Loss

As I was snuggling with A today, she told me that sometimes she gets a dream where she is all alone and nobody is there with her. She says she feels cold, all alone, and her heart is broken into pieces.

It was so hard for me to sit with her in her pain, and not try to fix it. This child challenges me to stretch the limits of my knowledge about children, loss and grief. She forces me to exit my own comfort zone, in order to join with her on her path of grief and loss. Never mind that I had painstakingly thought through the "best" activities and approaches to help her navigate the raging waters. She is charting her own course, and my job is to love, support, and walk with her.

After two years, she is beginning to feel safe enough to forge ahead and begin to explore the sadness that occupies her mind, heart and soul. She is a happy, joyeous child who is full of life and spirit, but she tries hard to keep the sadness and anxiety out.

She struggles at times with sad feelings. We tell her that it's ok to feel sad, mad, relieve, scared, lonely and lots of other feelings. We've learned to not expect her to come to us. We have to keep opening up the door to conversation. Just because she tells us she had nothing to say one day doesn't mean she won't another day.