The Sliver of Light After Losing a Child

Key points

The loss of a child is one of the most painful experiences imaginable.

It likely feels impossible to see anything positive coming out of intense grief.

Losing a child connects us to our mortality.

Confronting mortality often leads to a fuller, more meaningful life.

I have often said that working with patients who are dying has brought an ironic, but transient, feeling of exhilaration to my life. Most care providers who work in hospice will explain to us that people who are aware of their impending mortality have a sense of being in the present that those of us who are not so close to that inevitability can only admire from a distance. I experienced this with patients in my role in a clinic that, all too often, treated patients with medical conditions that had accelerated th