I'm not a mom. I don't have any first-hand experience with the deep bond a parent feels for their child, or of the wrenching anguish that the death of a child brings. But I don't think I'm alone in understanding how horrific the loss of a child must be. And I can't have been the only reader who sobbed like their heart was breaking while reading Kimberly A. Condon's article "Approaching Death."
Condon's career as a nurse – first in the ER and now in hospice – brings her into regular contact with death. She writes about her reactions to the death of other people's children – reactions that surprised her initially, running a range from brisk and businesslike to uncontrolled weeping. When sitting with a family whose baby has died, she wondered, is it awful to cry harder than the baby's parents? Did she fail as a hospice nurse? Or did she, perhaps, offer the most compassionate response she could, by giving in to her grief for an unknown child who lived a too-short life?
What Condon discovered, the community at LegacyConnect already knows – there's no wrong way to grieve.
Linnea
Comment
The honesty of raw emotion is hopefully understood by those around us.
I have found I am sometimes surprised myself when something moves me so deeply that tears come...and I cannot speak. I have had friends who have experienced great loss, of an adult child, and spoke eloquently at their service. I have experienced being unable to speak at moments when trying to explain to strangers that I needed forms to change a car title out of my deceased parents name. I had no idea that would happen.
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