A Child's Grief

I had a conversation with Jaelyn tonight at bedtime that broke my heart.  Jaelyn was with my parents after school tonight and they took her to soccer practice.  Before practice my mom called me to talk with me about a conversation she had with Jaelyn that concerned her and didn’t want to talk to me about it in front of Jaelyn.  She shared that Jaelyn told her that she plays alone at recess almost every day.  I asked Jaelyn at bedtime if she still played with her friend Taylor at recess.  She said sometimes, but most of the time she plays by herself.  I asked her why.  Jaelyn said that because most of her friends had met her daddy, being with them made her think of her daddy.  She said that thinking about her daddy makes her not feel good and feel sad.   I asked her if it makes her sad when I talk about daddy.  She said yes.

This breaks my heart.  I don’t want to see Jaelyn isolate herself from her friends at school.  When she is at home, she is always asking to play with friends.  I know it is hard for her to understand that she needs to hurt to feel better.  I’m afraid if she keeps trying to avoid things that remind her of her daddy she will never really “deal” with the loss of her daddy.  This helps explain why Jaelyn doesn’t want to play soccer or basketball, even though she is good and has fun when she is playing.  It is odd that she doesn’t want to do anything that reminds her of daddy, yet she loves looking at pictures and videos of him.  I haven’t allowed her to avoid things that remind her of her daddy, even though we have had some battles about it.  I think I need to keep gently pushing her to remember her daddy and talk about her daddy to help her get through this step, so that remembering him and talking about him will eventually bring her feelings of love. 

I can relate to how she feels in certain ways.  It is painful to spend time with Scott’s friends and family because it reminds me that he is gone and brings sadness.  Yet, I need to talk about him, write about him, look at pictures, etc.  I need to keep his memory alive and if we don’t talk about him, it feels as if he didn’t exist.  As an adult I understand that pushing through the pain, not avoiding the pain, is important.  I understand that for Jaelyn as a child, it is normal to avoid what hurts, and she doesn’t understand that it needs to hurt to heal – this doesn’t make sense to a child’s mind.