Shattered Dreams

The death of a beloved grandchild is one of the hardest things a grandparent ever has to face. Your natural hopes and dreams for the future have been shattered and you have been faced with an almost unbearable tragedy. Grandparents expect that they will be able to love and enjoy their grandchildren: the natural order is that they will die before their own children – and certainly before their grandchildren.

“We tend to think of our own children as a continuation of ourselves and when grandchildren come along it means that part of us is going on into the future: the nearest thing we have to immortality.”

– Marian

“I had envisaged [my adult children’s] future as being whole, with those special moments we could all share, the ones we all take for granted with every baby’s birth. Such little things (smiling, talking, walking and growing up).”

– Lorraine

“We have had deaths of close family before but never had [experienced] these feelings so strongly. Perhaps this time it was because it concerned a little baby who had not had a chance to grow up with us… Indeed, there is no worse nightmare than the death of a child.”

– Robert and Roberta

This article was prepared using extracts from Grandparent to Grandparent.1 The full text is available online or contact Red Nose Grief and Loss Services on 1300 308 307 for a printed version.


Last reviewed: 16/11/24