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Nathalie Himmelrich

Inspiring Hope | Finding healthy ways of Grieving | Writer

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grieving parent

The Birthday Of The Child Who Isn’t Alive

September 1, 2017 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

birthday cake

How do you parent a dead child?

Today is the 6th birthday of my girl. But she is not here on her special day. She is dead.

Every time I think about her being dead, it somehow seems unreal. My inconceivable reality. It’s as if I lack words to describe it but continuously find myself searching. Searching for words. Searching for her presence.

She’s changed my life.

In her 55 hours of life, she has left an imprint on my soul that by far exceeds the amount of time I’ve spent with her. The echo of the time spent by her side vibrates my whole existence.

The memory of my child is everywhere

The pictures we have of her are hanging prominently in our bedroom. I look at it the first thing when I wake up and the last thing before I go to sleep. Her small body never grew up. The memory of her tiny hands and feet is an image etched in my mind.

Her memory is tucked neatly in my heart and accompanies me through my daily activities. It no longer is that I think of her every day in a longing way. The imprint she left, however, has greatly shaped what has happened and what I’ve been creating in my life since her death. In the most positive way, I could have never even imagined as a newly bereaved mother.

The ritual of celebrating my child who is not physically present

Today, on her birthday I celebrate her. I let my heart lead the way. Every year, my heart needs something different.

The ritual of celebrating her helps to make it real. Most years this involves something that I take out to my friends and family, to help them remember A’Mya with me.

As easy as it is for the world to remember and celebrate a living human’s birthday, it’s challenging when the person is dead. As a society, we lack guidelines beyond the condolence cards at the time of death. With a dead child, people either forget after some years or are unsure of how to react appropriately and best support the bereaved parents.

How to celebrate your dead child

On her second birthday, I made this video in honour of her and as a present for her dad (Father’s Day in Australia, where her father is from, happens to be on the first Sunday in September). I watch it often. I watched it today with my daughter’s twin sister.

On her third birthday, I published my first book in her honour.

Today, on her sixth birthday, I was hoping to publish my fourth book. It got delayed because of health reasons. Instead, I decided to donate six copies of my books to an organization called Heartfelt in Australia. They took the pictures of our daughter during the short time she was alive, those that are hanging in our bedroom. They are my most prized possession.

I do it for myself

Whatever I do, I’m fully aware I do it for my own sake. I no longer expect people to mention her, I do it myself. Sharing what she means to me and how I feel is part of you who I am. I ask for what I need because people don’t necessarily anticipate correctly or fear doing the wrong thing.

On her birthday, as well as on the anniversary of her death, I ask people around me to be courageous and mention her name, write her name on my FB wall, light a candle, speak out her name, and write it on a piece of paper and the city from where they are writing it … or make a donation to the GPS charity in her memory.

I’m sure that I speak for many other bereaved parents when saying that what you do might be a small gesture for you but it holds a huge amount of meaning for my heart. My heart as A’Mya’s mother.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for caring.

In honour of A’Mya Mirica Hope.

In honour of all your children who will never be able to celebrate their birthdays here with you.

Filed Under: child loss, emotions/feelings, from personal experience, grief/loss, grieving parents Tagged With: celebrating birthday, child birthday, child loss, dead child, grieving parent, grieving parents

Having Lost and Being Lost

June 5, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

girl lost in the forest
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

I have lost…
I am lost…

I say ‘I lost my child’ or ‘I lost my mother’ but the fact is that really
I have lost trust in the world, as I knew it before I became acquainted with death.
I say ‘I lost my child’ or ‘I lost my mother’ but the fact is that really I am lost. Grief makes me feel lost again and again.

  • I have lost trust in the world, as I knew it before I became acquainted with death.
  • I have lost faith that good things will happen.
  • I have lost the belief that things will turn out well in the end.
  • I have lost motivation to persevere with certain things.
  • I have lost the ability to live free of worries.
  • I have lost the tenacity to follow through and be vigilant.
  • I have lost the zest of life I used to experience.
  • I have lost energy to socialize and to manage long conversations.

Just recently I was wondering about the physical changes that happen following the onset of dealing with grief after a loved one dies. I experience myself as a different person, inside and out. The meanings I place on situations, things and people have changed. I don’t get attached to things the way I used to. I hear myself think ‘what’s the point of that’ ever so often. I am no longer gullible to bullshit people say. I have noticed previous friends disappearing and new friendships building at a rate unparalleled to what I was previously used to. Maybe it’s me? Or maybe it’s people’s inability to deal with me going through grief? I don’t know, maybe a bit of both.

I describe myself as being ‘less socially digestible’: I no longer sustain long meaningless chit-chats; I no longer do things out of reasons other than I really want to do them and I more often say what I truly think and feel, even when this means that someone is upset. I have reduced the amount of times I follow socially acceptable or expected behaviors or words. I cannot say if that is all but I can relate to other grieving people’s word I have read about ‘inconveniencing others with grief’. The experience of grief has changed me. I have changed in the face of death.

I do understand the inability to fully comprehend the grieving person’s journey. I have accompanied hundreds of clients in their journey of dealing with different stories of loss. I have been trained to work with grief and loss. Yet nothing could have prepared me for the personal impact of my journey. Theory and client experience has tenderized my heart for the tremendous journey one has to go through yet my personal experience has truly broken my heart open in compassion for the grieving.

As I say this I am also aware of the personal journey that each and every grieving person has to embark on. Having read numerous stories of people traveling on their road through their grief there are similarities as well as differences. Individuals are trying to deal in their own personal way with the enormous task of continuing living without a loved one. This is grief.

Today
Having interviewed many individuals and couples as part of the series on “Grieving Parents dealing with the Loss of a Child” parents have shared about the healing effect of being able to tell their story to someone actively listening to them. So for today, try it for yourself:

Remind yourself of your own unique story of loss.

  • What is lost? Think about what is lost in your self, in the outside world, in life’s experiences etc.
  • What has changed? What hasn’t changed? How have you changed? How do you experience the world has changed around you?

When you are ready, ask yourself:

  • What has this experienced taught me so far? What have I gained? What new understandings and beliefs have I acquired? What new friends or acquaintances have I made through this?
  • What would I like to change for the better, which is in my reach or part of my abilities? What do I need to support myself?

Answer these questions at different stages throughout your journey and see what and how things are changing and shifting. Accept yourself for where you are at and reach out for support if needed.

Support is the basis of a healthy grieving experience.

Interested in more? Visit www.grievingparents.net or www.facebook.com/grievingparents.net

This article first appeared in Still Standing Magazine on June 2, 2014.

Filed Under: grief/loss, grieving parents Tagged With: being lost, child loss, grieving, grieving parent, having lost, loss

It’s 4 weeks today

September 29, 2011 By Nathalie Himmelrich 2 Comments

feathers
Photo by Julian Hanslmaier on Unsplash

4 weeks ago I gave birth. I wonder where I was in all this time in between. It seems that my body was moving through the e-motions and yet my memory is lacking. What just happened to me and my life? Nothing seems to be simple anymore. In some moments nothing makes sense.

I find it hard to find words when talking. Writing seems to be just slow enough so that the words can come into my consciousness but speaking seems far too fast for where I am. I also find it challenging to do the most simple tasks, like adding some data in a spreadsheet on the computer, and have to ask people for help where it was me that supported people before.

I sometimes look at myself like an actor in a serie that I identify strongly with, waiting for the series to stop – it just never does. It’s as if it’s my life that I’m acting in. It’s one of those ‘Private Practice’ or ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ shows which I enjoyed so much before. Only now it has taken an odd twist of reality…

To the outside world I might look and act ‘normal’ but there is absolutely nothing normal inside. One moment I cry, one moment I laugh and I don’t even always know why.

I realize how I shock or trigger certain people as I share what’s been happening, how I feel, what I think etc. I had people in my contact list, which I informed about the birth and the celebration who simply sent an email back saying ‘Not interested. Take me off your distribution list.’ I guess I will never know what reverberated in those people when reading my news and many people simply don’t know how to react appropriately – probably even I didn’t know really how to truly be with someone experiencing this before my own experience took me on this journey.

I have now gone back to shops and restaurants where they knew about me expecting twins. As I turn up with a single baby the say ‘where is the other one?’ and once I told them the conversation seems to freeze and die off after ‘oh I’m sorry’. It just takes people’s breath away. A lady in the post office, once I started crying, said ‘you need help’ which was spot on.

So here I am, a counsellor by trade, needing help. Let me tell you we do need help once in a while and not just with something drastic like this. The social worker at the hospital, the midwives, nurses and doctors all were partly my counselling support network and I did not stop talking about what had happened to me and how I feel. These people were trained listeners and many counsellors and coaches could learn a lot from them. I spoke to the other women in the intensive care, I spoke to anyone who listened. Next week I’m starting a bereavement group at the hospital.

And I will continue being authentic with my process. There is nothing you need to do when you are with me and I’m crying – simple be there. No words are needed – just presence. Can you bear the silence as you are sitting with me in tears?

Filed Under: authenticity, child loss, communication, from personal experience, grief/loss, grieving parents Tagged With: birth and death, child loss, childbirth, grieving a child, grieving parent, neonatal loss, supporting a bereaved person

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    Nathalie Himmelrich

    I accompany people therapeutically as a holistic counsellor and coach.

    I walk alongside people dealing with the challenges presented by life and death.

    I’m also a writer and published author of multiple grief resource books and the founder of the Grieving Parents Support Network.

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