I’m Afraid My Kids Will Never Be Happy
Leila Salisbury, right, and her daughter Katarina at the Mississippi State Fair, 2015
“I’m afraid my kids will never be happy.”
As the parent of a child whose father died when she was five, I’d say this is a common fear among parents raising children who have experienced death losses.
When a child’s parent dies, many things change for a family. This might include things like income, daily routines, and day-to-day support — plus the future you had imagined for your children. Suddenly so many things look and feel different, and it’s easy to hyperfocus on the fear that now that the worst has happened, your kids won’t have the happy and fulfilled childhood you want for them.
This isn’t an irrational fear. Unfortunately, so much of the messaging surrounding death losses is highly negative and plays directly into these fears. I have heard many parents say that people (including neighbors, teachers, and peers) have told their children who lost a parent, “Well, you’ll never be right again.” Unfortunately, this can then be the message that gets stuck in our kids’ heads, as well as our own.
Things don’t have to play out that way
I’m not saying that there’s not sadness, anger, tears, guilt, and a host of other difficult emotions that you and your children will likely experience. These are things that just come with the alien territory into which you and your kids have been dropped. Ignoring or minimizing these feelings doesn’t help.
The very best piece of advice I received was from a friend whose mother had died when he was eight or nine. I asked him, “What is it that my daughter will need from me?” He looked at me and immediately said, “Sometimes you need to let it be terrible.”
As someone who was absolutely determined to not allow this loss to make my daughter feel like a victim, this was unexpected – and frankly, hard advice to take. But it also helped me understand something valuable after death loss changed our world: the power of the word “And.”
We like to think that life is an either/or proposition. That people are good or bad. That’s an easier way to classify the world. What I quickly found out that grief can teach both adults and children is this: life is actually all of the things, a thousand shades and degrees and emotions and experiences on a wide spectrum. It’s terrible and wonderful. So, while you now know some of the hardest and saddest experiences, you can also access more of the other end of the spectrum and all the joy and pleasure that can entail.
Sometimes you need to let it be terrible.
You can teach this to your children, through both conversation and, more importantly, experience. Because children’s brains don’t process grief in the same way adults do, their grief will often be episodic. It will come intensely and then 15 minutes later they may be outside playing. So, you can sit with them through that difficult moment and let them know that like all things, this emotion will move on, and we can then experience something else. All the emotions exist within and move through us, not just the tough ones.
But the real question is: How do you even begin to pull this off, especially if you are grieving yourself? How can you create a happy life for your kids when you yourself can’t imagine that you will ever be feel happy again? After having walked this journey, here are a few suggestions.
Find an instigator of fun (who’s not a family member or other bereaved friend)
For me, this was the other single mom in my daughter’s class. When, in a rare moment of non-composure at a kid birthday party, I blurted out, “My husband died,” this woman did not turn away. Instead, she hugged me and said, “Let’s take the kids out to do something fun next weekend.” That friendship transformed my experience and certainly my daughter’s. We kayaked, camped, explored a genuine swimming hole, ate red bean ice cream at the Asian buffet, and took the kids two hours away to see the Harlem Globetrotters on a school night. I never would have done even half of these things without the companionship and encouragement of this amazing and energetic friend. She helped us create so many great memories in the years after my husband’s death.
Lean into new experiences
I also discovered that one of the gifts of grief is that you feel so broken that you’re actually open to new experiences and ways of being in a way that you might never have been before. I worked hard to say yes to more experiences, even ones I was dubious about. (See the aforementioned Harlem Globetrotters outing. I’m a planner, so this no-advance-warning trip was flexing new muscles for me.) We showed up to a crab boil where I knew only the host, and 15 minutes later I was delighted to see my daughter running around the yard, having a normal kid time. We tried yoga together. We even went to visit a psychic after my daughter said she thought it would help her feel better.
Just do it – together
Keep living your life. This is a lot harder than it sounds after a death. But what you are showing your children is that we put one foot in front of the other every day. And on that day, there are good experiences and people to encounter. Look for them and teach your children to look for them. They come in the form of the tiny eggs in the bluebird box or the friend who regularly invites you for game nights because she knows you’re too tired to cook and your child needs a fun Friday night. Remember too is that these are family experiences. Yes, your family looks different now, but you are still a family. In my work at the Kentucky Center for Grieving Children and Families I see so many families who all grieve separately, trying to protect each other. Going it alone is harder and worse, especially for the kids. So, live this new and different life with and alongside them.
My daughter is now 17 and a high school senior. We’ve been reminiscing a lot about her early years as she’s imagining the next phase of her journey. The other night out on a walk she said, “You know, I have so many happy memories from my childhood.” I could have burst into tears. Like most parents of bereaved children, this is what I most wanted for her but also feared she would never have. Somehow, we’d pulled it off together.
So, I leave you with this thought: parenting your children after a death loss may be one of the hardest things you will ever do. And it can be rewarding and full of happy memories that you would not have imaged possible.
Editor’s note: Listen to our special two-part discussion with the Salisbury family in episodes 107 (Leila) and 108 (Katarina) of the podcast. Read more from Leila in Chapter 19 of “Widowed Parents Unite: 52 Tips to Get through the First Year, from One Widowed Parent to Another.”
