Named And Kept Co

The first Christmas after losing a child

There is no version of this that is handled well

There is nothing on this page that will help in the way you want help.

We are not going to tell you how to get through it, because the parents we have listened to are unanimous that nobody got through it — they were simply on the other side of it eventually, which is a different thing.

What follows is only what tends to happen, from people who have been where you are. Knowing it in advance seems to help a little. That is the entire claim.

The question

Someone will ask how many children you have.

It will be a stranger, and it will be casual, and it will happen in a checkout line or at a party in the first two weeks of December. There is no good answer and every bereaved parent has had to invent their own.

Some say the true number and let the conversation go where it goes. Some say the number of living children and grieve the betrayal of it afterward. Most do both, depending on the day and how much they have left.

All of those are fine. Decide now which one you will use when you are tired, so you are not deciding in the moment with a stranger watching.

Your other children are watching you

If you have surviving children, they are almost certainly managing their grief around yours. Children — including adult children — routinely decide that their job is to not add to what their parents are carrying.

They will seem to be doing better than they are. They will not bring up their brother or sister, because they are watching your face when the name comes up.

Saying their sibling's name yourself, first, is the single most useful thing a grieving parent can do for a grieving sibling.

You and their other parent will not grieve the same way

This is the one that damages marriages, and almost nobody is warned.

One of you will want to talk and one will not. One will want the stocking hung and one will not be able to look at it. Each of you will read the other's grief as a comment on how much you loved them.

It is not. It is just that grief is not a shared language even between two people who lost the same person. Say that out loud to each other before December, if you can.

About the stocking

Families do every possible thing: hang it, fill it, put it away, buy a gift and donate it, hang it empty. Nothing here is more respectful than anything else.

The only pattern worth knowing is that families who decide in advance suffer less than families who find themselves deciding on December 24th with everyone in the room.

Questions people ask

How do I answer when someone asks how many children I have?
There is no right answer, and most bereaved parents use different ones on different days. The thing that helps is deciding in advance which answer you will give when you are tired, so you are not choosing in the moment in front of a stranger.

Should we hang their stocking?
Families do every version of this and none is more respectful than another. What reliably helps is deciding before the day rather than in the room on Christmas Eve.

My partner and I are grieving completely differently. Is that normal?
Yes, and it is the thing that most often strains a marriage after losing a child. Different grief is not different love. Saying that to each other explicitly, before the holiday, helps more than it sounds like it would.