Parental Love Versus Parental Grief

Parental Love versus Parental Grief

Parental Love involves a never-ending commitment and plenty of opportunities to care for and assume responsibility for your child. Parental Grief challenges your o find a way to live with the frustration of being robbed of the opportunity to directly care and be responsible for your child.

Parental Love involves having plenty of opportunities for emotional and physical contact with your child. Parental Grief challenges you to find a way to continue loving your child without that continued contact.

Parental Love involves having dreams and expectations for the future of your child. Parental Grief challenges you to find solace and meaning in life briefly lived.

Parental Love involves knowing where your child is. Parental Grief challenges you to find a safe place for your child

Parental Love involves attending to your child's needs when he/she is in your presence.
Parental Grief challenges you to learn how to look after your own needs when you sense your child's presence or struggle with his/her absence.

Parental Love involves learning to live with your child's natural and gradual absence as he/she grows up and leaves home. Parental Grief challenges you to find a way to deal with your child's unnatural and sudden absence.

Parental Love involves knowing when it is time time to release your hold on your child, for his/her sake. Parental Grief challenges you to learn when it is time to let go of your sorrow, for your sake.

Parental Love involves an expanded capacity for love and life. Parental Grief challenges you to find a use for that expanded capacity, to not let it go to waste or to wither away.

Because parental love is never-ending, so too is parental grief. You don't really get over the death of a child; you just learn to live with it.