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Coping with the Death of a Child by Joan Bordow The Ulitimate Loss explains why this is the WORST loss, no matter what age the child. It addresses the fact that we live in a society uncomfortable with death. And more times than not, newly bereaved parents are left high and dry, by those around us. Outsiders what to comfort but often are not willing to just let the parents express thier emotions. The parents and siblings often go on to have communication problems within the family unit that can make things worse for all involved. About 75% of marriages have serious problems in the first year. The main point of the book is ..how to go on living. I'm sure if I had read this in the first year I would have gotten different "enlightenments" but even after 8 years of my own grief, working with parents and researching I found new ways to look at the old situation. It is not a religous book in the sense of Catholic,Baptist, or Jewish but has spiritual concepts. For me this book is about learning to live with what we cannot change. It deals with terminal illnesses in children and how the child dying often does not fight it as much as the parents. And some, even if they know they are dying ,will not discuss it with thier parents because they feel a need to protect the parents from more pain. The lesson learned from reading this is how to incorporate your child's death into your life. How to remember this baby, the cherish what brief time you had with it and to love it into infinity. It is about how to weave that child into the fabric of your family but NOT allow this tragedy to become the focal point of your life...the event that everything else orbits around.
Jenn Caufman |
Visit Letters to Sarah at Hygeia
which is a printable text of the book,
Letters to Sarah.
