If someone you care about has lost a child, you may want to be there for them but feel unsure about what to say or do. Perhaps you have checked in, brought meals or offered to listen, yet as time passes, you find yourself wondering what they need now. Learning how to support a bereaved parent after child loss begins with understanding more of what they are carrying.
As a bereaved mom, or pareavor, I sometimes wish we could open a little window into our hearts and let someone look inside. Pareavor is a word I coined for a parent whose child has died, combining “pa” for parent with “reave,” which means to rob or tear away. As I travel and speak, and as I share through my writing, this word resonates with almost every bereaved parent I introduce it to. It gives a name to who we are now and describes how it feels to have our child torn away from us.
We would never wish this pain on you, but explaining it can be exhausting, especially when we are already using so much energy just to get through the day. Your willingness to listen and learn can help us feel less alone.
You may see us smiling, returning to work or participating in family gatherings and assume we are doing better. Sometimes we really are enjoying ourselves, but there is still so much you cannot see. Understanding a little more of what happens beneath the surface can help you offer care that continues long after the funeral.
Why People Who Care Still Struggle to Understand
Most people have never been taught how to walk beside someone whose child has died. They may know to bring a meal, send a card, offer condolences, and attend the funeral. Those things matter. But what happens when our need for support continues and they aren’t sure what to do anymore?
They may not know how to respond six months later, or three years later, when we are still crying. Without understanding grief, they may start making assumptions about what should help us or how we should be doing by now.
There can be a painful difference between what someone intends and what we as bereaved parents experience. They may avoid mentioning our child because they don’t want to make us sad, while we wonder why no one says our child’s name anymore. They may think they are giving us space, while we feel forgotten.
Understanding how to support a pareavor after child loss includes recognizing that good intentions can still miss what we need. Someone does not have to experience their own child’s death to learn how to listen, remember, and become a person we feel safe with.
Appearing Okay Does Not Mean Our Grief Is Over
People often see only a small portion of what we are carrying. They see us at work, at church, or in the grocery store. They hear us laugh or see a family picture and think we look happy.
They don’t know what it took for us to get there. We may have cried in the car before walking inside or gone home completely worn out from being around people.
Sometimes, we really are enjoying ourselves. Every smile isn’t a mask, and every laugh isn’t forced. We can have a good time and still deeply miss our child. Those things can exist together.
Many of us also learn to carry our hurt quietly. We may not want every conversation to become about our grief, or we may have learned that certain people cannot handle an honest answer. So, we say, “I’m okay,” and keep going.
What people around us can see is such a small part of our life.
Child Loss Brings an Ongoing Chain of Losses
When our child dies, we lose so much more than our son or daughter. We lose the future we thought we would have, holidays as they once were, family traditions, ordinary conversations, expected phone calls and milestones we thought we would celebrate together.
Some of us lose a relationship we were enjoying, as our adult child had become a friend. Some lose the hope of mending a strained relationship. Others lose the relationship we dreamed of having someday when our child grew older.
The parent you care about may have talked with their adult child every day. Now there is an empty place in their day that you may not know about. If their child died young, they may be grieving the little person they knew while also wondering about the person their child would have become.
Those losses continue unfolding. When someone their child grew up with graduates, gets married or has a baby, another part of the future they expected is glaringly missing. You may wonder why this affects them when their child died years ago, but this is a milestone that should be happening now with their child as well. It is another place where their child’s absence has become painfully real.
We may also grieve grandchildren we will never have, changes in friendships or marriage, and the loss of feeling safe in the world. Learning how to support a bereaved parent after child loss means recognizing this chain of losses instead of assuming the passing years should make everything easier.
Get to Know Who We Are Becoming
In the second edition of Come Grieve Through Our Eyes: How to Support a Bereaved Parent After Child Loss, I help readers see some of these often-hidden parts of our grief. In the final chapter, I say, “Please don’t expect us to get back to normal. Instead, get to know who we are becoming.”
Sometimes, we feel pressure to become the person everyone remembers. You may miss the way your friend or family member used to be and hope they will become interested in the same things, available in the same ways and able to handle what they handled before. Honestly, we may want that too.
But our child died. Something happened that changed us in ways we could not have imagined. We may have different limits, need smaller gatherings or require more time to recover after being with people.
It hurts when who we are now seems to be a disappointment to those around us. Your willingness to get to know us here can help us feel loved, even while we are figuring out how to live in our changed world.
God can continue working in our lives, shaping us and bringing goodness into places where we cannot imagine it yet. But we have to come to that realization ourselves. In the meantime, you can make room for that without waiting for us to become someone we may never be again.
Hold Hope Without Rushing a Parent’s Grief
There is a difference between holding hope for someone and trying to hurry them into feeling hopeful. None of us wake up one morning and decide we are finished grieving. We cannot choose when the fog begins to lift or force ourselves to be ready before we are ready.
Somewhere along the way, a small choice may become possible. The parent you love might let one person back in or say yes to an invitation, knowing they may need to leave early. That happens at different times for different parents, and your patience can give them room to take a step when they are able.
If you want to learn how to support a pareavor after child loss, continue offering care even when you cannot see a change in how we are doing, or we are not “getting better” on your timetable. Please listen to the pain we want to share with you, without immediately turning the conversation toward something cheerful, and keep loving us while we find our way.
Your care and support are greatly needed, but it cannot take away our grief or determine how quickly we begin to feel better.
Three Ways to Walk Beside a Bereaved Parent
First, recognize that our grief is bigger than the funeral. Remember that we will have a continual chain of losses, so be willing to listen before making assumptions about why something still hurts. There may be a part of our loss that you have never considered.
Second, stay. Continue checking in when others have stopped. Remember our child when years have passed and their birthday is still difficult. You don’t have to meet every need, but letting us know that we haven’t been forgotten matters.
Third, get to know who we are now. Be willing to learn what is helpful and what is difficult. Your patience gives us room to discover those changes without feeling like we are failing someone we love.
Safe people become precious to a pareavor. When you can receive an honest answer and make room for our tears without making us feel we need to apologize, you help us feel safe sharing more of what we are carrying.
Understanding What a Grieving Parent Cannot Explain
Learning how to support a bereaved parent after child loss takes a willingness to keep listening and learning. You may not understand every part of their pain, but you can become someone they trust to care about their grief as it continues to surface in different ways over the years.
For a deeper understanding of what the grieving parent in your life may be carrying, I invite you to purchase the second edition of Come Grieve Through Our Eyes: How to Support a Bereaved Parent After Child Loss. These pages offer many more insights into the thoughts, struggles and needs we often find difficult to explain, along with practical ways to offer support as the years go by. Taking the time to understand these parts of our grief can mean so much to a pareavor. You can order your copy through the GPS Hope website, or find it on Amazon.
For a fuller conversation on this topic, listen to episode #370 of the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast, “Helping Others Understand the Grief of a Parent After Child Loss,” which inspired this blog.
The parent you care about does not have to become who they were before their child died to be loved well. Your willingness to know them as they are now, remember their child and keep showing up can help them feel less alone.
NOTE: This was partially taken from the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast episode 370. Click here to listen to the full discussion, or look for the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast on your favorite listening app.
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AWARD WINNING AUTHOR, LAURA DIEHL, has written several impactful books that provide comfort and guidance to those navigating the painful journey of child loss, after the death of her own daughter in 2011. Her most acclaimed work, When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child, has received multiple accolades, including the 2017 Gold Medal Centauri Christian Book Award for Non-Fiction and a Silver Medal in the 2018 Illumination Awards. Several of her other books have won awards as well.
In addition to her writing, Laura is an ordained minister and has an extensive background in international children’s ministry. She is a sought-after speaker and singer at grief conferences and churches, known for her compassionate approach and deep understanding of the grieving process, especially the unique loss of a child. Through her weekly award-winning podcast, her writings, and other resources provided by GPS Hope, Laura and her husband, Dave, continue to provide hope and healing to thousands of parents worldwide, helping them find light in the midst of profound loss and darkness.
For more information about Laura’s award-winning books go to gpshope.org/books.
To find out more about Laura Diehl and the ministry of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) visit gpshope.org.
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