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Helping a Father Through Father’s Day

We celebrate Father’s Day with gifts, cards, family gatherings, and perhaps even a special dinner out just for daddy. Stores begin advertising for Father’s Day weeks in advance of the actual holiday. The scenes in advertisements and cards always depict a loving father with a child snuggled close to that special man called daddy.

Many fathers, however, have experienced the devastation of losing a child, and there seems to be an almost non-existent recognition of the fact that fathers suffer from feelings of lost dreams, loneliness, failure, and loss of identity when a child has died.

Very rarely are comments of support made to the father in a family when a child has died. For some reason, our society seems to be more in tune to the feelings of the pain a mother experiences during child loss.

Fathers are somehow expected to be stronger emotionally, and they are expected to heal much sooner.

What can be done to show support on Father’s Day to a father who has experienced the deep pain of losing a child?

Probably the most appreciated gesture of support would be to acknowledge the fact that the father is still a father even though his child is no longer living on this earth.

Refer to him as a father, and express your genuine sorrow for his loss. Fathers who have lost a child as early as miscarriage should certainly be included among the group of grieving fathers. Often, fathers of miscarried babies are never given any recognition of being a father.

Finding a Father’s Day card specifi cally for fathers who have lost a child can be next to impossible. If you cannot find a card with an appropriate verse, choose a blank card and write your own message from the heart. “Sharing in your sorrow this Father’s Day” or “Blessings to you this Father’s Day as God watches over your heavenly angel” will show a tremendous amount of compassion and support to a father who is grieving the loss of a child on Father’s Day.

Recognize the fact that fathers go through emotional upheavals during the grief of child loss.

Fathers grieve differently than mothers, so they might not want a lot of special treatment on Father’s Day.

Men are generally less apt to talk about their feelings of hurt and loss than women, but those feelings are still there and need to be recognized. Father’s Day without a child can be just as emotionally heartbreaking for a father as Mother’s Day is for a mother without her child. We need to be sensitive to the needs of fathers, too!

Special holidays stir up many different emotions for fathers, and Father’s Day is a particularly diffi cult holiday to go through following the loss of a child.

With help and support from family and friends, a father can move forward in his grief.

By letting a father know that he has not been forgotten on Father’s Day, you will validate his identity as a father, and you will allow him the special privilege of once again being called that most cherished name of all—daddy.

Finally, find some way to validate the fact that a father is still a father even though his child is not living.

Fathers are by nature “fixers” and the loss of a child is one loss that cannot be fi xed. This fact is often very hard for a man to accept. By giving a card and a personal word on Father’s Day, you will help validate to the father that he is still honored among that special group of men called fathers on Father’s Day.

Validation of fatherhood on Father’s Day is one more step forward in this process we call grief.

Please take time to acknowledge Ryan and any father who has lost a child on Father's Day. While his journey may be different than most, he still is a father.