The Unspeakable Loss by Nisha Zenoff

Author:Nisha Zenoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2017-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

The first anniversary of your child’s death is a significant milestone. In many cultures, the official end of publicly mourning a death comes one year after the event. Often this day is observed with some outward gesture, such as a change in clothing from black to everyday colors or a feast to remember the dead and signal your return to the normalcy of life. These rituals do not mean grief is over nor that, at one year after your child’s death, your grief should be gone. It’s simply a calendar mark that is culturally observed but that can carry deep inner meaning. You have now gone through each season for the first time without your child, the first Thanksgiving, the first Chanukah or Christmas, the first New Year’s Eve, winter, spring, summer, fall.

Probably you anticipated the day with mixed emotions, the most prominent of which might well be fear. You might fear that you will not bear up under the strain or even that you may not survive this dreaded time. You fear the memories that will come rushing back, and a new surge of the emotions that have been so overwhelming. Yet you may be surprised at how the day turns out. One mother said, “It was like I’d had twenty pounds of sandbag on my shoulder that year. And for some reason, that day I woke up and the sandbag was gone.”

Wherever you are in your own grieving process, marking this first year is important for your onward journey. Please give yourself some special time and do what your heart wants. If you want to stay in your room with the shades down, please do. If you want to run a marathon with friends to raise money for a scholarship in your child’s honor, go for it! Or perhaps you prefer to spend your own quiet time with your child, holding her in your heart, expressing your love for her, writing her a letter, or talking to her. Whether you want to spend this anniversary with friends or family, by yourself, doing something for others, or taking a walk in nature, I encourage you to honor what feels right for you. However you experience and mark this passage, you might simply note that you have just lived through one year of the unbearable. A year ago, as you were dealing with the first terrible shock of your child’s death, you probably would have thought even this would be impossible.

Having survived the first year following your child’s death, please acknowledge yourself for surviving. Only you know the emotions, events, and changes that have taken place in this first year. And only you know the strength it has taken to find a path through the maze of grief.

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