Why we grieve; on parental reactions to children’s diagnoses

There is a grief that comes with a diagnosis of a child.¹

It doesn’t matter if it’s a diagnosis you know, that is familiar, because it is the loss of the child who does not have it.

We grieve because we dream. We grieve because we are not the Buddha, and we are attached to the future, to the child-that-will-not-be, to the child-who-never-was.

It doesn’t matter if the diagnosis brings help, if it brings answers, if there has a plan. We grieve because that is not the path we thought we were on.

It doesn’t even matter if it’s a diagnosis shared with those we love. It doesn’t matter if it’s a diagnosis we celebrate for others. We grieve not because we secretly hate or pity or think less-than of those we love; we grieve because we are changed in that moment of discovery, and we are not who we thought we were.

But we can also celebrate.

When we are ready.

Because we know more about this child than we did before. That is intimacy. That is everything.

We can see them not as a stereotype or a label, though the world might try to make them both, but with curiosity. What does that mean for this child? Who is this person?

(Who am I? What does it mean to be their parent?)

We grieve because we love, and we move on from grief because we love so fucking fiercely. We grieve because a diagnosis is a beginning, and beginnings are terrifying.

We grieve because we are human, and we move on because that is life.

Life is amazing.

So is your child.

So are you.