How long will it take before I feel ‘normal’ again?

The pain doesn’t go away, ever. It will lessen a little sometimes and once in a while it will come back in a big tidal wave. I think, as the years pass, the tidal waves become farther apart. Unlike in the beginning, it’s a constant tsunami.
Roxanne Noddin
Mother of Jacob

No. It won’t go away. I have learned to live with my pain. I still feel it physically in my chest sometimes but it comes and goes now. It has lessened tremendously over the years. Don’t think it will be this painful forever, time seems to creep by at Linda Kaiser
Mother of Cheyenne

Not completely. I still feel the pain every day and it’s been nearly 6 years. I don’t think the pain will ever truly go away. And I don’t want it to ever truly go away. The pain is there because my daughter is gone from my life. I have to live each and every day without her and know she isn’t coming back again for me to touch and hold. How can that pain ever go away?
Brandy Cain
Mother of Mikalya

Unfortunately the pain never goes away. With time it just gets easier to handle the tears and the heart ache. With time the ache in your heart does get a bit easier to handle. You learn to talk about your child without getting that big lump in your throat or getting teary eyed whenever someone says their name or you see a picture.
Diana Parker
Mother of Tyanna Lyra Parker – 6 1/2 when she died in November 2000 

No, I don’t think the pain will ever go away, I will never miss him less, I just think that God gives you the strength to carry on and if you listen, he teaches you how to handle pain. I don’t think the pain gets any less, or the yearning to hold your child fades, I just think God holds your hand and walks you through and on those days that you are to weary and weak, he carries you.
Jeni Taylor
Mother of Cylis Taylor

No. My pain will never go away, I know that. I still have days where I cry off and on all day long…or I’ll see a beautiful little girl about Kaeli’s age and she’ll smile at me…and I choke back the tears. But I can say that it has gone from an everyday struggle to make it through the day to something more bearable. I may go for weeks without shedding a tear. I can even Dana Graham
Mother of Kaeli

I don’t think the pain will ever go away. It has lessened over time, but sometimes, if I think too hard, or on certain days, the grief is all new again. It’s a permanent part of my being now.
Cathy
Grandmother of Brooke

Honestly? No. I don’t think so. My child passed away in the fall of 2003. I still miss him daily. My grandmother lost a child back in 1945. She still mentions him from time to time, goes to visits his grave, and even as recently as when my son passed expressed her guilt at his death, which was due of course to something utterly natural and completely beyond her control.
Michelle Reed
Mother of Nicky