Amanda recently wrote about the 7 stages of a mother’s grief, which I’m sure many parents of children with special needs have experienced.  I know I have.  More then once, actually.

I know!  I only have one child with special needs.  I’ve read a few posts from my online groups about parents who have multiple children with special needs and can’t even imagine how they handle their day to day life, let alone their emotions.

But I don’t think it matters how many children you have.  I think many parents of children with special needs will go through the grieving stages more then once, at some point.  Even after the Acceptance stage.

I figured this out when my second son, Noah, was born.  I felt guilty, and that sense of loss of the child that could have been, like I did when we received LJ’s diagnosis.  Then again on LJ’s third birthday, I was struck with mourning.  And again when he started preschool, I was angry that things had to be so much harder for him.  And when Noah would hit certain milestones.  As a matter of fact, it hit me again just the other day, after dropping some things off at LJ’s preschool and seeing him next to his “typical” peers.  I cried the whole way home.

I realize the stages of grief are a process, but I never realized just how long they could last.  Or that you could go through one stage more then once.

I just have to remember, that no matter how hard of a day it’s been, no matter how sad, guilty, or angry I was, that there’s one stage I always come back to;  Acceptance and hope.  To get there, I try to think about all the trials we’ve been through and how far he’s come.  Sometimes it’s harder to get there and at one point, I had to go talk to someone, who wasn’t involved and not related to us.  But, I know that no matter how hard it gets, I have to come back to that stage.  If I don’t, how can I enjoy the sweet moments happening now?

Follow us at Our Yellow Brick Road.