Grief Without Burial
It’s not for the faint of heart.
This grief is very real, even if it’s often unnamed or misunderstood by society. It can be filled with intense and contradictory emotions: sadness, guilt, anger, fear, frustration, or uncertainty. And, at the same time, an immense, protective, and committed love for the real child. Both experiences can coexist without canceling each other out.
It is often a silent grief. A grief made up of small daily experiences that are not always shared: stopping going to certain places for fear of stares or misunderstanding, not receiving invitations to birthdays or gatherings, seeing one's own child without friends or isolated, feeling alone in spaces that should be communal.
It is also the grief of facing discrimination, sometimes explicit, other times subtle, and of silently experiencing situations of rejection, even within systems that should protect and support, such as education. It is the experience of constantly having to fight for one's child's right to belong, to be looked upon with dignity, to be included.
Naming this grief does not mean rejecting the child or wishing they were different. It means recognizing the internal process of adaptation, of reconstructing dreams, and redefining the future. It means giving oneself permission to feel, to process symbolic losses, and from there, to truly connect with the child as they are, in all their singularity.
Because validating this grief is also a way of caring, of self-care, and of being able to love from a more conscious, real, and human place.
It's a wound in the soul.
A pain that accompanies you throughout life.
A pain that doesn't heal.
At first comes the confusion.
The feeling of living a parallel reality to the one you thought you were living.
As if the world began to divide into two paths: one that seemed clean and clear… and another dark, unknown, terrifying.
You start to waver between yes and no.
Between denial and fear.
“This can’t be happening.”
“What the hell is this?”
“It must be my imagination.”
The mind tries to protect itself. It seeks explanations. It minimizes. It clings to any gesture, any word, any hope that allows it to keep believing that everything will fit into the normality it had imagined.
But little by little, reality breaks through.
And with it comes vertigo.
The vertigo of understanding that the future you had drawn no longer exists as you dreamed it.
The vertigo of feeling alone in a world that keeps turning as if nothing.
The vertigo of starting to look at other children… and realizing that something is different.
Then grief appears.
An intimate grief. Deep. Often misunderstood.
Grief for the child you imagined.
For the scenes you took for granted.
For the simple life you thought you would have.
And at the same time, a fierce love grows.
A love that pushes you to get up, to learn, to fight, to reinvent yourself every day.
A love that coexists with tiredness, with anger, with sadness, sometimes a feeling of madness… and also with a strength you didn't know you had.
Because this pain does not disappear.
It transforms.
It integrates.
It becomes part of one's own identity.
It's a wound that teaches you to see the world differently.
That forces you to break expectations, to question norms, to discover other forms of happiness.
Because no matter how much we want it, we fiercely desire that path.
That child we had in our minds.
That little one who was going to be like the others.
Who would tell us things.
Who would talk about their games, their interests, their friends.
Who wouldn't want that?
However, little by little you see that it won't be like that.
That life has put you on a path you didn't choose.
A path no one taught you to walk.
For many mothers, it's like having had two children.
One that existed in promise.
And another that exists in reality.
Because understanding this grief is not just understanding that an expectation is lost.
It's understanding that for a time you felt you did have that "expected" child.
That you spoke to him and he smiled.
That he looked at you and held your gaze.
That he began to say words, to point, to share small worlds.
And one day something changes.
Or begins to blur.
Silences appear where there were once answers.
Distances where there was once connection.
Behaviors you don't understand.
And there begins another farewell.
An invisible farewell.
Your child is there. Alive. Growing. Breathing.
And you love him with all that you are.
But you also feel that something inside you has broken.
Because yes, it feels like a loss.
Because it is.
And not only the child is lost.
A part of you is also lost.
The mother you were going to be.
The life you imagined sharing.
There is a part of oneself that divides into two.
One that dies with that child who is no longer as you imagined.
And another that remains alive… trying to learn to care, to understand, to support.
Often feeling incapable.
Full of fear.
Full of sadness.
There were times when seeing other babies hurt.
Seeing children their age grow up hurt.
Comparing hurt.
I even felt rage.
To curse life.
To feel guilty for having wanted to be a mother.
Because he doesn't deserve to suffer.
And neither do I.
Whoever doesn't live this doesn't know what it means.
It's not just raising.
It's supporting their crises.
Their blows.
Their suffering.
And often not knowing what's wrong with them.
And the deepest fear appears:
What will become of him when I die?
A thought that can become torture.
The fear for his future.
For institutions.
For abuse.
That no one will defend him like you do.
Because they are a piece of us.
And it hurts.
That's why it's so important to talk about it.
To find other mothers.
To name the fantasies and fears.
To understand that we are not alone.
Because these thoughts can appear.
And when they become obsessive, asking for help is necessary.
There were moments of defeat.
Of exhaustion.
Of wanting to stop navigating.
And then the guilt.
Always the guilt.
But there is also something that remains.
A wound that may never completely disappear.
Like the wound of Chiron.
The wounded healer who could not die… but also could not heal.
That's how this grief sometimes feels.
It scars.
But on certain days it hurts again.
And still, life goes on.
There are more good days than bad.
The pain reminds me that there is still a way to go.
That today I can teach him something more.
That today I am still here.
And when everything comes back…
crying is also moving forward.
Because there are griefs that are not overcome.
They are only learned to inhabit.
And there are days when I still miss the child I thought I had.
The mother I thought I was going to be.
Then I look at him.
And he's there.
And I understand that this is my life.
The one I didn't choose.
But the one I had to love.
By Rocío Fornell