Project Joy and Hope Program Development TAPESTRY: A COUPLES’ RETREAT Healing Hearts After the Death of a Child The death of a child has been described as the most devastating event that can happen in one’s life. The death of a child affects how parents respond to the world as individuals, how they respond to their surviving children as parents, and how they respond to each other as partners. A child represents promise, providing parents with opportunities for growth and engagement with life. The parent/child relationship provides parents the chance to love unconditionally and to identify closely with someone who is an extension of self. When a child dies, the things that made the parent/child relationship unique are the very things that intensify the grief experience. After the death, parents may feel an oppressive sense of failure, a loss of power and ability, and a deep sense of being violated. Parents also lose the family, as they have known it, which is forever changed by the loss of the child. One of the most difficult aspects of parental loss is that it strikes both partners at the same time, confronting each with an overwhelming loss. As a result, each partner’s most valuable emotional resource is taken away. The energy each partner previously had to relate to and take care of the other partner is now in short supply. Partners must deal with the grief of the other; one partner’s pain increases as the pain in the other is witnessed. Although a respite from each other may be needed, guilt for needing this often makes it hard to request and even harder to receive. Normal patterns of relating are disrupted: communication may be avoided, irrational demands may be made, and day-to-day problems may not be addressed. Such problems tend to accumulate until there may be an explosion, resulting in greater misunderstandings and feelings of helplessness. Each parent is confronting a different loss, despite the fact that they lost the same child. This is because each has sustained a unique relationship with the child, and this relationship is what the parent mourns. The fact that each partner grieves in his or her unique way, which is different from how the other partner grieves, adds to the feelings of isolation. Impossible as it may seem, from this intense pain, positive responses can emerge. As the grief is processed, a heightened sense of spirituality, increased sensitivity to others, closer relationships, and a commitment to living life can be experienced. Tapestry: A Couples’ Retreat, is designed to help partners explore their grief in an environment which promotes their individual, as well as the couple’s, grief response. Tapestry: A Couples’ Retreat: Goals © assisting each partner in honoring his/her individual process of grief; © assisting couples in grieving as a couple, to support each other in grief, while also caring for self; © increasing the range of coping behaviors used by each partner; © increasing the level of communication between partners regarding their grief experience; © helping couples identify, understand, and express the feelings associated with grief; © helping couples establish a support network of other grieving couples; © providing activities that help couples heal emotionally; and © providing an opportunity for partners to enjoy each other. © Tapestry: A Couples’ Retreat is open to couples who have experienced the death of a child; the age of the child does not matter, nor the length of time since the death. © Tapestry: A Couples’ Retreat, a program provided by Project Joy and Hope, will be held at the Victorian Condo Hotel and Conference Center, Galveston, Texas, in Spring 2008. All meals, lodging, and programming included. © For more information, or to register for Tapestry: A Couples’ Retreat, contact Project Joy and Hope, 713-944-6569 or 1-866-JOYHOPE. This program is limited to twelve couples. Registration fee: $200 per couple. Project Joy and Hope is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping terminally ill children and their families. Parental bereavement support programs include: H.O.P.E. “Helping Our Pain Ease” seven-week support classes (free to the public, locations vary) and Tapestry: A Couples’ Retreat.