Parents grieving for dead children form support group

Press, 29 May 1985, Page 15

Parents grieving for dead children form support group

DEBRA L. WALLACE,

NZPA-AP, talks to

American parents about the pain of losing children.

To bury a child is to see a part of yourself — your eye colour, your dimple, your sense of humour — being buried, too. It is one of life’s harshest experiences, say surviving parents. For years after a son or daughter is lost, the parents grieve. They imagine the teenager, the adult, the grandchildren. Experts once believed parents would grieve about a year.

But Ronald Koenig, founder of the University of Detroit’s Centre of Death and Dying, said: “Now we are finding people who five, six, 10 years later are still struggling with incomplete feelings of grief.” Two Concord couples, who have each lost a child, say the pain lingers. In 1981, Connie and Wayne Eddy’s son, Jason, who was born with profound brain damage, died in his mother’s arms. He was four, but had a mental age of one month.

“I would be sitting at

home reading the newspaper and hear a baby cry. I would go upstairs and realise he was no longer there,” Wayne Eddy said. Dick and Sandy King’s son, Rick, died the day after his eighteenth birthday. It was 1974, but they remember.

He was on a week-end backpacking trip with friends to celebrate his high school graduation, and had a job waiting on Monday morning. Hitchhiking home, he was hit by a car and killed. Dick King wanted to talk about Rick’s death, but people avoided him. Some friends ducked across the street when they saw him coming. “When you don’t talk about it.” he said, “it’s mental suicide.”

And when the parents

want to escape the loss, they can’t. Common, polite questions, such as the number of children in the family, may cause anxiety or pain.

Mrs Eddy tells strangers she has one daughter, 18-month-old Meghan. "But, when I talk to someone and think they may become an integral part of my life I sit down and tell them about Jason,” she said. When talking to new friends, Mr King doesn’t mention Rick. “I’m not going through it each time,” he said. “It’s too painful.” "The other day a neighbour mentioned Ricky. I see his friends grown and married,” Mrs King said. “I

think about what his children would have looked like.”

For 10 years the Kings had no outlet for their grief outside the family. Then in 1981, a group of grieving parents in Concord formed New Hampshire’s first chapter of Compassionate Friends, a national support organisation. Seven years after Rick’s death, Mrs King said she felt herself slipping into a deep depression, and sought professional counselling. “One of my daughters was having her second baby

and I couldn’t have cared less. It was just a great big dip back,” she said. Mrs King said she believed she was ready to leave the group, but continued to stay.

“I no longer think footsteps or a knock at the door is Rick. I know you can laugh and that you can get on with your life. I want to pass that along to other parents,” she said. The Kings’ and Eddys’ marriages were strengthened by their children’s deaths. But they are the exceptions. The divorce rate for couples who have lost a child is high, according to authorities in the field.

Linda Sims, whose four-

month-old daughter, Jessica, died in 1971, of congenital heart disease, began the New Hampshire chapter of Compassionate Friends. People drove as far as 150 km to attend the initial meetings. Since then, chapters have formed in a number of towns. Each draws about 20 members a month.

About 8000 parents nationally find emotional support in more than 450 chapters in 49 states. Only tiny Delaware lacks at least one chapter. The national organisation has its headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois.

At the meetings, parents talk about panic, anger, numbness, and despair.

Therese Goodrich, Compassionate Friends’ executive director, said newly bereaved parents needed to tell their story over and over.

“Give them permission to

grieve,” she said. “If you want to say something to help them, and if you can, tell them a story you remember about the child. Recall a fond memory.” Dick King said he becomes frustrated when “I hear families get into major battles over a dirty room or other minor matter. I think, we have to appreciate the children that we have.”