Article: How to Build Resilient Kids, Even After a Loss
- othersideofparadise
- Jun 5, 2020
- 2 min read
I saw this article (linked below) in the New York Times in the spring of 2017, just as Chip was ending his first round of 5-FU chemo and 5 months after we received the devastating diagnosis of his stage III, inoperable pancreatic cancer. I saved the article in my notes on my phone, thinking one day it may help me or others suffer through losing Chip.
In addition to sharing memories about her husband to keep his memory alive, Sandberg and her young children wrote down “family rules” to remind them of the coping mechanisms they would need In the months and years after their loss. She tells us:
”We wrote together that it’s O.K. to be sad and to take a break from any activity to cry. It’s O.K. to be happy and laugh. It’s O.K. to be angry and jealous of friends and cousins who still have fathers. It’s O.K. to say to anyone that we do not want to talk about it now. And it’s always O.K. to ask for help. The poster we made that day — with the rules written by my kids in colored markers — still hangs in our hall so we can look at it every day. It reminds us that our feelings matter and that we are not alone.”
What poignant thoughts: feelings matter and we are not alone. When we know these two things, we accept that we, as individual human beings, matter. This was a belief Chip struggled with often in his life, until his good friend Bob Byrne sent him a video a few weeks ago of recorded messages from old friends. Chip was so touched by the heartfelt messages that he finally and truly came to believe that so many people did care about him and thought he mattered, just as he was.
It was one of the most beautiful moments I ever shared with him.
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