One of the major obstacles, in fact, to returning to the ordinary world of the living is this inability to accept pleasure. It is almost a feeling of "how could I laugh" or "how will I ever laugh again now that my child is dead." Yet, enjoyment is, after all, one of the most important survival tools we possess. It is one of the things we can do in our fight to endure after the loss of a child.

Linda said her first big plunge into the world of entertainment was going out dancing with some friends. She said that the laughter and its intensity felt almost cleansing. However, she said she also paid for it when she returned home. She said that she cried as violently as she had laughed just hours before.

But the important thing, then, as that a step had been taken, a beginning made.

There were times after that night of dancing when she was afraid to go out and have fun. She remembered the intensity of her anguish when she returned home that night, and it did not seem to her worth the effort for just a little enjoyment. After all she said, her price for pleasure was intense pain. This sense of anguish lacks gender. Looking back on it now, she realized that every time she put herself on the line and chanced pleasure it strengthened her and made her able ultimately to enjoy much of life. She is able to enjoy more than she ever dreamt possible after Jenny died.

Many people whose children have died say their experiences were similar. Whether the first trip out was to a movie, a restaurant, or a card game, the initial reentering into society was frightening.

Men, usually the family providers, are not given the choice about leaving home. Some claim that the step of seeking entertainment is not so great for them as for their wives, who have been able to hide out at home. One husband who fit this pattern saw his wife was sinking deeper into her grief while he, because of his job, was forced to cope ~ at least on the surface level. Three months after his daughter died, he decided to take his wife to a lovely restaurant, hoping to help her escape the gloom in their home. The evening was a fiasco because his wife sat in an elegant dining room and wept. Despite the failure of the dinner itself, the man said he knew even as they sat in the restaurant that a victory of sorts had been achieved. "Once we had gone that far, I knew something had been gained," he said. "Even though Barbara cried and I could barely down my dinner, there was no doubt that we had won a victory. I knew it would take a little less courage to go to dinner the second time and the third time. Months have proven I was correct."

Vacations, especially family vacations, are another thing to be faced and dealt with after a child dies. At first you will be certain that you cannot go and have a good time. If you do decide to go for the sake of the children or just because you desperately need a change of pace, it is important to know you will face an inevitable letdown when you return home. Knowing that you will experience this emotion upon returning home should help its impact. But carry your sadness, do not let it carry you. It should not prevent you from living as rounded a life as you possibly can build.

Dr. Joseph Fischoff, chief of psychiatry of Children's Hospital of Michigan, said learning to enjoy life once again is essential to the healing process when a child dies.

"It is important to understand you are not abandoning a dead child by laughing. It's all right to enjoy life. That does not mean you have forgotten your dead son or daughter. This is a very difficult truth for bereaved parents to accept."

Because the loss has been tremendous, sometimes bereaved parents swing too far to the other way. Pleasure, pleasure regardless of costs, can in the long run prove harmful. As a tribute to life, many parents will overspend on weddings and other happy occasions for living children. One mother put it clear and brief when she said, "I know I should not have gone whole hog for my daughter's wedding. But we have a dead son. It cost so much to take care of a child in a terminal illness, we felt what a joy it would be to spend money on a happy thing like a beautiful wedding for our daughter, who is alive."

Parents who are fortunate enough never to have undergone the death of a child can sometimes not understand this need to do things lavishly for living children.

Most bereaved parents experience a sense of continuity and above all a sense that not everything had been lost and buried. Whether it is a confirmation, baptism or sweet sixteen of a surviving child, you feel a momentary sorrow and sense of loss and then a gratitude that you are still left with something that gives you pleasure or elation or contentment.

In experiencing this, however, a word of caution must be introduced. Although you are elated, there comes a time to put the brakes on, financially. Some couples come near financial ruin because of their need to make up to themselves for their pain is enormous. Though the need is understandable, it is dangerous. As in all things, when one approaches matters maturely, there must be a middle-of-the-road method of enjoying oneself. Car, clothes, parties, fancy restaurants, all can help to heal. But it is foolish to try to overcome a child's death by plunging into a spending spree that can be backbreaking. It is wrong to sink everything you possess into pleasure, and this is a mistake many bereaved parents make. It is equally wrong never to take the chance, never to spend the money on enjoyment. You need time out more than most people.

Bereaved parents generally go through a period akin to living in hell. Laughing is wrong, pleasure is wrong. That they have survived is wrong. Actually, you often feel nothing positive exists any longer for you. But living in hell is something that need not be.

There is an old story about two senators who became angry and one told the other to "go to hell." The senator who had been told to depart on this long hot journey went to the governor and asked him to do something about it. The governor, a crafty and wise man, walked to the library in his study and took down a law volume. After leafing through a number of pages, he solemnly turned to the aggrieved senator and said, "I have looked up the law as you have seen and you don't have to go!"

Neither do bereaved parents have to go, despite your having felt, through the dark days of your loss, that hell had come to you. Perhaps the key to dealing with pleasure lies in acquiring the secure inner knowledge that you are not abandoning your dead child nor are you abandoning your grieving even though you go out on Saturday night or have people in for cards or dinner.

This fear of abandoning death is most common to bereaved parents, and because of it we feel a needless guilt when trying to put the pieces of our lives back together again. The only way to survive bereavement is to step away from it occasionally.

Second ~ and this one Marcia came to understand is the crux of the problem of dealing with pleasure ~ she kept feeling that by laughing she had left Jeromy alone "out there." It was as if her grief served as an umbilical cord to keep him close to her. A part of her. Her laughter brought about a sense of "letting go" and she was by no means ready to let him go. Her sorrow, in effect, kept Jeromy and her wrapped together and she still wanted that badly. When she came to terms with why she thought laughing and pleasure equaled betrayal rather than survival, she allowed logic to intrude upon her grief. Jeromy was no farther away nor any closer to her regardless of her emotional state. She was not betraying him. She was not abandoning him. She was not leaving him alone when she laughed. She could not hold him closer when she cried. He was dead despite what she did or did not do. With this reasoned out, she began accepting social invitations, and in spite of some rather difficult times in the privacy of her home before going out and after returning, slowly, very slowly, one successful outing built upon another. She would remind herself before going out that this did not mean she no longer grieved for her child. Such a reminder helped ease her mind. It may help ease yours and free you once again to live and take pleasure in living.