You will survive the loss of your child.

I receive so many emails of parents who want to know if they are going to survive the death of their precious children. Right at this moment you feel as if the unbearable and excruciating pain is never going away. You are deeply convinced that you are going to die of a broken heart. One thing that nobody knows is that the pain is not only a mental one but physical agony. At this moment you feel that the pain is going to drive you insane. Many parents, as I did, get anxiety attacks because the whole situation is just too much to comprehend. You just can’t wrap your head around the awful truth that you are never going to see you child again. Our children should one day bury us, not the other way around. It is not the natural order of things. I was on a suicide mission after my son Emile died by suicide. I could not accept the hateful fact that he was gone. There was no way I could go on without him. I wanted so desperately to join him.

Today I am going to tell you that you are going to survive. You are facing a hard and difficult path of mourning that at times will knock you off your feet. There will be days that you feel you are making progress and then Bam it will hit you all over again. These days will hit you so hard that you will literally feel weak. Nothing in your life will make any sense and not even the fact that you have other children and people who love you will mean anything to you. Your mind just cannot reach further than the hell you are in.

The only way to get through this to a place where you can live again is to talk to someone about the turmoil and utter hell you experience. Take one day at a time, and sometimes just one moment at a time. Hold on tight because I promise you it will pass. With time the dreadful times will become fewer and further between. I know you don’t believe me and you think I am telling an untruth. But I promise you it will happen. You are not going to go to sleep with the thought of your child every night and wake up with that thought forever. One day you will go through one whole day without thinking about him or her. And that day will be such a shock to you. You will feel guilty that you had no thought about your child. That is only natural. Everything about grief is normal. You are finding yourself in an abnormal situation. Nothing about it can be compared to anything else you have ever experienced. There is no point of reference for this tragedy.

The first few years is going to be the worst you can imagine. I am not going to lie to you and say it will be over soon. However, eventually it will get to a point that you can live with it and accept the fact. Your precious child is always with you and I don’t care what anyone says, that is something I know deep in my heart. And don’t let anyone tell you that you have to feel better or they can’t come to rest. That is utter nonsense. They are in the spiritual realm now and their destiny will not be influenced by your grief. Grief has no timeline and you take all the time in the world to heal.

We can’t do this on our own. For a time I was under the impression that I could get through this without any outside help. But one day I realized if I wasn't going to get professional help I would go completely crazy. The pain was like a cancer eating away at me from the inside. I started seeing a psychologist who used cognitive behavioral therapy to treat his patients. That saved my life, along with regular meditation. The unbearable pain of losing a child doesn't just go away, you have to work at it and feel the need to heal. I know that at this moment you don’t want to heal, the thought of that is akin to being a traitor to his or her memory.

How could you want to live a normal happy life while your child is in the ground or a box of ashes? Well I am telling you that day will come. One day you will be happy again. You will never forget or stop loving you precious child, but you will be able to look back at this anguish and be surprised at how far you have come. That is a promise my dear friend in grief. Your heart will heal and one thing that helped me to this point is that I know, one day when my time is done here, Emile will be at the gates to welcome me home. But for the time I am here I will make him proud of me.

Please know that I am here if you need someone to talk to, and I am not just saying it because I know exactly what you are going through at this time. You are not alone on this journey of grief, I am walking every step of the way with you.