It occurs to me that for every bereaved mum there must be quite a few bereaved mum's friends wondering how to offer support and sometimes getting it right, sometimes getting it wrong. I wondered if it might help to talk and perhaps increase people's confidence in offering support.
I'll tell our story to get the ball rolling.
I was one of a group of 5 mothers who formed one of whose "first-born ante-natal classes" groups in 2002. It's an intense relationship, however much you do, or do not, have in common.
One of the children,M was born on 8th December and died on 1st February. I'll call her mum BM for bereaved mum (I encourage her on to this site so she might turn up and correct me!! Hello BM!)
-when M died, BM's first call was to one of us and one of the first things she said was "please don't keep the children away from me".
- the health visitor said that after a few weeks BM would not want to spend time with us but nearly six years later she still does
- one thing I did right was to write BM a long handwritten letter on the first mother's day after the death. I was terrified to send it but BM apparently carried the letter around with her for some time...
- one of us spent about 2 hours a day with BM at one point. It was a big sacrifice because it resulted in nightmares and insecurity for the other mum. I could not have done that I'm ashamed to say but it made a huge difference to BM's life.
- one awful thing we did wrong was to not mark the 4th anniversary of M's death. Big big mistake. It doesn't take much to put it in the calendar. The logic was "if we do it this year, we have to do it every year." So do it every year. Lesson learnt.
- we had a star named after M which BM really likes
- we had a bench dedicated to M and sometimes I take pictures of my DS1 there.
- I accept that I am connected to BM long-term because I'm one of the honoured few who knew M.
- I've put my foot in it horribly with BM several times - not about M but in other ways - but she always forgives me - eventually! It takes months sometimes, then we start again.
- when BM has been low, drinking too much, etc, we don't judge.
- I remind other acquaintances who are going to see BM that BM likes it when they mention M.
- I invite BM's second child to DS1's parties. She manages his parties, she can't face the girls' parties as M was a girl.
- I've concluded over the years that stupid remarks don't usually made BM's pain worse, they just make the unfortunate person who said them the focus of that pain for a while. The pain is there anyway. So it's better to show up and say something than to "keep away" for fear of saying the wrong thing. You can't get it right every time.
-I've noticed, and BM confirms, that there are only a small number of "acceptable" behaviours for a bereaved mother after the first few months. People judge BM when she feels jealous, or bitter, or angry, or just sad at times that are inconvenient for others. I think she appreciates our acceptance that she doesn't have to be an angelic "grieving virgin Mary" figure all the time. She's flawed like the rest of us and goes through the gamut of admirable and not-admirable emotions.
- BM really likes joking about M and about her circumstances. She can only take this from us, but we all have a good laugh. I know this sounds bizarre but it's true. We use humour to reinforce the bond we have about the common elements of the nightmare experience. Apologies if this sounds unthinkable but BM leads it. Perhaps it's an example of how constrained our expectations of the behaviour of bereaved mothers is that I feel nervous writing this down?
I don't know whether BM's reactions are typical or unusual. But if anyone is in the early stages of supporting a grieving friend, I hope they might find this useful. I guess the absolute key is to follow the mum's lead and also to keep showing up even if you feel useless.