Behind the Scenes
The following video topic is about some of the things that go on behind the scenes after your child dies. I know there are a lot more things than I’ve mentioned here in the video, but these are a few things that really impacted me.
The reason I bring this topic up is to allow you to share your experiences and to let others (non-bereaved parents) know what goes on behind the scenes. Most of this things are tragic and traumatic. Many of them have been burned into my memory.
Please share your experiences.
This video brought back so many vivid memories of the decisions we had to make the week Beau died. Decisions I never thought we’d have to make. For me the worst was when the funeral home told us they did not think he was viewable. He was hurt so badly they believed it would be too traumatic for us to see him. This makes me very sad.
Burned into my mind was the final goodbye after our daughter was stillborn. However, being the father and trying to protect my wife, everything I thought of was about supporting her and helping her through this time, but it turned out to be the best thing we could have done.
Being alone in Minnesota with no family in town, I told the nurse to give us 30 minutes with our daughter and then come in to take her. Give us one more time to say goodbye. During that time, I sat on the bed with my wife, holding our daughter. We talked to her, sang to her, kissed her. It was such a special time we had.
I could talk about all of the other experiences from telling the family to comforting the funeral director who was crying, but I’ll save that for another time.