Maybe Broken: Grief After Losing a Child

I was up most of last night not able to sleep, still thinking about the emails from our dads support group.

More specifically, I kept thinking about my response to a couple of other dads in the group, and worrying that maybe I got it wrong.

I was trying to be supportive. I was trying to be encouraging. But somewhere in the middle of the night I started wondering if what I wrote could have sounded like I was trying to invalidate their feelings. I know how they’re feeling. I know what they’re going through. I have said myself that I am broken.

Maybe what they needed was not for me to offer hope, or a different perspective, or some kind of umbrella.

Maybe I just needed to sit in the mud and rain with them.

I see their pain on camera in our meetings. I hear it in their voices when they speak. I can feel it in their words when they write. I know that feeling, and I do not want it for them. I do not want it for anyone. No father should have to go through this. There is something in me that wants to take their pain away, even though I know that is not possible. No one can cure this. No one can fix these wounds. Not in them, and not in me.

So I kept thinking about what it means to be broken.

In my earlier post, I tried to make a distinction between being broken and being wounded or scarred. I still understand why I wanted to make that distinction. I think I wanted to believe there was something in grief that, while permanent and painful, did not have to mean ruined.

But last night my mind went somewhere else.

I thought about a plate falling to the floor.

If it breaks into pieces, is it broken?

Of course it is.

Can it be repaired? Maybe. You can pick up the pieces and glue them back together. But it will never be the same. It will carry cracks. It will carry scars. It may even be missing some of the small pieces it once had.

So then what is it?

Is it still a plate?

Maybe.

Can it still serve the same purpose?

That depends on what is missing.

If the missing pieces are around the edges, maybe it still mostly works. Maybe it looks different. Maybe it is more fragile. Maybe it has to be handled more carefully. But it can still hold what it was made to hold.

But if a large piece is missing from the center, from its core, then no. It cannot serve the same purpose it once did. It cannot hold what it used to hold. It cannot function the way it once functioned.

And that is where my mind kept landing in the dark last night.

If there is now a sizable piece of me missing since losing Alex, and that piece is at the center of who I am, then how can I be anything other than broken?

That is not self-pity. It is not drama. It is not giving up.

It is an honest question.

Because losing Alex did not just wound the edges of my life. It did not just leave cracks on the surface. It tore through the center. It changed the way I move through the world. It changed how I think, how I feel, how I carry joy, how I carry sorrow, how I understand love, and even how I understand myself.

I can pick up the pieces.

I can keep going.

I can glue some things back together.

I can still love people. I can still show up. I can still care for others. I can still be present in ways that matter.

But I will never be the same.

I will never function the same.

And some nights that feels a lot less like wounded and a lot more like broken.

Maybe that is the part I was trying to avoid.

Maybe I wanted to resist that word because I do not want them to feel that way. I know what it is to carry that kind of pain, and I do not want it for any father. I think part of me wanted to protect them from a word that feels so heavy, so final, so hopeless. But maybe the problem is not the word itself. Maybe the problem is what we think the word means.

Because a brokenhearted father is not the same thing as a worthless father.

A broken man is not the same thing as a man without love.

A broken life is not the same thing as a life with no meaning.

Maybe grief breaks something in us that will never be restored in this life. Maybe that is true. Maybe something central really is gone. Maybe there is no honest way around that.

But even then, maybe broken is not the end of the story.

Maybe broken people still love.

Maybe broken people still show up.

Maybe broken people still sit with each other in the mud and rain.

Maybe broken people still understand each other in ways the rest of the world cannot.

I do not know that I have landed anywhere neat with all of this.

I only know that after thinking about it all night, I understand even more why some of us use that word.

And I also understand that sometimes the kindest thing we can do is not try to correct it, soften it, or explain it away.

Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is simply say: I know. I feel it too. I am here with you.

Maybe that is enough.