Soon or later we all experience loss. Yet, it is a solitary experience. It is nearly physical in it's depth of pain. Do we all experience the same thing? When someone says, "Nobody understands the pain I feel or the suffering I've been through", it is hard to disagree. We don't know.
Yet that person could never know the pain associated with our loss. We are unique, yet similar. The person we were before the loss of our child and how we have responded to this loss makes each person's story individual. Perhaps that is why suffering such a loss feels like such a lonely experience. Nobody can go through it for us.
In the midst of tragedy, shock often renders us senseless. Like tumbleweeds in the desert, the wind blows us this way and that; accepting invitations, turning down invitations, putting up a good front one day and collapsing privately another, trying to express thanks for the out pour of love yet finding it difficult to find the energy or train of thought to carry through. We roll aimlessly along this new path until a quietness settles in; the quietness of a new reality. With that emerges a new definition of the future and the time to consider the choices that lie ahead.
How we choose to go through loss makes us unique. We are forced into the darkness alone, but there are forks long the path of darkness. We can choose brokenness and despair or we can choose community.
The path of isolation offers the promise of continued darkness and loneliness. The path through community is more brightly lit yet choices present themselves. We may encounter others along this path who share a brokenness that feeds on the darkness and despair. Others search for hope.
Community also includes old friends, new friends, family and places of comfort. Those who are committed to more than a sympathy card; who have not lost a child but deep down inside a 'voice' speaks to them. Privately they give thanks that this sort of loss has passed them by, and that 'voice' encourages them to reach out.
No, nobody will ever understand another person's unique pain resulting from the death of their child. Perhaps that is not necessary. As a parent, perhaps it is the choices we make as we travel this journey which will define the most valuable understanding.
-Marsha Abbott
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