Why to Survive Losing Your Child

When she died, I certainly started in shock. I remember being at the hospital, and realizing that I felt only a hole and that I should do whatever I could in this stunned state, before I would not be able to do anything. For two days in a row, her pediatricians had told me she had a cold - and then she was gone. I called her teachers, I texted my friends, I enlisted the army of support. And then I sat in my apartment with people holding my hand for weeks. The shock went in and out with the waves of such extreme pain in my chest that I just wailed her name.

The well-meaning people told me that I had now joined a club that no one wants to join and that I had basically gotten a lifetime, devastating diagnosis that I would just have to live with. The implication to me was that I had to accept that my life - all the joy and all the richness - was now just darkness. And they felt sympathy for me that this was my life now. That I had no choice. But I knew I had a choice. I didn’t have to be here.

I didn’t have to live another fifty years in a terrible club, in darkness. I didn’t have to live with this pain. I didn’t have to stay in a world where a child is healthy as a horse and then is gone - forever. I didn’t have to accept that we really have no control on so many things we don’t want to think about. I didn’t have to be here without my baby.

Wanting to want to live

My husband is my favorite person in the world, and my friends and family are amazing so I did not want to leave them. But it was, in fact, a choice. I did not have a plan to end my life, but I felt like I wished they would just leave me to go. I could just lay in bed and waste away. Or just not wear a seat belt. I could be left to go.

I wanted to want to live, but I had no will to live - if that makes sense. And if you know me, you know this is not me at all. I’ve had some intense lessons and losses, but nothing like this. Deep down, I didn’t want to keep going.

But when I would tell people that "‘I don’t want to be here,” they would immediately get extremely emotional. It became about them - about them losing me, about their agency in fixing me for right now. I started to shut down from those people and the truth of how I was feeling because they couldn’t handle my emotion but I also couldn’t handle theirs.

Did they not understand that I didn't want to end my life, I just wanted to be with my baby? They got to be with their babies - why did they not understand I just wanted to be with her, wherever she is?

I finally felt heard, the first time that someone said, “Of course you feel that way. That makes sense. This is the worst thing that can happen to a person.” It was such a relief.

Then I found a psychiatrist, who added to it. “Yes, of course you feel that way. That’s natural. It’s also an emotion, and emotions pass. Her being gone doesn’t change, but you will find meaning and joy again. You will have waves of missing her, but you will also remember the joy of your love for her. You are her mother, and she is with you.”

If you are reading this and you do have ‘a plan’ to end your life because the pain is too much, please know there is light on the other side. Tell someone how bad it is until you find someone who can really sit with you in the pain. Find a psychiatrist, take medication, and get help - not just to avoid suicide but to start finding a way to move forward with your deep love for your child.

A PurPose and A Higher Power

I’ve written a few other things about our wonderful experience at Golden Willow Retreat, but one of the most important things that Ted Wiard talks and writes about (here’s his book) is the important of using this terrible experience to connect more deeply to your purpose. And then with that purpose to align it daily to your higher power and our universal values - whether that is ‘the Universe,’ ‘the Golden Rule’, ‘Love,’ or God.

Tepley taught me to be a bright light. She gave back hugs, comforted her friends at school (after teasingly stealing their pacifiers), and picked up people in the line at the grocery store. In her presence, you were seen.

It’s not that there is a ‘silver lining’ or that this situation is in any way good - we would all do anything to get our babies back. But that there is an opportunity to both celebrate her life and build meaning from her death. And maybe that’s why her spirit chose us (this is my personal addition to the lesson).

For me, this has been sitting down and thinking about all aspects of my life and working through what are the core things I can contribute. I had been working toward a plan - professional and personal, long-term, and every day - but without Tepley, the plan was shot. The joy in so many aspects of my life was gone.

So then it became about boiling it down. The plan is gone, but maybe the essence is there. For me and after thinking about it, the first thing that came to mind was ‘being a bright light.’ That every day I’m here, it’s one more opportunity to bring people together, to lead where there’s a need, to come up with a new idea, or to help someone feel seen.

And in my faith tradition, this daily goal aligns very closely with what I’m called to do with my life. If the meaning of life is love, then I am called to use my days to build connections between people and each other and between people and their purposes.

Others will certainly have different reasons for being here, as well as lessons to learn, as we all work towards those universal values and truths. But I am surviving not to be her legacy - she is enough as is - but to learn from her and from the experience of loving her.