Lettre des Amis compatissants du Canada

I would like you to be able to pronounce the name of my missing child without reserve, to speak to me about him. He lived. He is still important to me, I need to hear his name and speak about him. So please don't divert the conversation. If I am emotional, if overcome by tears when you evoke his memory, be sure that is his disappearance which makes me cry, it is not because you have hurt me. I miss him! I thank all those who allowed me to cry! Because each time my heart heals a little more.

I would like you to try not to forget my child, nor to erase the memory of him by eliminating his photograph, his drawings or other gifts he made you, for me, it would be to make him die a second time. To be a parent in mourning is not contagious, do not keep your distance from me.

I would like you to know that the loss of a child is different from all other losses: it is the worst of tragedies. Do not compare it with the loss of a relative, a spouse, an animal. Do not expect that in one year, two years, ten years, I will be cured, I will never be the ex-mother of my child. I will learn how to survive his death and to live again in spite of or with his absence. I will have ups and downs. Do not believe that my mourning is over too quickly, I hope that you will accept my physical reactions in mourning: perhaps I will put on or lose weight, sleep a lot like a marmot or become insomniac, mourning makes one vulnerable.

Please also know that all that I do and that you find a little insane is normal during mourning. The depression, anger, the culpability, frustration, despair, isolation, the aggressiveness and questioning of beliefs and the fundamental values are stages of the mourning of a child. Try to accept me in the state where I am temporarily, without taking offence. It is normal that the death of my child makes me lose courage, ambition or plans for the future; I live only through his memory, therefore in the past. I can also be de-motivated at work, I do it from habit, to survive, but sometimes without conviction, do not blame me.

 

I would like you to understand that mourning transforms a person, I am no longer the person I was before and I never will be again. If you are waiting until I become like I was before, you will always be frustrated. I became a new person, with new values, new dreams, new aspirations, new beliefs. Please, endeavour to get to know me again; perhaps you will appreciate me again. I am unable to make the first move, I am often alone, because I need time, for reflection, and yet if it is you who comes to find me, then I will be happy. The day of my child’s birthday, that of his death are very hard to live for me, just as the others special dates (my own birthday, Mother's Day, Christmas or even the holidays).

I would like you to be able to tell me that you also think of my child. When I am quiet and reserved, know that I often think of him, and do not endeavour to divert me. But I need you, your presence, to feel surrounded, in spite of my mood swings.

Thanks to you who now understand me better.