How to Survive the Loss of a Child

Without hesitation one of the easiest questions I was ever asked is, What is the hardest thing I had to do in my life? My answer was to bury my child. Taken a back by my answer, the questionnaire immediately retreats into a pile of sympathetic gestures that I knew would follow. Along with the other usual questions of how it all happened? How old was she? Where? When? Why? Which is the natural polite response after someone tells you they have lost a child. But I often wondered if I shouldn't carry a stack of index cards to hand out after the initial shock to the person asking with all the morbid details, so that I didn't have to use my monotone, its okay voice, when I'm trying to hold back the pain.

I'm not going to explain to you what that grief feels like because most could imagine to some degree. I have struggled with this decision whether or not to write this article, understandably because that meant I would have to drudge up all those feeling of anguish and despair. Depressing indeed; but yet so necessary in order to clearly scrape the layers of pain when losing a child. So with that, here we go!
I will begin by using my own experience to help you understand the steps I took.