When you are parenting a child with special needs, there often is a sense of loss … a loss of dreams, expectations and your own independence. And with loss, comes grieving.  Unlike some other circumstances where there is grieving, when there is a child with special needs, grief often recycles and rears its ugly head at life’s milestones. When our daughter turned 16 there weren’t jokes about her getting her driver’s license or dating.  Milestones often can “remind” us of your loss and trigger all those feelings that come with grieving.

There are five stages to the classic grieving process: denial, anger, negotiating or bargaining, depression and acceptance. Everyone goes through them, at different rates and intensity levels but, we all go through them when there is a loss. It is how God made all of us … a “healthy”, albeit, difficult process.

We think it is important to be familiar with the grieving process, so that certain feelings don’t catch you off guard.  More importantly, we think it is essential to understand that you and your spouse will go through the grieving process/stages differently and at different rates. We need to be careful that we don’t assign erroneous meaning to things our spouse says when it is explained by not being at the same place in the grieving cycle.

BRIAN: During the early years, Laurie and I saw Mary very differently. Part of that is we were at very different places in the grieving process. Laurie was with other children and more aware of normal development and reality forced her to see Mary’s deficits.  I was still back somewhere in denial. I was traveling around the world on business, and the doctors were still talking in terms of possibilities, not deficits. As Laurie was moving into the depression stage, I was disappointed in Laurie, I didn’t understand why she was so down, so negative.  I thought her lack of being positive showed a weakness in character.

LAURIE: Because Brian wasn’t at the stage that I was at, I interpreted his inability to empathize (remember he was still back in denial) as he didn’t care about Mary and certainly didn’t care about me.  It was a rough time. But the fact that we weren’t at the same stage of grieving at the same time was actually helpful, in the long run. If we would have been in the depression stage at the same time, I truly believe we would still be there today.  If Brian would have been sympathetic to my depressed state, (“oh, honey, you just stay in bed today…”) my personality is that I would have wallowed in self-pity for a long time.

Brian: On the other hand, I am still processing Mary’s limitations some 32 years later.

Laurie: And, although sometimes I look at him and say (to myself, of course!) “Really, you are just realizing that now?” Now, I can help him through that stage, because I have already been through it.

The good news here is that by going through the grieving process at different rates means that you may counterbalance each other’s ups and downs as you process your loss (Ecclesiastes 4:10). Recognize that his or her different reaction to circumstances doesn’t necessarily mean that she is weak or he is uncaring.  It is probably explained by the different rates/stages of going through the grieving process, and this is helpful to know.