How to Help Parents Through the Unimaginable Pain of Losing a Child

By Jon Caldara | Commentary, Complete Colorado

Had my daughter lived she would’ve just celebrated her 25th birthday.

She died of a vicious form of cancer just days before her first birthday. She was our only child at the time.

Twenty-four years later, I still have no way to express what it is like to be a parent one day and then not the next. I had no idea what terror was before that day.

Her death is the seminal event of my life. The world changed, never to shift back. If you’ve lost a child, you get it. If not, I envy you.

I am forever indebted to those who pulled me through. Many had lost children themselves. I have tried to pay them back by being there myself for grieving parents, particularly men. We men have been conditioned to bottle up our pain (we are rarely rewarded for opening up).

Let them grieve

A friend of mine just lost his adult son to suicide, a kind of hell even I can’t imagine.

Youth suicide is growing, and it’s little wonder: the crippling isolation from needless COVID lockdowns, the warped perception of reality from social media, a cancel culture that shames them into conformity, the mandated contradictions we force upon them — “follow the science” when it comes to COVID masking but ignore science so “men can have babies.”

If you haven’t had a close friend lose a child from illness, accident, crime or suicide, chances are you will. You’ll want to help them but might be unsure how. I don’t have all the answers, but I have some advice.

There is an unspoken reluctance to diving into your friend’s agony because it forces you to realize you might be him tomorrow. You spurn thoughts of your own kid dying. Can’t do that when holding a crying, devastated parent. Many of my “good” friends went missing when my daughter died.

My biggest advice is just be there for your friend despite how it makes you fragile (and it will). Let them emote, or scream and cry, or just be silent for endless hours.

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