A Lost Limb

I’ve heard the metaphor many times that losing a loved one is like being wounded. Initially, you feel sharp, blinding, and unrelenting pain. But over time, the wound heals to a scar – it never goes away, but the pain does. I’d heard this metaphor before losing Vivienne, and I’ve heard it a lot since her death. I never felt fully comfortable with this analogy – mostly because it’s presented as a linear process. You have a wound, it heals, you have a scar. Once it’s a scar, it doesn’t hurt any more – it’s just a quiet reminder of what happened in the past. Losing a child isn’t that linear – it hurts, it heals, it hurts again, and so the cycle goes.

Recently, I read an analogy that seems much more appropriate for the loss of a child. The comparison is to having a limb amputated. There are a few reasons why this analogy feels better for me.

Losing a limb is tragic. It’s not the norm, and it doesn’t happen to everyone. When it happens, it gets your attention because it’s not how we plan for our lives to go. We all get scars – but most of us get to keep all of our limbs and all of our children.

Losing a limb is painful. If you’ve ever had a doctor ask you to give a number to your pain, you know that 0 is no pain and 10 is “losing a limb” pain. Losing a child is a 10 on the pain scale (actually, I’d put it closer to 100, but you get the drift).

It’s life changing in every way. When someone loses a limb, they have to learn new ways to walk, drive, and do everyday tasks. When you lose a child, we have to learn new ways to communicate with our spouses, new survival techniques around new Moms, and how to answer simple questions like “how many kids?” It changes all of your relationships – some get stronger and some fade away. You have to relearn how you relate to the world.

You never get over a lost limb. You learn to adapt and find new ways to get the same things accomplished, but it’s always present in your mind. You never wake up one morning and think “I totally forgot that I lost my arm!” just like you never forget about your child.

There are always reminders of how your life is different because of what you lost. While you may adapt to living life without a limb, the world doesn’t adapt to you. Similar to losing a child – you adapt to life with a child in heaven, but the world goes on with pregnant women, baby showers, first birthdays, first days of school, graduations, and on and on to remind you that your situation is different.

This analogy seems much more in line with what I’ve experienced in loss. The biggest difference that I can think of between the 2 is how the outside world sees you. When you lose a limb, people notice that aspect about you for the rest of your life. When you lose a child, it is invisible to the people you meet, and eventually, invisible to many of the people who know you. The battle to adapt and deal with the reminders and pain happens on the inside.