What Can You Really Buy for a Mother Who Has Lost a Child?

The hardest thing any parent must ever do is to bury their own child. I know because in August of 1992 I buried my son in Danville, Virginia. His mother was still in a hospital in Frankfurt, Germany at the time suffering from a nervous breakdown.

Come the following May Mothers Day was, challenging, to say the least. We still had a daughter so ignoring the holiday was out of the question. Yet my wife was in a very delicate emotional state following our son's death. We were in an "emotional minefield."

If you or someone you know is going through the loss of a child then you have my deepest condolences. I empathize with you, I know your pain. It is a unique type of grief. One expects to bury ones grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles. They are older than you. Even brothers, sisters, cousins and friends (in your age group) are to be expected but not your children. It is only right that your children should outlive you and should, one day, look down on your grave, not the other way around. It is outside the "natural order" of things.

Even had our son been our only child I believe it would have been wrong to just ignore Mother's Day completely. Since we had a daughter this was impossible in any event. She wanted to do something for her mommy. I cannot tell you what will work or will not work for you. I can only tell you what my family did.

I can tell you this, there is no one "magic pill" gift you can purchase for a grieving mother which will make everything ok. It seems we live in such a commercial age that we now think there is something which can be bought to fix everything. If we spend enough money, then surely that will make it OK, right? Wrong! Gifts purchased with money will do no good for a mother grieving the loss of a child. They will hurt more than they will help.

First off, I allowed my daughter to make her mommy a card. I have always thought that cards made children carry more meaning than store bought ones. Ok, daddy may have helped a bit. We took Mommy out for dinner, nothing too fancy but to a place she liked. I did try to make certain we were not seated near any small babies (our son was seven months old when he died). Over all we kept the Mother's Day celebration low keyed.

Because we were stationed too far from our son's grave, we were unable to visit it that day but I do believe we would have done so if we could have. This may see may bit morbid and strange at first but my wife expressed a desire to go there and it made an odd kind of sense. We did take a few moments to remember him, in the early afternoon, before we went to dinner. This allowed time afterward for healing and happiness before the day was done. She did not have to go to bed dwelling on the loss but rather on the joy of the child she still had. We devoted the entire day to Mom that day. We just did it in a low keyed and down to earth way way.

If you want to know what you can give a grieving mother who has lost a child, give her your time, your love, and your support. These are gifts which cannot be purchased in any store.