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Grief of Fathers

Fathers are cast in a societal role that is different from that of the
mother. Although there are many role crossovers and although frequentlythe deep strength in a family is in the mother, society expects, and fathers themselves expect, that they be the “strong ones.”
Generally the father is the major support of the family, and he plans to meet his current expenses, insure against the unanticipated, save for the anticipated family expenses of the future, and establish an education fund and some security for old age and years of declining capability. In effect, as a father plans for his family, he also accepts the
responsibility for planning positively for his own death, As he buys a
house, real estate, and particularly insurance, he fully accepts the
concept that insurance actuarial statistics indicate that his spouse will
live five to ten years longer than he, will have her own needs, and may
have to meet all child needs without his productive capacity and support. The role a father assumes is a learned role: he also often emulates his own father; a societal imposed role in almost every contact in lifeexpects him to provide, disburse, save, plan, and guide. For example, it would be a rare insurance agent who approached the mother of a family first and rare father who did not carry some insurance against the anticipated and expected eventuality of his death. In the same sense, he accepts the possibility of early death of his wife. The death of a child is a shocking, unanticipated, dislocating, damaging event which weakens the structure of the family’s entire life and makes all of their work and planning a futility of catastrophic proportion. Although father may never have stated is or even thought of it deeply, he has already spent a large portion of his own life being a father. Suddenly, there is NO future for the lost child and NO reason for a great deal of what father has been working for.
Our cultural heritage is such, however, that the father is expected to be
strong, to comfort his wife, to assist the siblings in reaching an
understanding, and to cope with ail changes, including the funeral
arrangements. Assuming a normal existence prior to the death, he already had a job, a mortgage, some problems, some debt, and felt that he had a load to carry. Suddenly, with little or no warning, he has a terrible additional, emotional load and an additional practical load  Unwanted, unplanned and emotionally unacceptable to him.
As the responsible family head, the father also feels a responsibility for
the child’s death, and he asks himself: What did I do wrong? Where did 1 fail? Why did I not anticipate? What should I have done to prevent the catastrophe? Intellectually we know this is irrational. Emotionally we all seem to do it.
Within weeks, our society expects the father to assimilate his loss, comfort his wife, guide the surviving children, and go back to work withhis usual dedicated efficient ability. Responsible men attempt to do whatis expected of them and what they expect of themselves. Still in acute grief, father finds himself shattered: his working capacity is perhaps only 30% of normal, and his confidence destroyed by-this event which he could not prevent, but for which he feels responsible.
As father departs for work he leaves a distraught family, hoping they can get through the day, and approaches a demanding work situation where he is expected to be productive, capable and sound. With the physical symptoms of grief, he has ail the sensations of somatic distress: sighing, depression, an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, tension, mental pain, lack of energy, and a great feeling of futility. Any effort seems exhausting to him; he is tired; there is no incentive to normal activity; food is tasteless; any enjoyment hi life seems “wrong.” As he attempts to pick up the broken strands of his own and his family’s existence, he does so with a sense of unreality, personal failure, self accusation of negligence, and a desire to withdraw from others and distance himself from these very painful and unacceptable circumstances. If father is able to work halfway efficiently, communicate, project warmth to others, and show interest in the job, he finds the effort exhausting and the result less than satisfactory. He has no patience for the routine and mundane problems of the workaday world and feels resentment toward those who cannot see that he is now half a person, faced with great change, little energy, no zest for life, and little or no incentive.
Having taxed his energy and patience just to get through the day, he goes home again to the family, knowing they, too, expect much of him Knowing he has little to give, he can barely hold himself together. The result can be an increasing sense of inability, inadequacy, failure, and guilt. At times he feels that he really cannot cope with all of it.
If at this point in time, a friend he trusts will take him to task and
force him to think he is fortunate. Someone needs to remind him that on the day before the death, he was a responsible, caring parent doing the best he knew at the time. If less than perfect, he was only human, and a pretty good human at that - or he would not now be so devastated. As much as he hates to accept the most undesirable change, it has already happened and it is irreversible. The way in which he copes with the changes will have a marked effect on all those lives that touch upon his own. As the responsible family head, the father must now gather the broken structure, accept the great loss as best he can, build where he can and work towards a normality of existence for that family remaining.
In effect, if anything so devastating can be put into one coherent
paragraph, the father’s job is not to hold himself up in great strength
The job he really has is to realize that events beyond his control have
struck him down; he has been nearly destroyed and is severely damaged and his remaining family is so shattered that he cannot expect too much help there. If he can realize how down he is, how depressed, how normal it is to feel failure, near insanity, and reduced capability, he has made a long step toward the necessity to pick himself up, keep what remains together as well as he can, and go on, expecting time to provide some relief and some answers.
Life, after the death of a child, must be restructured. That this must be
done when one is ineffectively functioning and when few goals are
seemingly worth accomplishment, makes it ever so difficult. There is a
positive necessity to avoid major decisions and major changes at this
time. Judgment and balance are impaired. With severe grief the probability of both physical and mental illness is much higher. A father who realizes the dangers and recognizes the impairment of self is much more able to manage until time provides its relief. By accepting the facts of reduced capability and by establishing smaller goals, a father can obtain the time and strength to be kind to his family and himself.  It is not a time to show great strength as a facade. It is a time to accept the damage and recover slowly. A father in grief cannot afford the time and energy to feel “responsible” for his child’s death; his primary responsibility is to survive and to endure as he slowly restructures the lives which have been severely damaged by events beyond his control.

By Helen and Dayton Robinson - TCF, Tuscaloosa
~lovingly lifted from River Valley Chapter Newsletters, Fort Smith, AR