Bereavement is a period of grief and mourning after a loss.
• Anticipatory grief is a response to an expected loss. It affects both the person diagnosed with a terminal illness as well as their families.[4]
• Disenfranchised grief… [is] grief that persons experience when they incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned, or socially supported. [The Stigma of Suicide]

Grief Reaction and Prolonged Grief Disorder, National Library of Medicine
Saba Mughal; Yusra Azhar; Margaret M. Mahon; Waqas J. Siddiqui.
Author Information and Affiliations
Last Update: November 14, 2023.

Common Grief Reactions

Grief manifests itself as the body’s physiological response to loss, states the National Library of Medicine, and many who are grieving “may not be aware that it could lead to many common physical complaints.” 

Common grief reactions: Reactions to loss are called grief reactions and vary from person to person and within the same person over time. Grief reactions lead to complex somatic and psychological symptoms.

Feelings: The person who experiences a loss may have a range of feelings, including shock, numbness, sadness, denial, anger, guilt, helplessness, depression, and yearning. A person may cry for no reason.

Thoughts: Grief can cause a sense of disbelief, confusion, difficulty concentrating, preoccupation, and hallucinations.

Physical sensations: Grief can cause physical sensations like tightness and heaviness in the chest or throat, nausea or stomach upset, dizziness, headaches, numbness, muscle weakness, gastrointestinal upset, tension, or fatigue. 

Behaviors: Difficulty sleeping, loss of interest in daily activities, and becoming more aggressive or irritable may be expected in those experiencing grief.

Somatic symptoms: Chest tightness and choking, shortness of breath, abdominal distress, decreased muscle power, and lethargy.

Psychological symptoms: Guilt, anger, hostility, restlessness, inability to concentrate, lack of capacity to initiate and maintain an organized pattern of activities.

Takosubo cardiomyopathy: Chest pain and shortness of breath after severe stress (emotional or physical), electrocardiogram changes that mimic heart attack with no coronary artery occlusion, movement abnormalities of the left ventricle, and ballooning of the left ventricle.

National Library of Medicine, 2023.

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Your Grief is Unique to You

Grief doesn’t come with an order. Grief is messy, oftentimes circling round itself when poignant reminders happen. A song, a voice, a scent, others talking about the holidays, vacation, their children and grandchildren, seeing someone who resembles or reminds you of your child.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler have corrected misinterpretations of Kubler-Ross’s well-known five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance):

The five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, On Grief and Grieving

“The stages have evolved since their introduction and they have been very misunderstood over the past three decades,” writes David Kessler, “They [the stages of grief] were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss as there is no typical loss.”

Prolonged Grief Disorder

Losing a child is out of life’s natural order. Losing a child to suicide is not just outside life’s natural order, a child’s death by suicide is traumatic and life-changing. Prolonged Grief Disorder can occur when the death of a child has been traumatic.

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Navigating Grief: Finding Solace After Losing a Child to Suicide

Concluding Remarks

Living in the Glare of My Son’s Suicide

Where I Was 11 Years Ago

How now to sing on? To find joy in the morning and reason to go on? How now to say all that needs saying only in hindsight? Only in the glare of headlights. Too late. Too fast. Too soon. Too young. Suicide changes everything.

Where I Find Solace Now

Solace in writing. Solace in poems of the heart, poems of love and loss, poetry in the shape and motion of my son.

His heartbeat now my own, my words written in ways that march on past the pain, past the sorrow, past the anguish.

Words reckoning with guilt, wrestling with regret, tallying pain and remorse.

Poems written. A book of poems published. A blog whose aim is to help those who have lost a child to suicide feel they are not alone. Healing in the margins. Healing in the chorus. Healing in getting to know others parents who have lost a child to suicide.

Hope found in learning about grief. Hope in time, talk, and tears. Hope in hearing others’ stories, and hope in telling my own. H0pe in believing I will see him again some day.

Help in books and resources. Help in support. Help in reading about grief and suicide loss. Help in knowing I am not alone. Help in parents of suicides.

Hope means H.O.P.E: Hold On Pain Eases.

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