This past spring, I had to help my daughter through one of the toughest things anyone goes through in life. She had to say goodbye to a friend for good. When she attended field trips or dances or birthday parties with people from our co-op, her friend would never be there again. On a Tuesday morning in May, my 13-year-old daughter stood with our family and other friends, all dawning the color purple instead of the traditional black, to surround a dear family who just lost their 11-year-old daughter, and say one final goodbye.
As a mom, I probably handled the whole thing terribly.
I broke the news of the accident as soon as I heard, which included waking my daughter up in the middle of the night long enough to tell her two friends had been in an accident and then somehow expecting her to fall asleep again. When we found out one of those two friends had passed away, I wasn’t at home and heard from someone unrelated because the news had released the information before the family was able to let anyone know. I wanted my daughter to hear it from me and not some random person, so I texted her the information until I could get to a place to call her and make sure she was okay. I later found out she hid in the bathroom and bawled for a good half hour and I wasn’t there to hug her or help her process through it.
But my biggest mistake was trying to get her to grieve the way I grieve. I have to talk about things. I tried so hard to get her to talk about her feelings, her memories, her thoughts, anything. Even at the funeral, she was trying to smile and be brave while hanging out with her other friends. I was so worried her grief would show up in a horrible way at a bad time if she didn’t work through it. But she doesn’t work that way, and I needed to learn that. In fact, my own daughter told me to stop talking about it so much because she couldn’t deal with always hearing about it.
After burying her friend on Tuesday, she had a long weekend ahead of her that included rehearsing for a ballet performance with teachers and teammates instead of mom. I figured between the emotional stress from losing her friend and the physical and mental stress of a weekend of rehearsals and performances, she was prime to break down soon. I let her teachers know what was going on and warned them there might be a bit of grief coming out during the weekend.
The training was hard and stressful and by show day, she was tired and emotionally exhausted and couldn’t hold it in any longer.
One of the numbers by her teammates was entitled “To the Ones We’ve Lost” and the lyrics were a bit too much for my daughter to take. It required a teacher backstage to take her outside until the song ended. They performed that routine multiple times throughout that weekend and the rest of the competition season, and each time, it resulted in tears and a need for her to settle before returning. Even one of her own routines entitled “Don’t Worry About Me,” made her cry because she thought of her friend who survived the accident and how she wished she could take away her pain. Eventually, she even asked if she could work on a solo routine for the next year dedicated to her friend, and I couldn’t say no.
The way my daughter handled her grief over losing her friend was not the way I handle grief or in a way I expected, but it is working for her. She has to process her grief in her own way. She loves her friend and misses her, but also wants to honor her and I can’t wait to watch my daughter show the story of her friendship and loss through dance this year.
