The Sliver of Light After Losing a Child

"I have often said that working with patients who are dying has brought an ironic, but transient, feeling of exhilaration to my life. Most care providers who work in hospice will explain to us that people who are aware of their impending mortality have a sense of being in the present that those of us who are not so close to that inevitability can only admire from a distance."

"I lost my son over three years ago to a fentanyl overdose. He was one of the three loves of my life, and he walked through life with such a sense of goodness that I have never been able to muster the least bit of anger towards him. Instead, I have been in the depths of grief since the moment he died until the time I write this. I will continue to be for the rest of my life."

"Since the time of Billy's death, I have moved between periods of time when I can gloss over his loss with various activities to ones during which I feel like he has died yesterday. When I am in the dark phases, I frighten myself with thoughts that death is an equally desirable alternative to living in the depths of my son's loss."

"I don't know whether this resonates with other parents that have lost a child, but I can say that a very clear impact of my son's loss has been to become acutely aware of my own mortality. I will admit that I often find reflecting on my own death in the space of my son's to be real at a level I find terrifying at times."

Working with dying patients can produce a transient exhilaration because awareness of impending mortality sharpens presence. Hospice care providers note that confronting death often brings an intensified sense of the present. A parent’s loss of a son to a fentanyl overdose results in enduring, alternating grief that shifts between numb activity and acute, fresh pain. During darker periods, suicidal thoughts can surface as an appealing escape from unbearable sadness. The bereavement experience leads to an acute awareness of one’s own mortality, which can be both terrifying and a catalyst for reevaluating life and meaning.

Read at Psychology Today