The Loss of a Pacifier: A Lesson in Grief
It took a child’s grief to teach me about my own.
(This post was previously published in February 2024)
Eight years ago, on the morning of his fourth birthday, our son Julian made a brave decision: he threw his pacifier into the trash, trading it for the promise of a big present.
That night, as he lay in bed, his small hands repeatedly touched his mouth, searching for the comfort and safety that were no longer there. Softly and helplessly, he cried, grappling with the absence of something that had been part of his world for as long as he could remember.
His experience showed me grief in its purest form — raw, universal and deeply human. Little did he know, he had already been touched by loss and many more would follow.
It wasn’t just about a pacifier; it was about the mourning process of losing something important:
The shock.
The disbelief.
The numbness.
The crying, the sobbing.
The missing.
The yearning.
The desperate wish to have it back.|
The innocence of not knowing how his world would shift.
The worries, the wondering—how will I cope without it?
Somewhere in his young mind, there were probably regrets for throwing it away. He might have replayed the moment in his head, wishing he had done things differently.
DEATH ACCOMPANIES BIRTH
We’ve all been there. The loss of a pet, a job, a relationship, an important possession. The loss of many versions of ourselves as we grow older.
In her book The Radiant Coat, writer and psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés describes death as a companion from the moment we are born, highlighting the continuous cycle of loss and renewal in our lives.
Julian's story came to mind after I’ve been thinking a lot about the loss of his dad and my husband, Andy, three months ago. Compared to our 28 years together, three months is short, yet the loss feels so long. How could that be? It didn’t seem to make sense initially.
Then came an insight: grief isn’t just about physical death.
I had been grieving Andy for many years before he had cancer. His stroke, more than a decade before his cancer diagnosis, marked the beginning of a different kind of loss. New versions of him emerged and evolved over the years.
Though he regained full mobility after the stroke, Andy struggled with spelling and signing his name. He developed phobias. Walking became painful, restricted by spondylolisthesis from an accident in his teens. Sitting down provided relief for most, but for him, it took mental strength and effort. Even lying down wasn’t always restful.
He became less tolerant of certain people's behaviors and how the world operated. He was frustrated that people lost patience with him, especially when some (including me) walked ahead as he moved at a slower pace, feeling left behind by us and the world. He and I moved at different speeds, creating tension in our marriage.
For years, I didn’t realize I was grieving these changes. My unacknowledged grief turned into frustration, resentment, anger. But beneath those emotions was really sadness for the life we had lost.
NEW ADAPTATION
As the years passed, outings became harder. Still, we adapted. We found ways to make things work within our limitations.
When we went out, I planned ahead to find the closest place to our destinations to drop him off. He would then anxiously search for a place to sit down before we headed where we needed to go. Once found, I could see his body relax as if he breathed out a sigh of relief. Sometimes, it felt as though he had hit the jackpot.
I insisted on major family outings occasionally, like our trip to SeaWorld. Andy came along reluctantly and went to each exhibit with us, but he only sat outside while waiting for Julian and me — sometimes with patience, sometimes with frustration and anxiety. He refused a wheelchair, wanting to feel like he could move like a “normal” person.
Every outing carried an undercurrent of pressure—guilt, sadness, exhaustion for me. And yet, Andy found light in those moments. Naturally curious about people, friendly and talkative, he chatted with strangers on nearby benches or observed life as the world moved around him.
A former friend once called our way of life “abnormal.” But what is normal, really? Had she tried to step into our world, she would have realized it was the only way we knew how to adapt to our reality. If there had been a better way, I would have taken it.
I used to dream of hiking with Andy again, of long walks or even just short strolls without complaints of exhaustion.
If I was frustrated by the pressure, I could only imagine what it was like for him and how deeply he must have grieved his own losses.
Maybe that’s why he sometimes seemed angry at the world. Perhaps anger gave him a sense of control when everything else was slipping away. Or maybe the anger was directed inward—toward himself or for the losses.
NATURAL CONCLUSION
One has to admire Andy because it took immense strength to keep up when the world moved too fast. He did the best he could, even when he had stage 4 cancer and eventually became bedbound.
In his final weeks, as he lay in bed, he could only imagine what it would have been like to go for night walks with Julian and me around the neighborhood. He became so comfortable in bed that I was concerned he had given up on life, so I had to ask, “Do you want to try and walk again?”
“Of course I do. I will. Don’t worry,” he replied.
We both never gave up hope—not even when he was in hospice.
So when cancer took him after 13 months, it was merely a final piece of a long, painful journey. My role — supporting him through every stage — had reached its natural conclusion.
No, my grief didn’t begin when Andy died. It started in 2012 with his stroke. Together, we experienced: Devastation. Heartache. Loss upon loss. Grief after grief.
Alison, Andy’s stepmother who had visited from New Zealand and was there with us during his final moments, wrote in her tribute, “Since the stroke in 2012, then the cancer and its outcome, there have been good reasons to sometimes feel sorrow.” I didn’t realize her simple words would have given me permission to feel the sorrow.
I know my own journey, though I probably will never fully understand Andy’s, as he didn’t want to speak about it much. Sometimes, grief is simply sitting with the unknown. I had learned to accept where he was while witnessing where I was.
JOYFUL FATHERHOOD
As sad and stressful as it may sound, we had many wonderful, happy, and joyful moments together as a family. Love, compassion, and admiration are all I have for Andy, the wise one. He found ways to see light, to transform within his limitations, and to appreciate life, especially in its slower moments.
Slowing down gave him something his previous fast-paced, highly stressful career as an entertainment photographer never did: the chance to truly cherish time with our son, Julian who came along months after his stroke. In fatherhood, he found contentment.
“The one good thing about having the stroke is that I’ve learned what really matters,” he sometimes said.
While the world raced ahead, he surrendered to his reality and moved at his own pace.
That’s all we can do, isn’t it? You grieve, you adapt, you keep moving forward, however slowly. Just like Julian with his pacifier.
GRIEF TRANSFORMS
Months after throwing it away, he still talked and cried about it. One night, I spun a bedtime story — his pacifier had been tossed into the ocean, drifting past seaweed and starfish until Nemo took a bite, only to spit it out because it tasted funny from his saliva. We laughed before he drifted into sleep.
Over time, he mentioned it less. The pacifier became a distant memory yet lingered.
I guess his loss then and our loss now never truly leaves us. It transforms, becomes part of who we are, carried forward as we grow.
And so, Julian and I carry Andy with us until we ourselves reach our end.
