{"id":3639,"date":"2022-12-01T03:22:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T16:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthecoastpublications.com.au\/onthecoastfamilies\/?p=3639"},"modified":"2023-09-07T23:47:27","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T13:47:27","slug":"motherhood-through-grief-teaching-children-about-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthecoastpublications.com.au\/onthecoastfamilies\/motherhood-through-grief-teaching-children-about-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"Motherhood Through the Lens of Grief: Teaching Children About Love, Loss, and Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Cathy Spooner<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I lost my mum to cancer five years ago it felt like the world had been ripped from under me. It was fast and we weren\u2019t ready to say goodbye. But no matter how much time you have, you\u2019re never ready for goodbyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grief started before Mum was even gone, the prognosis brings on this knee\u2013jerk reaction that replaces hope with sudden grief. It didn\u2019t feel like there was enough space to hold that grief, the fear of losing her and also supporting Mum and Dad in whatever way I could, but then realising I had three little ones who may not actually remember their Nanny. My youngest was just 9 months old when mum left this Earth plane. I remember sitting with Mum one day as tears filled her eyes \u201cI just wish I could be here to watch them grow up\u201d. Me too Mum, me too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a mother, that\u2019s perhaps one of the biggest pains of losing someone you love, is knowing that not only you feel the deep emptiness of the space they used to be, but that your own children will soon understand that emptiness. Grief takes on a whole new level when you have to hold that and navigate it alongside your children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years as the kids have grown up they have begun to understand the realities that come with someone\u2019s passing. They understand the unfathomable concept that we won\u2019t ever see or speak to Nanny again, and for little people, that hurts just as much as it does us. I\u2019ve learned you don\u2019t need to know someone or have experienced a lifetime with them like I did with Mum in order to feel deep loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our kids are grieving the loss of their Nanny even though it\u2019s photos and snippets of memories or stories they have been told. They have grief for what could have been. Because that\u2019s where grief comes from. It\u2019s the possibility of what might have been but never was. It\u2019s the memories we won\u2019t create. It\u2019s the conversations we will never have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grief isn\u2019t when we remember that time mum laughed so hard she was snorting like pig, or the time 2 year old Harry locked us out of the house and she had to climb through the high\u2013set window because at 34 weeks pregnant I couldn\u2019t. This is love and tenderness and joy from connecting into those moments. Grief is the loss of what could have been. And the kids feel that because they too are understanding what they have lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always been open with my grief in front of the kids. They may see me crying and I tell them I\u2019m just missing my Mum. They are so compassionate and are on me with a huge hug. Sometimes they cry too and I don\u2019t shush them and tell them it will be okay. I tell them I know it hurts and I know they miss Nanny. I tell them I know because it hurts me too and we don\u2019t ever want to wish the sadness away because it comes from love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could be easy to think they don\u2019t understand because they never knew her, tell them to wipe their tears and get on with reality. But they do understand because kids feel everything. They haven\u2019t fully developed their emotional brain, so what they do until then is tune into feeling and energy. They look to us to make sense of what feels so hard to understand. Because for kids, their people that love them are their constant and making sense of why they aren\u2019t going to be here anymore is a lot for them\u2026 it\u2019s a lot for all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Losing my mum so quickly when I was just in my thirties still feels like it\u2019s so unfair. Why do we miss out on her being here for all the special moments with the kids and us? Why did we all get robbed of that experience with her? I\u2019ll never understand. Losing someone never gets easier, it just starts to feel familiar. You know the pain intimately, most of the time you know what will set it off. But sometimes, the grief surfaces out of nowhere, unexplained yet needing to be felt and honoured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know Mum is always with us, I know she isn\u2019t missing out as much as we feel that we are. It was Mum\u2019s 5 year anniversary of passing just last week and that morning I felt the twinge of sadness coming on, much stronger than I had anticipated. These milestones every year feel different and this year the little girl in me was really missing her mum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I felt that sadness creeping up within my heart I am trying to hold it \u201cJust keep it together until you drop the kids to school, they don\u2019t need to start their day like this\u201d. I\u2019m doing all the mum things, making school lunches, prepping breakfast and quickly putting on mascara all whilst waging an internal battle to keep my emotions at bay, just for now. Then I hear Ruby call out \u201cMum, the angels left me a white feather\u201d. The tears just flooded from within. It was Mum, in that moment just letting us all know she was here. I told the kids it wasn\u2019t just an angel but Nanny that left that feather for us to let us know she is here and loves us. Harry decided the best place for the feather was beside Nanny\u2019s photo we have in the lounge room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that morning, the kids have been collecting flowers to leave at Nanny\u2019s photo, a beautiful new ritual of love created from grief. And I guess it\u2019s these little pockets. Showing them, and ourselves, that grief can reside alongside love and memories. Reminding ourselves that there is no time frame on grief and it is ever evolving. It does not work to concepts that the longer they are gone the easier it gets. Experiencing loss of someone you love is a beautiful spiral in and out of the loss and love. As a mother, I wish I could bring mum back for us all, and especially for our kids. But my role is teaching them about her, honouring that loss and that it\u2019s okay to feel sad and to cry those big heavy tears. Most importantly, I teach them that nothing will take away that love because it forever has a home in your heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cathy Spooner<\/strong> is a Motherhood and Self\u2013Embodiment Coach and Author who lives on the Central Coast with her three children. She offers 1:1 support, group coaching, online courses and her new book Conscious Motherhood is available online. www.cathyspooner.com.au<\/a> Instagram @cathyspooner_author<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Cathy Spooner When I lost my mum to cancer five years ago it felt like the world had been ripped from under me. It was fast and we weren\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sync_status":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[116,127],"series":[170],"class_list":["post-3639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellbeing","tag-article","tag-cathy-spooner","series-on-the-coast-families"],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/onthecoastpublications.com.au\/onthecoastfamilies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/10\/navigating-grief.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/onthecoastpublications.com.au\/onthecoastfamilies\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/onthecoastpublications.com.au\/onthecoastfamilies\/feed\/podcast\/on-the-coast-families","embedCode":"

Motherhood Through the Lens of Grief: Teaching Children About Love, Loss, and Memories<\/a><\/blockquote>