This is how I survived when I had to bury my child

Things You’ll Need:

• Insurance Policy
• Burial Plots
• Funeral Home
• Therapy or Support Groups
• God and his promise that you will be reunited with your child someday
• Psalms, and Ecclesiates
• Family, Friends
• Money

There is no one way to survive a child's death. Everyone us was given a unique personality, and trying to live up to an image of what you think others think you should be feeling will not work. There are so many stages to grief. The shock of the news that your child has died, is God's way of insolating us for the months or years to come.

 I personally lingered in the valley of the shadow of death much longer than my husband did. He had to get up 3 days after her funeral and go back to his work to support us. He wasn't given time to grieve like I was, because He felt he had to be strong for me. How I survived was like the AA's moto, live one day at a time, sometimes it was all I could do to live one moment. Survival is a personal soul and gut wrenching process.

 Do not expect too much of yourself for the first year or two. People around you will be uncomfortable and not know how to react or act. Should they bring up her name? Should they ask how you are? Should they act as if nothing happened? It is so devastating that there were many times I don't know how I am still living. The pain stayed with me for months. Her 8 months of life here on earth, profoundly affected me more in my lifetime than any other event to happen since.

  I spent hours at her gravesite talking to a tombstone. I felt solace there. I understand now, that my survival mode is different than yours may be. All I know, is that 30 years later, I am still here, with the same husband who shares the same tie to the same little girl, who we both wonder about and on occasion have our moments of grief.

 Keep some things for yourself for the years to come. Her baby book, bring it out on her birthday to acknowledge her existence. I keep a copy of her obituary tucked away in my Bible, not to look at and be sad, but as a reminder of how far we have come, and how thankful that she was born

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