It hurts a momma's heart and soul to see your child in pain. When that pain is relived over and over though, it takes your breath away, you'd do anything to experience it for them, but you can't.
As an Adult, we can put some thought into what we are experiencing. We know that there are Stages of Grief, what many don't realize is as children grow and mature, they may re-experience the death and those Stages over again in a different manner.
So yesterday, when my BF's daughter was shouting "Good bye Dad, I love you" over and over, it struck a painful chord in my son and within minutes a torrent of tears and screams emanated from him, "Stop saying that!" as he pulled his hair, "Do you know what it's like not to ever be able to tell your Dad that you love him?" as he pounded his fists on his knees and growled; "Do you know what it's like for him to be away from home and die?", and the sobbing of "I will never see him again"...and on and on for 5 minutes.
All I could do was put my hand on his shoulder, breathe deep and sniffle and fight back tears (not well I might add). His pain was so evident and this was the first time he had been able to put those thoughts into words and express them so succinctly. I hurt me to the core. It took him about 10 minutes to regain his composure, and when he did he was happier than he had been all day. Last night he slept hard and when he woke up this morning he told me it was the best night of sleep he had in days. I don't doubt it. I know what it's like to go through that, I wish I could make it all go away for him, but I know it's a part of his journey to healing. He'll get there, I know he will. It will just take time ... and tears ...
