Silent Grief--The Hiding Game

Parents of child loss become world's best pretenders not by choice, but in order to survive in a world that doesn't always understand the grief of child loss. We hide our true feelings for fear of people thinking we're crazy (and sometimes we feel like we've reached the brink of going crazy!). We hide our tears for fear of others thinking we're stuck in our grief. We hide our inner questioning of God for fear of people thinking we've lost our faith. We try to hide our daily, ongoing pain -- but that's the one thing we can't always hide. We age ten years in a day, turn gray overnight, and our joy seems to vanish in a split second. This is such a difficult path to walk -- especially when we try so hard to hide our true selves. If only others would freely and unconditionally give us permission to grieve in our own way I'm sure our pain would diminish because we'd be getting the support we so desperately need!

By Clara Hinton of Silent Grief