A SINGLE PARENTS GRIEF

by Jim O’Connor, Huntsville, AL

As a single parent a special bond existed between you and your child.  Perhaps this bond was akin to “us against the world” mentality.  As an entity, the twosome of you and your child were a team taking on the world each and every day.  Even if you were a single non-custodial parent the bond was just as strong as if you had daily interaction with your child.  Then, all of a sudden, your teammate, your partner is gone-permanently-leaving you behind in your anguish and a newly imposed loneliness to bear the burden and pain of separation alone.

No longer can we nurture or counsel or discipline our child.  Knowing that we will never hear the voice, the laughter, the cries, or feel the touch of “our partner” in our earthly existence is something that is so very difficult to accept.  Two is now one.

This intense pain of separation is the point of the vortex that all the grief channels down to.  The loneliness, the acceptance of what has happened, the guilt, the regrets, the anger, all of this funnels down and becomes components of your new status of being a bereaved single parent.

If you were non-custodial, the loss may even be more acute in that your time with your partner was already reduced due to a set of divorce circumstances.  You feel cheated – maybe by your ex-spouse; maybe by the system.  Maybe both.  Bitterness is added to the pain.  But remember, if there was an ex-spouse involved, he/she lost a child too.  He/she is the only person on this earth that can begin to know what you feel.  At some point you need to reach out to this person as part of your healing process and dilute the bitterness until it is gone.  Channel that emotional energy back into your own recovery.

The loneliness of the single parent is very difficult to overcome.  Even with family and friends, the loneliness can be daunting.  This is where seeking out support groups and religious organizations that coincide with your belief system can be sources of comfort  and support.  This can help you survive and, in your own time, begin a renewal of life.  Faith and sharing are two of the cornerstones of any healing process.

A single parent’s grief is a unique form of suffering that carries its own special set of conditions and identities.  This journey, usually taken alone, requires the single parent to reach out in a more active way. It is widely accepted among grief counselors that the death of a child carries a deepened pain; the death of an only child (or all the children) goes deeper; and if you are a single parent beset by this tragedy, the crevasse of grief and pain extends even deeper.

As a reinvestment outlet, try  to come up with ways to stay  “connected” with your child, your partner.   Maybe through objects or songs or activities or anything that both of you identified with, a connection can be maintained so that, in your own special way, your partnership is preserved.

James Ryan O’Connor, almost 17, son of Jim O’Connor, drowned on July 19, 1998.
reprinted from ALIVE ALONE newsletter, February, 2000.

ALIVE ALONE  is a non-profit organization  to benefit bereaved parents, whose only child or all children are deceased.  The newsletter is published bi-monthly.  Kay & Rodney Bevington created Alive Alone in 1988 after the death of their only child, Rhonda.   For more information: online accessed on the Alta Vista search engine by typing in Alive Alone, also linked from various other bereavement sites; email,  alivealon@bright.net   or  write: Alive Alone, Inc., 11115 Dull Robinson Road, Van Wert, Ohio 45891.

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