I Hope You’re Getting Good Support

This has to be among my least favorite things for people to say to me. There seems to be an implied “But not from me” at the end of it, as if the Venn Diagram of Support offers a large, vast interlocking network of caretakers and caregivers and groups and therapists and so forth keeping me “grieving well” (another expression I loathe), but the speaker is off somewhere completely outside and disconnected. It also seems to imply that there’s some particular key to finding comfort, and we grievers have to be on our toes about tracking in down. Tut, tut.

We do belong to a support group for child loss. It meets once a month by Zoom, which is not a lot. It’s run by a local social services agency. Initially, we contacted, and were contacted by, Compassionate Friends but there was something very corporate about them, their emails, phone calls, their sending us bookmarks with their logo. We started calling them Pushy Friends. I guess introverts like us have that feeling that any group that wants us that badly isn’t worth joining.

For about a week I had the irrational thought that I should join Parents of Murdered Children, just another on the list of irrational thoughts about Sarah’s sudden, unexpected death. Of course that’s inappropriate and disrespectful to real parents of murdered children. And also, I’m glad I didn’t do that because I watched a documentary the other day that showed some parents at a meeting of POMC discussing how prisoners should have all their civil rights taken away. I can’t blame them for thinking that way in their extreme grief, but that would not be the place for me to feel comfortable.

We reached out to an organization that supports parents who experience sudden unexplained death in childhood, but they made us feel that Sarah’s death wasn’t sudden and unexplained because of her underlying medical condition. Apparently in order to be truly sudden and unexplained, there has to be an alien abduction or a sudden collapse of a typical child. I really gave it to them in their feedback survey.

What is “good support?” I think the best support is hearing other stories like ours, parents who have lost children suddenly and unexpectedly. Especially special needs children. I’m not sure people realize the intense love and bond we had with Sarah, and the intense grief of losing a child like her. Yes, it was a different kind of child-raising experience from raising a typical child. But it was beautiful and happy.