By Beewan Athwal, mother of Amy (6/12/2008 – 12/6/2020)

There is no handbook for grieving parents who have a subsequent child. The grief informs the way that we parent, it also highlights how grateful we are to have living children alongside the pain of having our dead child.

There are many challenges for people who grieve a child. The hypervigilance, the fear of death happening again. The reality that it can, as death is random and without mercy. How we parent with so much more self-awareness, as we have therapy all the time and consistently think of our actions and what we want as a family. Having to force yourself into baby/toddler groups, where people ask who many children you have and how old they are. I’m honest to this question, think I need to drop the dead child grief bomb early in a relationship to see if people respond well otherwise they aren’t worth my time. I’ve had a few bad reactions, but I’ve also had many lovely reactions and made new friends.

The new challenge of the day, which I would have loved to look up in a grief handbook, is that my 3 year old has started to say, ‘I’m dead’ and then “I dead Amy.” Amy is the name of my daughter who died aged just 12 and half. He didn’t meet Amy. He knows we love her and has seen her pictures. He knows she is something called ‘dead’ and that means she is missing from us and that we feel sad, we want her back and love her very much. He doesn’t understand the word ‘dead’ and how much pain that can bring. Where is my quick reference book on why he is saying this? Where is my guide?

I’ve thought about it today and I think, don’t know, but I think it’s because he has been missing me. I’ve been stuck in bed for the last two days with stomach flu. We’ve kept him and my 19month old away from me just to avoid them catching it. He’s seen more of me today and he’s been saying these phrases. I think that he wants to be reassured that he is loved when we are apart. He and I were missing from each other, only briefly and not with the same finality of ‘dead’, but he thinks it is the same. We have cuddled and I have reassured him that I love him, he settled a bit now but I’ve not.

It has brought up a lot about death and dead, and my child Amy being dead. Also knowing that these two young ones will have a missing sister that will bring the idea of death into their lives a lot earlier than it should. My nervous system is shaky with the statements made today and I’m holding it together. Deep breaths are helping calm me but I suspect this is something I will thinking about for a while, and this won’t be the last time he says something that triggers me, but I know I must parent first and figure out the rest after that. Writing helps, tempted to write that grief handbook for us all.