Indirectly grieving

[Lollipop20]

My best friends nephew who is a few months old who unknowingly had a life limiting illness has been told he only has days to live and for some reason I can’t help but feel SO upset and crying on and off and I can’t help but feel so selfish for feeling like that as it isn’t me that’s going through it directly and I don’t really know her sister whose child it is too well despite me and her being best friends for nearly 29 years. I think it’s grief for my best friend and worry for what she is going through/ about to go through but I’ve never experienced this before, I just wondered if people have gone through this when it’s grief for a friend or someone you know as opposed to yourself directly? What have you done to help your nearest through the most horrendous grief? Thanks

Few things are as distressing as a dying child, so your upset is a normal human emotion. Be easy on yourself. Since becoming a mother myself, I can't even read books or watch films with infant mortality.

My boss's granddaughter was terminally ill then passed last year. I just made sure I cried in private, and was there for my boss with her grief. She too needed an outlet as when she was with her son and daughter-in-law, it was about their grief, not hers.

Life can be so unfair and tragic and there's just no making sense of why this happens. Love and strength to you, and the poor family at the middle of this. Xx

Yanbu because there is no "correct" way to feel. You feel what you feel and your feelings are valid. However, you are right to acknowledge that they need some unpacking.

Grief can be understood as love where the person loved is gone. Clearly this specific child isn't someone you love as such, though I am sure they are a perfectly lovely child. You do love your friend, and your friend loves the child and us going to be deeply wounded by this tragedy. Of coirse you are affected. The child's illness and death is an overwhelming and unspeakable tragedy and of course the very thought of it is dreadful. We know intellectually that such tragedies are happening every day somewhere in the world but we compartmentalise and het on with our lives bevause we would go mad if we grieved ever human tragedy that didn't affect us directly, but this is happening within the immediate family of your friend so your normal "filter" to be able to acknowledge the tragedy and move on doesn't have a "medium" switch. Your empathy is right there refusing to ve switched off. This isn't wrong.

What to do - well is there anything you can do for your friend to enable her to more effectively be there for her sister? Can you do the school run for yoir friend or sort out food and shopping for her to enable her to opt out of the practicalities of her own life and focus on the family members who need it?

@Casimira thank you for sharing and you’re right, I’m trying to provide a safe space for her so she can feel like she can grieve for herself outside of het family. Sorry to hear about your boss granddaughter and thanks for replying I think because it’s a baby it’s very different hence these new emotions like you said x

@JaukiVexnoydi thank you for your reply. That’s a really good analogy with the switch as I can’t seem to turn it off and it’s ‘following me’ as such. I have obviously just been strong for my friend and she doesn’t know any of this of course. The practical side is good idea about shopping etc I didn’t even think about that like I’m sure they won’t be so I will do that, right now I have left it for her to be with her family and come to me when she needs but just sending little messages so she knows I’m here as don’t want to be too pushy or intrusive x

You may find this helpful.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-xpm-2013-apr-07-la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407-story.html

Talking to us is dumping out - feel free to vent here. Your friend is closer to something truly awful - of course she needs your support, and MN can support you as you do so.

@Dolphinnoises that is really useful and so simple that you wonder how you didn't know.

@Lollipop20 death and grief can be triggering of deep emotion in totally unexpected and random ways. I suspect underlying it all is our own fear of death and our own fear of losing people close to us.

When I learnt that someone I knew vaguely (friend of friend) had met a few times socially had committed suicide in a horrible way because they had a terminal illness causing them severe pain, I couldn't stop thinking about it and it upset me greatly. I thought about him and his family obsessively for a long time afterwards out of proportion to my connection to him. Partly it was just the horror that any human could be in such pain that was the only way out, partly upset for his family but I think also there is a shock element of 'that could be me or someone I was closer too'.

Once something has triggered that grief/distress switch, it takes time to work it's way out of your mind.

@Dolphinnoises that’s really is helpful thank you as my grandmother and father in law are both going through stage 4 cancer so helpful in that situation as well.

@BereavedSingleWoman I think you may be correct with that as my daughter had a traumatic birth and we could have lost her (she was in intensive care for her first 2 weeks) so I don’t know if I’m more sensitive towards that kind of thing now and my empathy is greater as with us there was a time where we did think what if we lost her.

Thank you for your replies they’ve been really helpful and helped me to understand it so now I can be the best support to her: