How Do You Deal With Your Child's Pain Anyway?

I have been going to the mommies group for about 4 months now. I'm starting to remember their names and stories and the names of their children. We all cry at least once a meeting. But usually more.

Some months we talk more. Other months we share extensively about the details leading up to our child's loss. Others it seems we're all more vague. It just depends. And it's not like we discuss it ahead of time. We are free to share.

The pain. The anger. The hatred. The questions. The differences.

Some of the women struggled with infertility and then miscarried or lost a son early on. Others had tragic stories of premature labor or tragic labors, SIDS or odd genetic disorders.

My son is one of the oldest children to die in the group. That is odd. Some women lost then within a few hours of birth, to stillbirths to one whose son lived for 31 days.

No one lost their child to a freak accident.

I downplay the fact that I have 3 other children. I don't want to seem to rub it in. I don't struggle with infertility. My family line seems to be that way. The stories these women share who do have a hard time conceiving make me sad.

I wonder if any of them think that at least I have other children I have bore. Which is true. But no one has said that. Or even hinted that they are upset I have living children.

And none of them could find anything to say when I shared last month that it about kills me as I think of the pain my sons are enduring in all of this. It's hard for Mark and I. Unbearable even at times. But they are so young. And it's difficult to understand.

One of the other mothers reminded me that kids are strong and they do bounce back better than we think. To not worry.

My response was agreement at her statement. But it was hard to hear them tell me that they wish they had caught Andrew. Or that they are so upset that they were at school and not at home at the time. That they would have protected him. How do you deal with that pain that you feel for them? My voice broke as the tears began to well up. How do you not feel like you are being stabbed in the heart because of the pain they feel that you can't take away from them? I looked down at the floor and began to cry.

The room fell silent. And tears ran down my face as I stopped talking. "I don't know how to deal with that?" And for a few moments, no one spoke.

What was there to say? And someone else shared their pain in a different situation.