to really not understand these birthday parties [trigger warning - stillbirth and bereavement]

[abunchofnc]

NC for this. 

Someone I worked with some years ago had a stillbirth. She left her job but I'm still linked to her FB page. I barely know her but it seemed to me to be one of the most horrific experiences  a woman could endure.  My repeat miscarriages felt 'trivial' in comparison to her experience. 

She has since gone on to have healthy DCs, as have I.

The thing is, every year since then they celebrate Baby A's birthday. (I'm not sure celebrate is the word though).

By this I mean a proper birthday cake, candles, birthday cards. And it's all on Facebook - lots of photos of them (including very young DCs who never knew their brother) gloomily staring at lit candles. Picture after picture. It really looks staged and very very surreal. Loads of 'happy birthday baby a' in the comments which I can't bring myself to add to.

I totally understand never forgetting, always remembering, marking moments etc, but I feel very odd seeing these pics.  I feel like a heartless bitch even saying this, but it just feels odd somehow.

I don't even know what it is that I have an issue with: the very public FB posts? The incongruity of miserableness over lit birthday cake candles? I also can't imagine how my own 3 year old could ever process this if she was asked to participate like this other persons  DCs do.

I know IABU. Her life, her way. Of course. I would never comment negatively if I saw her again. None of my business. But I can't get it out my head and clearly am not understanding something despite thinking about it a lot. I'm prepared to be flamed for this. Interested to know what others think.

[GarlicShake]

No, bunch - I haven't expressed myself well at all on this thread.

[Pantboyandpig]

The thing is you don't have to understand it at all you just have to respect the fact that it's their way of marking the day if you don't like seeing the posts hide them. Like Dexter I lost my middle child when she was 2 in not just going to accept the fact that she's dead and ignore the fact she was very much a part of my life and subsequently a huge part of who I am. I certainly not going to stop marking her birthday and anniversary posting pictures and memories just because it makes someone feel odd. Same as you wouldn't think about not putting photos up of your living child just in case it upset someone who couldn't have children. My children aren't over shadowed by their dead sibling just the same as they aren't over shadowed by their living sibling. My youngest son never met his big sister but yes he knows about her we talk about her and he knows why twice a year we eat cake for her, he needs to know about her because she is part of his family whether here or not same as I'm sure many recount memories of your childhood with your grandparents even though your children may never have met them. My son is to young to fully understand death do I've explained it best I can and he's interprutated it to mean he has a very specail sister who lives in his heart. For my oldest child it's important that we talk about her to aid her in her grief to know and recognise that missing someone is ok.

[AloraRyger]

In 10 days time, it will be my eldest child's 11th birthday. Also the anniversary of her death. She lived less than an hour. We will 'celebrate' by buying her some pretty flowers for her grave, some balloons and some cards. We'll take pictures and post them on facebook.

Day to day the grief is nowhere near as raw as it once was. We were lucky enough to go on and have four more surviving children who are my absolute world. They are individuals, the same as dd1 was and not one of them overshadows the other, including the dead one. On each of their birthdays we buy cards and balloons, presents and cake. We take pictures and we post them on facebook.

My living dc know about their older sister. They know we feel sad and we miss her and that its ok to feel that way. They're curious about her and they talk about her openly, always including her in their count of siblings. They pick up shells and pebbles on the beach and ask to take them to her grave. She is a part of our family and she always will be and I won't pretend she never existed.

If anyone wants to sit in judgement of the way I remember my child, well quite frankly they can go and fuck themselves. These bloody threads, which I'm drawn to like a moth to a flame, really piss me off and they are posted so often I'm starting to wonder if its the same person every time just changing details here and there.

I really hope MNHQ don't delete this thread because there are some really thoughtful and measured posts from bereaved parents who are far more eloquent than I am.

[scarletthollie5]

So sorry for the loss of a child(ren) unless you have been through the pain of losing a child regardless of the age you cannot fully understand the total devastation it brings. You do whatever is right for you to . Others opinions do not matter - the loss of your child and the impact this has on you is what you have to deal with.

[honkinghaddock]

My first child who was stillborn would have been 11 now. Every year I make him a card and put it up for his birthday and we have a cake. My subsequent child has severe sn and so doesn't know about his brother but if he did we might have done singing happy birthday etc.
I never mention him on Facebook because I don't want reactions like the op's.

[GarlicShake]

Thanks for getting it, MrsDV :)

I tend to agree with you!

[letshaveacupoftea]

If you don't like feeling odd at the sight of others grief just stop following the Facebook page.

After the death of our baby son I realised that we now belong to a sort of club. Only others who have also lost a child can be members. No words can come near to describing how it feels. I would have been just as unable to comprehend as you before our son died.

Be glad you are not in the club. And please do not judge those of us who are fully signed up for life.

[Alanna1]

I have a dear friend who has been "the sibling" in her parents' bi-annual marking of a little brother she never knew. I think grief is hard for everyone, and as a teenager (when many girls dislike their mothers anway) she hated her brother - as an adult and after therapy she can see the complex emotions for what they were. I also have a friend now who had a little child who lived only a very short time after birth, and currently she marks her first child's birth and death, and on facebook. I wonder how she will handle this as her second child now grows and thrives, but honestly - its firstly and mainly not really my business, and secondly I think she has handled her grief in such a graceful way - if grace be the right word for when such depths of pain is visited upon a mother. It is not my place to judge how I would walk in such shoes. Should in years to come I think it is harming her older child, and our relationship be such that it is appropriate to say something, then maybe, maybe, maybe, I'll put her in touch with my university friend. Grief lets people share things. But until then - my only role is to support her, her husband and their family in how they choose to mark her son's brief life, my thoughts are nothing to her pain.

[Stillbloodyfat]

I think the op has been very misunderstood. She is just being openly honest about a reaction she felt towards something she saw. If she's brave enough to admit to this then we should at least try to have a fair and balanced discussion about it. She is entitled to feel uncomfortable if that's how she feels and she made it very clear she wasn't wanting to judge but just to try and make sense of her own human response.

Personally I would feel uncomfortable seeing something so tragic and personal suddenly appear amongst all the FB nonsense. It does feel a little out of place - a sacred moment amongst so much trivial rubbish. I would feel intrusive just looking at it and although it sounds like a comforting way of remembering a lost child and keeping them part of the family, it is also rather jolting for outsiders suddenly forced to see birthday cakes etc which are traditionally used to celebrate reaching a milestone in life, used to commemorate the saddest thing in the world - a child's untimely death. I have lost a baby myself but I can still see how that might be hard for others to suddenly encounter on their news feed.

I think there is a worthwhile discussion to be had about social media, the things we choose to share publicly nowadays and how the things we look at on social media affect us. Unfortunately perhaps this post was too near the knuckle for those who have gone through such loss but for what it's worth op - I think you raised issues worth discussing so please don't feel ashamed.

[ThatsNotMyRabbit]

What a sensible, measured post stillbloodyfat. I'm afraid it will mostly fall on deaf ears though. I dare say the OP is still in for more tellings off.

[minmooch]

Seriously Thatsnotmyrabbit you really think we are 'telling off' the op? Like a naughty child? Really?

Can you not see the hurt that the bereaved parents on here have expressed? How we are tired of explaining? Tired of being judged? Tired of attitudes like yours.

It is exhausting living life without your child. it is not just a moments event. It unfolds for ever. Everything your child did not get to do. Every dream you had for them. Every family event they miss out on. Every breath they did not take. No more memories to make. No more photos to take. The memories and photos of our children take on more meaning. We want to keep the memory of our children alive - in ways that are individual to each person.

You don't have to understand because you couldn't possibly. What you can do is show some compassion to those who have suffered the unimaginable.

[FiveSixPickUpSticks]

What a sensible, measured post stillbloodyfat. I'm afraid it will mostly fall on deaf ears though. I dare say the OP is still in for more tellings off.

More like the actual experience of bereaved parents is being ignored and falling on deaf ears.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

I think one aspect is the unreality of Facebook and the difficulty in society as a whole to acknowledge illness and death, especially the death of children, or another taboo is suicide. We have a long way to go ...

[Stillbloodyfat]

Mini mooch I just felt that this thread was not started to disrespect or to be unsympathetic towards bereaved parents such as you and I - I felt the op was addressing the use of social media for sharing very personal moments. For some this blanket sharing is a way of validating their experiences but we have to realise when we do this that there is sometimes an impact on those that we share with. When we put things on social media we put others into a position of sharing our lives and they may not always be comfortable with this all of the time.

[Northernlurker]

Ok - I am not a bereaved parent. I don't know how it feels to lose a child ad I pry a never do. But my grandmother lost a child and my family lives with that loss 40 years on. Do you know what happened the day her son was killed? Do you know how many friends and distant relations from the village she lived in, had been born in, came to see them and mourn with them?
You might think it was a lot but in fact her friends and relations went round the village telling everybody what had happened and that they should stay away and give the family privacy. I imagine many of those of you who think grief should be private would approve of that.
Thankfully there was one person who heard the news and thought differently. He was quite literally at that time the only black man in the village and maybe that made a difference, maybe he was just more emotionally open that everybody else. I don't know. What I do know though is that my mother has carried with her lifelong the fact that he came up to the house and sat and talked with my shocked and grieving grandparent Is. He told them how he was feeling and he mourned with them. That was all he needed to do to be a memory they held life long. He was there.
I have friends who have lost dcs. All I have to do two or three times a year is join with them to remember their dc however they want to. All I have to do is let them know I remember their children's names. All I have to do.
All they have to do is live with it day after day for ever.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to have our dcs in our arms have no business calling them weird or maudlin or abusive. We have no business saying they make us uncomfortable. They owe us nothing. They just need to get through the days and live their lives and we just need to let them know we remember too.

And if you really, really don't get that and you're sitting there at home all pursed lips and righteous horror at the thought of something so subversive as a cake for a child who is dead, well just look at your dcs bouncing round the house or sleeping upstairs and just for one moment try and imagine what it would be like if they were gone and people criticised you for taking time to remember them and then shut up, once and for all. Because there have been enough of these threads.

[ProudAS]

Friend of mine always celebrates stillborn son's birthday. It's about celebrating and remembering that he lived and it's a happy day for her.

[LunaticFringe]

still do you know how my fb looked on the day my DD should have started school? Full of jolly 4 year olds excited and their mummies having a wobble about their dc 'being all grown up'. And every single one of those pictures hurt more than words can say. But I hit 'like' for every single one of them because I know it was about their joy not my grief. As I 'like' the party pictures, as I will like the exam successes, the wedding announcements.
Is it so much to ask for them to grit their teeth and put up with my annual fb status on her birthday?
Luckily for my friends think not.