Grief

Furthermore, children face changes in relationships with their parents and hierarchical order among siblings with new parental expectations thrust upon them. Because of the centrality of the deceased sibling in the family during illness and after death, it may appear to surviving children that the deceased child is more important to parents than they are, making them feel insignificant. However, out of their loyalty and concern for distressed parents, children often become protective toward them, hiding their emotional and even physical pain so as not to burden their parents. They often become vigilant over parents' comings and goings. At the same time, parents, who fear that a similar tragedy may strike them again, become overprotective toward their surviving children. Parental overprotectiveness may be seen in their reluctance to discipline children or to allow children to engage in normal growth experiences. In some cases, parents' unresolved grief and desire to keep deceased children alive may result in using surviving children or children born after the death as replacement children, who are expected to take over the identities of the deceased, denying them their own unique identities.

The Process of Healing

The impact of a child's death is pervasive and profound. The family and its members are irrevocably changed. Grandparents grieve for their grandchild whose life ended prematurely as well as their own loss, but often their grief is more focused on their adult child who has suffered a devastating loss. Other extended family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and sometimes even strangers are touched by the death directly or indirectly. Too frequently, what others say and do out of their own discomfort or lack of understanding about parental grief hurts and angers bereaved parents, creating a chasm between them and the bereaved, and thus diminishing the support networks to which the bereaved normally turn. On the other hand, those who stand by them and offer support and assistance while their child is ill and in their mourning are gratefully remembered by the bereaved.

The process of mourning is agonizingly long. It may be many months before parents restore their sense of equilibrium and become actively involved in daily life. Parents' willingness to openly share their grief with one another strengthens their relationship, and their ability to provide a secure and supportive environment for children facilitates the process of healing in the family. A child's death compels family members to reexamine their assumptions about the world, renew or question their spiritual or religious beliefs, and search for meaning in life. Realizing the fragility of life, survivors may develop a deeper appreciation of life and change their life priorities. Moreover, they discover inner strengths and resources they never knew they had.

A bond between deceased children and surviving family members continues for the rest of their lives. So does the pain of loss, which parents feel acutely from time to time throughout their lives as special days approach; when something, perhaps a song, triggers thoughts of deceased children; and as deceased children miss each of the developmental milestones that they would have reached had they lived. As Robert Kastenbaum states, parents may not wish to relinquish their grief, for the pain is part of the precious memory that keeps a connection with the deceased. After a long and difficult journey, most parents learn to live with their pain of grief and move forward, finding once again some pleasure in life and hope for the future.