A Photo Which Shows that Grief Affects Us All
August 20, 2008 by Anna Farmery
Filed under Grief
I was touched by the story of a gorilla who lost her baby. You can read the story at the Mail Online where they publish this heart wrenching picture and say
“While nature may indeed be red in tooth and claw, this moving image of Gana and her dead son Claudio seems to show that members of the animal kingdom can feel the pain of loss just as deeply as we 
humans…For hours the distraught mother gently shook and stroked the child, vainly seeking to restore movement to his lolling head and limp arms. Visitors to the zoo openly wept as they witnessed her actions….’Gana lost a child, but I think in that loss, she taught people here so much.’ ”
Grief affects us all…..and the inexplicable nature of the death of our young can never be understood!
I saw that same item on msnbc.com. Truly sad, no matter the fact that this is a gorilla. My neighbors across the street opened their home to me and some friends, the evening that I discovered my husband dead at home. They had lost their toddler daughter just before Christmas, about 3-1/2 yrs. previous to that. And they immediately tried to calm me and give my friends food, water, tea and so on. A loss of a child is indeed awful, as is any loss. The greatest kindness that we who have experienced loss, can do is to extend our support to others who are experiencing a loss (I believe).
Oh wow Jessica…how comforting that must have been. I hope I never witness the death of a child, I have witnessed the death of friends children and seen the absolute devastation. Death in some ways is natural (it will happen eventually), however we are just tuned to the natural evolution of death – parents before children. One wish for me is that people give as much to people who lose adults as they do to people who lose parents or spouses. Whatever the loss, it hurts so badly…