Do I Have A Disease?

There are many things we are not prepared for when we experience the death of a loved one. Perhaps one of the strangest things for me was watching how people reacted when they saw me in public after Jacob died. The reaction I am speaking of is the one that always leaves me feeling as though I have a disease.

The grocery store is the location where these reactions took place most often. Knowing that some people were not comfortable talking to me following the death of my son, I tried to be very accommodating when I would run into people. I would not force myself upon people. Eye contact and a brief smile was my typical approach. With people who seemed REALLY uncomfortable seeing me, I would actually look away and allow them the freedom to approach me or walk away. It is the ones who would walk away that left me feeling like I had some disease that they wanted to avoid (like the plague).

A good friend of mine who also lost her son said she thinks people who turn and walk away actually fear that if they come near us, their child will also die. I would have to agree with her to some extent. Either that, or they are so extremely uncomfortable with even thinking of a child's death that they would rather flee than spend a few painful moments asking us how we are doing.

Just a few days ago, I saw a woman out of the corner of my eye. For some reason, I always seem to run into her in the produce section. Well, we don't really run into one another because every time she sees me, she turns away and disappears down some other aisle. At this particular grocery store, the produce section is the first area you come to, so it's the first section people shop in. But this woman never seems to need produce when I'm there.

The sad thing is, she and I used to run into each other before and we'd always have a warm exchange and talk for a few minutes. If we didn't have other places we needed to be, we were capable of talking for half an hour or more. That's just how we connected with one another. Now, my presence seems to cause her to flee. This last time, I happened to be talking to another friend when this woman walked into the store. I purposely tried to make sure she saw me laughing with my friend in an attempt to put her at ease, but when I looked in her direction again, she was gone.

Another friend who lost her daughter exactly a year ago this Christmas is a hair dresser. She is in the process of leaving her current shop to join another shop. Why? Because she has lost half of her clientele in the past year, since her daughter's death. She thinks several of them are due to her clients' discomfort with her grief and loss. Much of the time she made a conscious effort not to mention her daughter's death, but for her long-time customers, most of them knew her daughter. Even with them, she tried not to talk about her daughter too much, but talking is often times the most therapeutic way of coping with grief. She felt it was safe with her closest friends who were customers, but it was some of her closest friends who stopped coming to her.

If you have not lost a child, but know someone who has, please don't run away from them. We know it might get old, but please take the time to ask us how we are doing. But more importantly, allow us to talk to you about the child who died. Ask questions, if you can. Most parents who have lost children love to talk about them. Speaking of them allows us to feel like they are close, and it somehow validates the life they lived. To ignore their lives as though they never existed is the hugest insult most parents can possibly experience after the death of a child.