A Mother’s Grief: 2 Quick Resorts To Minimize The Pain

A mother of an 8-year old girl keeps on hearing her child cry from her bedroom. The little girl died three weeks ago of leukemia. Another grieving mother keeps on seeing her dead 14-year old boy through his older brother’s persona. The child died a year ago. A thousand and more mothers die, though not physically, along with their children every minute across the globe.

I’ve had this ‘agony’ last night; for the first time, I slept without my baby beside me. I cried myself to sleep after listening to her voice by phone. If this is how it feels to be physically separated from your kid, how so when your kid left you for good in this world? It’s unimaginable! I just might die that instant.

After the bawling and all, I slept like a log. But before that, here’s what I did:

Hide. It’s good to have someone around but I just didn’t feel like talking. I wanted to be alone with my sorrow; as they say, ‘Let me bask on my sorrow’. Good thing that my roommate at the hotel needed to smoke so she went outside. At least I got the chance to be alone if only for a while.

What’s good with being alone is that you are able to process whatever extreme feelings you have at the moment. You get your needed release and can effectively move on afterwards.

No reminders yet. After the call, I missed my baby all the more. I thought I’d drown myself with tears or choke myself to death with sobbing. I tried focusing my mind on other things like the seminar the following day but I simply couldn’t. Worse thing is, I saw my baby’s face smiling at me when I looked at the time on my phone (she’s my screensaver!). So then I cried anew.

The thing with reminders is they come with pain when you’re not ready yet. Ever noticed how we let a wound heal before touching it? Before it has dried up, we don’t expose it yet to anything that would harm it.

Shrinks, psychiatrists and sometimes priests may put terminologies beyond comprehension of the lay people but they can never put into words the exact emotions us mothers feel. That is something beyond words. Until we have processed the grief, we come to the funeral with half a heart; we send thank you cards devoid of emotions.