The Loss to a Child

When we lose loved ones, we often just think of how affects us, as individuals. We also never think it affects a child, for many different reasons. We may think the child is too young and doesn’t understand, or because they show no emotion at the time, that it hasn’t affected them.

This, however, is not true! I’ve learned with my ten year old daughter, it took a few months before it finally go the best of her. She had lost three important people in her life within six months apart. This would drive an adult to a breaking point…. I know it has me!

Imagine what a child feels like or is going through! I’ve learned real quick how losing loved ones affects a child! My children lost two grandmother’s to natural causes, but they both were still so young, and the third was a uncle, due to homicide. It’s hard for anyone to bare the pain of losing someone naturally, but to lose someone to homicide is a feeling no one will understand, unless they’ve been there.

My husband and I have heard at times…. we’ll, I know know what it’s like…. I’ve had someone die. Yes, we have all have lost a loved, due to death, but he didn’t just die! He was murdered! An adult can’t make sense of something so horrifying! Much less a child! My daughter is a intelligent young girl, and she always has been from infant on up! She’s always loved school, loved to learn, and loved to be with her friends. She was always bubbly and upbeat. In the morning she’d get up bright and early…. Even before the birds, and she’d whistle as she was opening her bedroom window blinds, to let the sun in. She was always a well behaved, healthy child, always listened, always did her chores without being told, and always had a real productive day.

Today is like a different child, and has been for a few months. Now she no longer wants to get up bright and early, and she’ no longer bubbly and upbeat. She never wants to go to school, her grades are being affected, and she never wants to leave my side, in fear that something is going to happen to me or her. She suffers from depression and anxiety. She has panic/anxiety attacks, she gets stomach pains, and just recently started with tremors. We noticed the tremors in her legs first, and now they have proceeded to her hands and even her neck.

This is not the same child we knew a year and a half ago! Will she continue her life like this into her adulthood and become worse, or is it something that she will eventually recover from? Only time will tell. The best I can hope for is to be a good listener, mother, and support for her. And with that maybe she will recover from the traumatic event, that took place in her life.

Just know that children may not be as resilient as we may think, when losing a loved one to death.