Grief comes in may shapes. People lose a loved one and  grieve, till time runs its course, till there is healing, and maybe, closure.

But does healing and closure and solace come to a parent who has lost her child?

It’s something you live with for the rest of your life.

You learn to exist with that gnawing ache inside, with an empty heart, an empty womb.

Grief comes in waves. It comes gushing in waves, sometimes, when you least suspect it.

Grief and loss have no shape, no color.

I recently saw a post on a women’s only Facebook group I am a member of.

It was a simple post, but perhaps the most gut wrenching one.

No long back story, not a woman letting off steam, speaking her mind, ventilating against someone. It was just a simple picture, of a child, with his back to the camera. A 6 or 7 years old, perhaps, as old as mine, walking in his home’s corridor. The only thing not ordinary about the picture was that the child was no more!

The mother’s request was brief, but something that cut through my heart and soul. She wrote: Can someone remove the vacuum cleaner from the background of my deceased son’s picture?

I quickly did that through the help of my Canva account and then posted the picture back. But I didn’t dare say a word. I couldn’t!

Not a word of consolation, despite having something to say most of the times…

 Yet it was perhaps those rare instances when you just don’t know what to say!

Reason fails, logic fails, your vocabulary fails you when you see a parent grieving the death of a child!

Untimely death…because you are supposed to go first…and your kid is the one supposed to perform your last rites…

Because how can you possibly console a grieving mother!

What can you possibly say that can be of comfort, or would help her make sense of the calamity that has befallen on her.

People use religion and faith as a consolation. It’s a bad idea, I tell you!

For instance, one lady commented on that grieving mother’s post:  

“Your son has returned to a better place!”

And that part in me, of that a mother, screamed: “No, a child belongs no where else but by his or her mother’s side!”

But life tests you in the hardest and most unimaginable ways!

A mother losing a child, be it an infant, a teenager, an adult, is a tragedy!

Whether you lose your child to a natural cause,  an illness, an accident, or violence like gun violence, a hate crime, it is a monstrosity against nature, the natural order of things!

A child belongs with his/her mother!

Not in a casket, not under the soil, not solely as a picture, as memory tucked in the deepest recesses of your mind, heart and soul.

You are struck by the unfairness of things…

Especially if the person who has hurt your child continues to live!

Dear grieving mother!

It’s perfectly normal to feel the outrage against everyone and everything.

It’s perfectly ok to not want to talk to anyone, deal with anyone.

It’s even ok to feel resentful to look at other parents with their children perfectly well and alive.

But remember, it was you sometimes back, in happier, saner times…

and someone else looking at you the same way, with envy, while suffering, loss and a grief huge enough to drown the world!

So dear grieving mother!

You don’t owe anything to anyone!

Take as much time and space you need!

But make an effort to stay alive, if not live.

Coming to terms with a loss as monumental as a child’s death is going to take an eternity.

Grief experts say that there are 7 stages a parent losing a child goes through.

Likewise, there are certain ways that can help you deal with your loss in a bearable way.

I have seen parents escape from life and into it sometimes…

They find their own ways to survive and live through the pain…

Most find it easier to open up and talk in grief counseling and support group…

among people who have experienced a similar loss.

Many find ways for their children’s memory to live on…

Through art…

through philanthropic causes…

Some find relief in faith and religion…

Some find solace in something other than that…

There is no one way to heal!

Perhaps, you won’t heal, but you would find a way to cope and go on!

It’s even normal to feel as if there is no reason to live anymore…

But just like your child would have carried your legacy, you are to carry on his or hers…

Until you meet again!