The Final Goodbye...Teenagers and Loss

Recently in our home this has been a big part of our daily life...A few of  my sons mates have lost their lives either to taking it themselves or in car accidents in the last year...This has been a very rough subject of late thinking each time that maybe the call from my son might be another crying session as he finds out there is yet another loss...I remember back to being a teen...There was three of my friends I lost in all my teenage years...One was hit by a car one was hit by a truck and another died in his own car after having a heart attack at 17...I remember the pain and the feeling of not understanding why this was happening...I am now watching my son spiral into the same feelings and thoughts I had too...

Dealing with death is hard for adults let alone our younger teens...They have more of a concept of  when they say Goodbye to this mate it will be forever...When kids are younger they know when you tell them that someone has died but they really have trouble understanding the concept of the final goodbye...Teenagers do as we adults do and struggle with the loss of friends often battling with not understanding why something like this could happen to someone so young....

What I wanted to share with you what we have done here in our home to help the grieving process with our eldest child...To try to make him feel like he is not alone in this as he struggles with emotions of anger and hurt as he thinks of his mates...

First thing we have done is talk about it...This is really important if you teen wants to talk... talk about it and if they are not ready to then tell them you are there to talk about it whenever they are ready...At this point we also offered the outside option that if he didnt want to talk to us he could talk to his psychologist or anyone else all he had to do was let us know...We also tried to encourage him to write about his feelings and thoughts on the losses and even write a goodbye note to his mates remembering the goodtimes in the letter...

We told the school of the losses just to make them more aware of why he might be feeling less attentitive...Talking to the school makes them understand a little if he needed to be excused to go and talk to the chaplain or guidance counsellor...It also gave him the ability to say to his teacher if he could be excused just for some time out or to cry alone...Away from his peers...

One thing I have noticed that with each loss the reaction from our son has been different one of the losses he wanted to talk about it...His feelings and thoughts and the hurt he was feeling...He still goes quiet when we drive past the place where his mate lost his life...The last mate he has lost he has chosen to write a letter to him and talk of the good times he has had with him and included a photo from his myspace...He would like him to be buried with this...

Loss is a thing that in some time in our life we all have to deal with and we all have to understand that just becuse there is no outward appearance of sadness and crying that the emotions that are felt with loss will still be inside...Deal with this in the best way you can to help your teenager know they are not suffering alone...

Just wanted to share this with you all...
Take care
Angie