How can friends cross the road to avoid you when you’ve lost a child?

I HAVE huge sympathy for Christine Lord, who recounted that embarrassed friends crossed the road to avoid having to speak to her after her son died (Mail). People can be insensitive and think that once time has passed, you can ‘move on’. My daughter Nicola, four, died in 1985 from leukaemia and the loss and pain is still strong and deep. She was my middle daughter and following her death I had four boys in quick succession.

When pregnant with my third son, I met an acquaintance who said: ‘Pregnant again, how many will this be?’ I replied it would be my sixth child. She looked at my other children and said: ‘No, it will be your fifth.’ I said: ‘Don’t forget about Nicola.’ She replied: ‘Oh yes, I suppose in theory you’ve had six.’ I’ve never spoken to her again.

Mrs MADELEINE LININGTON, Cowes, Isle of Wight. I HAVE lost two daughters: one died the day after her

birth and the second aged 39 from cancer. Like Christine, I dread being asked how many children I have because of people’s reaction. But at the same time I want to talk about all three of my children. DAPHNE THOMPSON, Radstock, Somerset.

MY SON died aged 19 and is still a big part of my family life, remembered and spoken about. Even new friends who never met him recognise he is a memory to be cherished. For bereaved parents, acknowledgement of their child’s existence, however short, is paramount to help them live with their new normality.

MOYRENE COLES, Somerton, Somerset.

I CROSSED the road to take the hand of the husband of a friend who had just lost her third baby in pregnancy. ‘Everyone else I know has turned away, too embarrassed to speak to me,’ he told me.

MARILYN CHAPMAN, Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancs.

MY SON Steven died 14 years ago and Christine Lord’s article was the first time I’ve read anything that matches my feelings and thoughts exactly. JULIE ROBINSON, address supplied. MY ONLY child died at 26 after a long illness. As I was walking into the packed church for her funeral, I kept thinking: ‘This is all wrong — it should be her

wedding day.’ I’ve only once denied her existence to a stranger on a bus, happily showing me photos of her newborn grandchild. I felt sick with remorse even though I’d done it for the best reasons.

MARY BROOKE, Earley, Berks.

I LOST my son James aged 18, tragically killed by a ‘careless’ driver. Not long after, a friend, a mother of three happy and healthy children, told me not to keep talking about my dead son because it upset her. My response was to tell her not to keep talking about her living son as it upset me. She’s never spoken to me again.

JILL LOUDEN, Upminster, Essex.