Standards of Grief

Over two months ago, my little Charchee's world was shattered: her daddy left for Iraq. Since then, she has refused to talk about him, has been overwhelmingly angry, and screams almost constantly. Her behavior has perplexed me, frustrated me, angered me, hurt me, and brought me to tears in helplessness. It didn't seem like it mattered what I did. No amount of time outs, removal of toys, or any other consequences was changing the way she behaved. She was angry and out of control. 

A few days ago, in a moment of complete exasperation, I started talking to her about how illogically she was behaving. 

Char, why are you so angry?

Because.

Because why?

I just AM!

Do you feel better when you scream and hit yourself? Does it make you less angry.

No.

So why do it? Does it make sense to do something that only makes you feel worse?

I don't know if she had thought about it that way. I also don't know if saying that to her changed anything in her. That was a particularly difficult day. She had been breaking things, throwing and screaming for hours. I was emotionally exhausted and I just didn't know what to do. So I told her to keep screaming. Maybe the child just needed to scream. Why are we so eager to prevent our children from venting their emotions? Why do we have these standards of how they are and are not allowed to feel? I do agree that there are times and places to scream, but if I'm honest, there are moments when I need to scream too. Why should we expect our children to be any different, especially when it's so clear that they are struggling with a elephant sized emotional set of circumstances.

So for two days I let her scream. I didn't let her hit, or throw, or break things, but I did let her scream. By the second day, the screaming was radically reduced in length. Instead of screaming for hours, she was screaming for five seconds. So why am I telling you all of this? Because last night, in a random moment, my little Charchee started to whimper. I asked her what was wrong and she said I just miss my daddy... There it was, ladies and gentlemen, the statement I know that my little four year old has been needing to say for months. This morning, it was followed up by a statement about how she misses having pillow fights with him, again unprovoked, while we were eating breakfast. I can't be certain that her rage is gone. I don't know if it is. I understand her anger. I have it myself. I can say though, that my child who has been having the most difficult of times, is finally talking about her daddy. She's finally in the mourning portion of her grief. 

I miss her. I miss who she is when he's not deployed.