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What grieving parents want you to know

loss of a child

You are still important to us.
We still want to be asked, invited, and included.
We might not go. And then again we may.
We still want to talk about our child who died.
Days, months, and even years later.

Our greatest fear is that our child will be forgotten.
And we hope you will listen and be there for us,
Asking us on holidays how we might be coping.
And understanding that certain times of year might still be a struggle even decades later.

We may still want to visit the grave,
Or have some kind of shrine.
It might make you uncomfortable and you may have decided that we should have moved past all this.
But we never move past it, we just learn to live with it.

It’s not your job to push us from sad to happy.
You can’t fix it but your ears and empathy help.

The ache of pictures

Published by

Anne Moss Rogers

I am an emotionally naked mental health speaker, and author of the Book, Diary of a Broken Mind and co-author with Kim O'Brien PhD, LICSW of Emotionally Naked: A Teacher's Guide to Preventing Suicide and Recognizing Students at Risk. I raised two boys, Richard and Charles, and lost my younger son, Charles to addiction and suicide on June 5, 2015. I help people foster a culture of connection to prevent suicide, reduce substance misuse and find life after loss. My motivational mental health keynotes, training and workshop topics include suicide prevention, addiction, mental illness, anxiety, coping strategies/resilience, and grief. As talented and funny as Charles was, letting other people know they matter was his greatest gift. And now the legacy I try and carry forward in my son's memory. Mental Health Speakers Website. Trained in ASIST and trainer for the evidence-based 4-hour training for everyone called safeTALK.

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