Nothing can rip apart a mother’s world like the death of a child. For most parents, such an unfathomable loss is the worst experience they will ever endure, say grief experts.
“Nature prepares you to die before your children. Nothing prepares parents to carry on without them,” says Kathryn “K.C.” Conway, a social worker at the Center for Grief Recovery in Rogers Park. “There’s an enormous sense the world and life no longer make any sense.”
Such a devastating loss affects everything in a parent’s life, including relationships with a spouse, friends and surviving children. Cindy Sheehan, for example, whose son Casey’s April 2004 death in Iraq spurred her to protest for nearly a month outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, recently announced that she and her husband had separated. The 48-year-old Vacaville, Calif., mother of two other children set up camp near the ranch on Aug. 6. Patrick Sheehan filed for divorce on Aug. 12.
“My kids and I feel like we’ve had two losses: Casey, and now our wife and mother,” Patrick told People magazine. “The kids are angry and lonely for her.”
Marital stress is typical after a child’s death, grief counselors say.
“Each person has very different needs around expressing their grief, and different ways of showing it,” says San Jose, Calif.-based grief specialist Rachel Weinstein.
Cindy Sheehan expressed her grief publicly and powerfully, away from her family. She didn’t want another parent to suffer a loss such as hers, according to comments she made to the media, and she needed to talk to Bush about the Iraq war–vowing to stay at his ranch until he did. (The president refused to meet with her.)
Surviving siblings are often ignored for a period because parents are overwhelmed, Weinstein says. Friendships suffer because a grieving mother finds it difficult to believe others can relate to her. The friends of grieving mothers run out of patience and sympathy.
“You don’t want to be in touch with something so horrifying. You don’t want to hear about it anymore,” Conway says.
Support groups, such as The Compassionate Friends, which has chapters throughout the world, including 600 in the U.S., are invaluable to grieving families, who often find their lives, and relationships with family and friends, turned upside down after the death of a child.
“You hear other parents talking about what’s going on in your head,” says Compassionate Friends spokesman Wayne Loder of the two-hour, monthly gatherings of bereaved parents.
We asked three mothers to talk about which relationship in their lives was most affected by the loss of their children. With grace and insight, each explained the difficult adjustments they faced with friends and family members.
Karen Gale, 56
Home: Grand Marais, Minn.
Child: Brian, 20, took his own life on Aug. 30, 1988
Surviving children: Amy and Christina
(At the time of Brian’s death, husband Doug was a youth pastor and Karen was running a home day-care center.)
“Our son had gotten involved in drugs and alcohol and was in therapy at the time. As we look back, all the signs were there. We just didn’t see them.
“Brian had just moved home. We told him `we love you and want you to be happy.’ He was home for about a month before the suicide. One night he said he was going to the store, and he didn’t come back. My husband found him three days later hanging in the garage.
“The relationship that changed the most was with my two remaining children. Amy was in her first year of college and Christina was entering sophomore year of high school. When Brian died I was flooded with every negative word I ever said to him, every time I disciplined or corrected him, and I became overwhelmed with guilt and [was] blaming myself. I didn’t want to lose another child. Even though I’d felt very close to Brian and the other children, the months after he died I had to work through guilt and blame, and I came to some conclusions as far as my relationship with all three of my children.
“I realized I was a good mother … but I needed to change how I reacted and interacted with them and their decisions in life. I changed my parenting skills: I listened without commenting unless asked, I wanted to be more of a friend. So I’d bite my tongue. I was a pastor’s wife, and many people came to us for advice, and I’d say, `My tongue always hurts because I’m biting it all the time!’ I learned to focus on what’s right and good with people, rather than what’s wrong. After Brian died I determined I never, ever wanted anyone to feel like he did … I determined I’d start looking for good in people, and pointing it out to them with positive words.
“Doing that with my daughters brought an even closer relationship. Now we talk close to every day, and they say I am their best friend. I’m glad we have that relationship.
“It’s not that Brian’s death still doesn’t hurt. But our whole family decided that the situation could make us bitter or make us better–we decided to let it make us better.”
(Five years ago Karen and Doug moved to Grand Marais, on the Boundary Waters wilderness area near the Canadian border, where the two had honeymooned and took numerous family vacations.)
Susan Van Vleck, 55
Home: Cave Creek, Ariz.
Child: Marc, 19, was killed in a collision with another driver, on July 18, 1992
Surviving child: David
(Susan and husband Frank were living in Marietta, Ga. Marc had just finished his freshman year at Georgia Tech.)
“He and a buddy were at our house watching a movie. Marc was taking his friend home at 12:30 a.m. Within a mile of the house, he was killed in a collision with another driver. His friend survived but was severely injured.
“The relationship that changed the most was with a close girlfriend. We shopped and lunched and hung out as couples. She has a daughter the same age as Marc. After Marc’s death, she organized a memorial in Topeka, Kan., because we’d lived there most of Marc’s life. She organized it so beautifully. She’d call and listen to me cry and when I’d go home and see my parents back in Topeka we’d get together.
“Five years went by and her daughter got married. She told me she couldn’t be friends anymore because she had such joy in her life, with her children and grandchildren, and I wasn’t enjoying that and I was so sad and broken that it made her feel bad and guilty.
“I don’t hold anything against her. I know it’s difficult to sit with someone who’s so broken and you’re feeling pain for them and you love them so much–it’s a helpless feeling for a girlfriend. … It’s not easy to listen to someone cry when there is no answer.
“That friendship was a great loss. There are a lot of losses after someone dies. A lot of friends quit calling and coming by and don’t say anything to you. It took a lot of integrity for that lady to do that.
“I had a lot of friends who wanted to get me out of the house for lunch and shopping. But they didn’t want me to talk about Marc or his death or how I was feeling. They wanted me to be the old Susan, to chitchat and laugh. That takes so much energy to put on that mask. When I would go home I’d just sob because I was so worn out. When I realized the impact, I’d no longer go to lunch and meet friends and slowly I lost them too. But then other friends come into your life.”
(Susan returned to school 14 months after Marc’s death to earn a degree in sociology and human services. She also serves on the board of The Compassionate Friends.)
Mary Jane Toms, 43
Home: Chicago
Child: Jennifer Cernekee, 14, died on April 22, 2001, after suffocating while playing the “Passout” (or fainting/blackout) game that’s popular with teens who typically don’t do drugs or alcohol but want to experience the euphoria of waking up after passing out.
Surviving child: Nicole
Mary Jane and husband Tony were living in Kenosha when Jennifer, a bubbly, outgoing teen, went up to her room before dinner to watch television. Mary Jane discovered her daughter, neck wrapped in a sheet, several hours later. Since then the couple has spoken out to raise awareness about the popular “Passout” game, where teens wrap a scarf or sheet around their necks until they pass out, in order to experience a druglike high when they wake up. Signs include frequent headaches and marks or bruises on the neck.
“The relationship most affected was our marriage. The anger, pain and guilt put a huge stress on the marriage. It was the anger and pain of wanting somebody to take this away or help me–and not being able to. And the guilt is tremendous. Your job as a parent is to protect your child. We both felt inadequate.”
(They moved home to Chicago in 2002 and are now surrounded by extended family, who have helped them recover.)
“I wanted so much for Tony to understand what I saw [when I discovered Jennifer] without him having the horror of it. I felt like, `Help me carry this, this is too much for me’ and he just couldn’t hear it. He avoided talking about it with me. He couldn’t help me with it. He needed help too.
“[After the death] Tony started installing a pool in the back yard. He was always in the hole, digging … I was very verbally abusive to him. I’d swear in front of Nicole, and I never did before. We’d never fight like that in front of the kids. Sometimes he’d say, `What are you doing? Nicole’s right there.’ I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t control it. We fought like that the first two years, pretty often and pretty hard.
“Usually when one person’s down, the other supports you. When something like this happens, you’re both down. You can’t really be each other’s support because people need help in the same way. It’s very stressful. …
“Now after going through this and making it through, we are cemented. There’s nothing in the world that could ever break us apart, we both feel. We’ve been through the worst. It’s like coming out of a long, bad, very hard storm.”
(A feature on the “Passout Game” that mentioned Jennifer was shown July 29 on ABC’s “20/20” news program. Her story also was featured on WMAQ-Ch. 5 in November 2003).
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Where to find support
There are many resources available to bereaved parents. Below is a small list of local and national organizations that focus on helping families who have lost children.
– The world’s largest organization for bereaved parents is The Compassionate Friends (www.compassionatefriends.org), 877-969-0010 or 630-990-0010.
– Center for Grief Recovery in Chicago offers grief counseling services and a Web site with extensive list of local andnationalbereavementresources(www.grie fcounselor.org/grief-recovery-general-bereavement.html), 773-274-4600.
– Children’s Memorial Hospital, Chicago. Heartlight counseling program for bereaved parents and families. 773-975-8829.
– Rainbow Hospice, Park Ridge, offers counseling services to bereaved families. 847-685-9900.
– Palliative CareCenter and Hospice of the North Shore, Evanston, 847-467-7423 or 800-331-5484, offers counseling to bereaved families.
– Survivors of Suicide, www.survivorsofsuicide.com, a Web site for family and friends of those who’ve taken their own lives. Lists local support groups.
– Bereaved Parents of the USA, www.bereavedparentsusa.org, national non-profit group dedicated to helping parents and families who’ve lost children.
— A.E.S.
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ctc-woman@tribune.com
