| He is MY Baby too!
A Father's Grief Story: |
| BREAKING THE NEWS: |
| My 5 year old son had been stating for several weeks,
that he didn't want another sister. One sister was alright, but he wanted a brother to play football with.
We had been telling them that we were going to have another baby so that they were very much a part
of what was happening. Now I had to find the words to tell them that our baby had died.
I knew that I had to keep the words simple to help with their understanding so I simply said,
"We have a new little baby boy and his name is Darren, but he won't be coming home with us. He
has died, and he has gone to live with Jesus in Heaven."
Then the routine of getting them fed, bathed and in their pyjamas and into bed saved my "sanity," for somehow I was able "to do something." |
| SHOW AND TELL AT SCHOOL: |
| The next afternoon I received a telephone call from my 5 year
old son's teacher expressing her sorrow at our loss. Then she told me that at the class "SHOW AND TELL"
which was the first session for the day, that my son had stood up and had said, "I have a new
baby brother named Darren, but he died and has gone to live with Jesus in Heaven."
"I have never heard such maturity of expression of the death of a baby sibling from a 5 year old before." she stated. I was so glad that I had spoken in such simple terms to my children concerning the death of their baby brother Darren. |
| RESUMING LIFE: |
| I can say looking back, that life became a bit of a blur. We had never suffered a personal tragedy before. As a Pastor, I had been trained to counsel and help others in distress, but this was different. Now I KNEW what emotional pain one could experience when one's own child dies. Darren had died in the November, and in February of the next year, I commenced a Ministry at a new Church. This became my means to try to escape some of the pain of my Grief, by "throwing" myself into my work. |
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