Betrayal comes in many forms and ways. The Bereaved are betrayed by their friends and family, first. They turn away from us, hiding their faces and their hearts from our pain and longing. Our family and friends tell us to get on with things, stop saying "that name" because it bothers them, hurts them, grieves them. How much more do we feel, then they? That is not a consideration, however; they do not want to feel. At family gatherings, friendly get togethers, we talk of our living children. How cute they are, how they've grown, what strides they've made in their development. What a pall falls over everyone as they look away at the mention of the child who is not there !!

At work we are allowed a certain time to grieve. We are given a leave, so that we may do our crying and wailing and missing of our children in private. Upon our return, we are expected to fulfill the duties of our position as we did prior to our child's death. Although we are no longer the person we were, we are expected to be the same. What a shock to co-workers when they find us changed, somber, different !!

We turn to support groups. We sit in a circle, talk about our feelings of loss, of pain, of hurt. We listen to others speak of their grief, and console them, knowing how they feel, how they hurt, how they are turned away at home and at work. Some of us find that special place, where we feel we can open up and bare all of our worst imaginings, our worst hurt, knowing that we can trust those who are there to listen while we speak, and not judge us for the natural common feelings that overcome us. When we find that our special place is not what we thought, or that their show of caring and support contains motives beyond that of helping and listening, we are again betrayed.

Betrayal carries its own grief. Not only do we feel great sadness upon the realization that we were being placated, treated as a child who has had something denied them, but we grieve for the relationship that might have been. We grieve for that warm, comforting environment, a second home, where The Bereaved as a people had thought they could find comfort and succor, to relax, knowing that all was well, that we no longer had to hide our true selves and that here, finally, we could get on with healing, and not just grieving.

We learn. We learn not to trust; we learn not to let down our guard, for fear that a stray comment from us might begin again that turning of heads and souring of expressions that we see all to often. When we reach out, making a space for others only to find that our second home refuses to let them in, we again learn betrayal. We learn to hold our feelings in, to not bare ourselves as our souls cry out for us to do. We learn that there is really no second home for us. We yearn for that place, where no limits are set on us or on our capacity to love,and therefore grieve, mourn, and heal.

Death is a that large part of life that is not taught in schools or at home. We are not taught how to respond to someone who is grieving, how to help them, how to show support so they may heal. Death and its trappings are hidden away, not talked of, like a shameful secret that must be kept at all costs. As parents the Bereaved go on with their lives and try to include teaching of death and bereavement to others in an attempt to correct the lack of teaching done in our homes and workplaces. We are in a hard place; no place to go that will accept us as a group, no one who will listen to our attempts to educate, no one who cares for our children who died, except those who already have walked where have previously stepped.

Our souls do not fit us. Our souls long to have that which will always be denied us. Never satisfied, always searching for that place that will welcome us. We must live in our uncomfortable clothes all our lives, searching for that place where we can truly be safe in our healing and in our mourning, where others do not turn away from us, but embrace us as parents, as people, and as The Bereaved.

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