Advice for grieving parents

Kathy Eldon, Parent With A Purpose, shares advice from personal experience for parents grieving the loss of a child on how to keep going on and overcoming the challenges you will face
Advice For Grieving Parents After Loss Of A Child
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Advice for grieving parents

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Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to a parent. There's nothing worse than that. When it happens, you feel your life is over and, in fact, you may even wish your life was over. I remember crashing my car into various things by mistake, but I didn't really care because I was so sad. The only thing you can do is to know that you can get through the next day. You just have to wake up and find a way to get through the next day. Reach out for all the help you can gather around you from friends, from relatives, from whomever. You have to try to be pretty strong for the other children and that was the only reason that I really wanted to stick around was because I had another child. And then know in the very depths of your soul that you will get through this, that there is a way through; there is an ending to that dark tunnel which is all you can see right now. And you will get closer. I can only describe it as the pin-prick of light. Nature, the way we're constructed, is such that our memories dim things, they make them softer, and what you can never believe now because it's so harsh and it's so painful and it's so real and it's so utterly horrific, you will get through this. And there are stages of grieving that psychologists have identified; forget it. They exist. You will get through it. There will be light at the end of the tunnel. And when you get through that, you may not recognize yourself. But the one good thing is you will recognize in other people, individuals who have been through a journey, they may not have lost a child but they've lost something, and they become more real. It's like the Velveteen Rabbit, you become more real. And you will attract new people into your life who will provide support and nurturing and a depth and a breadth and a width to your life that you never could have imagined before could exist in your life. So just keep going.

Kathy Eldon, Parent With A Purpose, shares advice from personal experience for parents grieving the loss of a child on how to keep going on and overcoming the challenges you will face

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Kathy Eldon

Parent with a Purpose and Founder & CEO, Creative Visions Foundation

Kathy Eldon was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She graduated from Wellesley College and has since worked as an art teacher, television presenter, magazine editor, journalist, media consultant and a television and film producer in Kenya, England and the United States. She has written seventeen books on a variety of subjects including Angel Catcher, a Journal of Loss and Remembrance; Soul Catcher: a Journal to Help You Become Who You Really Are; and Love Catcher, a Journal to Invite more Love in Your Life, all published by Chronicle Books. The journals were co-authored with her daughter Amy, who is her partner in Creative Visions, a television and film production company.

Kathy was the Executive Producer of the 1999 Emmy nominated Turner Broadcasting two-hour documentary, Dying to tell the Story, about journalists who risk their lives to do their jobs, which was conceived of and presented by Amy Eldon. In l999 Kathy exec-produced a one-hour CNN documentary, Soldiers of Peace: A Children's Crusade, about the Colombian children's peace movement, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Both films were distributed internationally to over 220 countries. Kathy's company also produced Lost in Africa, a family feature film distributed by Columbia Pictures internationally.

Kathy is currently producing a feature film about her son, artist and Reuters photographer Dan Eldon, who was stoned to death at the age of 22 in Somalia. In May, 2011, Kathy and Amy exec-produced, together with Julia Roberts, "Extraordinary Moms," a tribute to the power of mothers to change the world around them. Hosted by Julia Roberts, the special featured Hillary Clinton, Rosie O'Donnell and Christiane Amanpour.

Kathy edited The Journey is the Destination, a collection of Dan's journal pages which was published by Chronicle Books. Kathy and Amy are co-founders of Creative Visions Foundation, which supports "creative activists" who use media and the arts to create positive change. Over the past 10 years the foundation has incubated more than 80 projects and productions on five continents, touching the lives of more than 10 million people.

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Transcription: 
Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to a parent. There's nothing worse than that. When it happens, you feel your life is over and, in fact, you may even wish your life was over. I remember crashing my car into various things by mistake, but I didn't really care because I was so sad. The only thing you can do is to know that you can get through the next day. You just have to wake up and find a way to get through the next day. Reach out for all the help you can gather around you from friends, from relatives, from whomever. You have to try to be pretty strong for the other children and that was the only reason that I really wanted to stick around was because I had another child. And then know in the very depths of your soul that you will get through this, that there is a way through; there is an ending to that dark tunnel which is all you can see right now. And you will get closer. I can only describe it as the pin-prick of light. Nature, the way we're constructed, is such that our memories dim things, they make them softer, and what you can never believe now because it's so harsh and it's so painful and it's so real and it's so utterly horrific, you will get through this. And there are stages of grieving that psychologists have identified; forget it. They exist. You will get through it. There will be light at the end of the tunnel. And when you get through that, you may not recognize yourself. But the one good thing is you will recognize in other people, individuals who have been through a journey, they may not have lost a child but they've lost something, and they become more real. It's like the Velveteen Rabbit, you become more real. And you will attract new people into your life who will provide support and nurturing and a depth and a breadth and a width to your life that you never could have imagined before could exist in your life. So just keep going.