Chance encounter with a bereaved father

The other day I took three of my children to play at a climbing structure in a fast food restaurant. It was pouring with rain and one of my boys was invited for a playdate. The others were bereft at their own lack of excitement and I thought, right, we'll go to this huge hamster-like tube play area and you can burn off energy while I have a cup of tea and work on editing my friend's PhD (because children screaming in an enclosed area is conducive to deep thought of course).

We weren't there long when a father sitting nearby noted that his daughter and mine were playing well. He said he had four children, though only two were living.

I was so surprised. I think I gaped or otherwise looked stunned.

He apologized and said that they'd had their son (up in the top of the children's hamster tube thingy) and then twins who had died shortly after their birth five years ago despite heroic efforts to save them. Then they'd had his daughter. I of course immediately said, no, don't apologize because I get this. And I told him about us losing George in May and how I can't stand to say that we have four children because we don't. We have five. Only one isn't living with us.

What was really amazing was that he went on to share more about his experience as a bereaved father with me. He said the first two years after his twin daughters died he couldn't really talk about his grief. He said that he watched his wife talk with other women and grieve openly and it would make him angry because he felt that she wasn't moving on. Then, he said, after one year his wife was coping better than he was and then he realized that she hadn't been wallowing or stagnating in grief. She had been grieving and processing their family's tragic loss.

He said that he had spent most of that first year trying to be strong for her. He didn't talk about his grief because he didn't want to upset her, not realizing till later that he couldn't make her more upset or sad than she was. He said it was starting to affect his work, his marriage, and then he realized that he had to be more open about the loss of his daughters.

It was such a comfort to hear, from a man, that men and women do grieve very differently. I needed to hear that. It was worth venturing near all that icky food to meet this other bereaved parent. Providential really.