Letters to A Grieving Mama Dear Reader, December is here. And I know that for you it might come with a relentless assault of festivity that feels forced for you. Thanksgiving barely ended, and the world has already exploded into holiday chaos. Decorations are everywhere. Holiday music is on a constant loop. Everyone is demanding festive cheer. You survived Thanksgiving. Barely. And now you're facing an entire MONTH of this. Christmas. Hanukkah. Kwanzaa. New Year's Eve. . Each one its own...
6 days ago • 9 min read
Letters to A Grieving Mama Dear Mama, Thanksgiving is a few days away, and you might be dreading it. Maybe this is your first Thanksgiving without your child. Maybe it's your fifth, or your tenth. Either way, the weight of this day that's been building for weeks as the calendar marches relentlessly toward Thursday has been sitting heavy on your chest. Please know that it is normal to dread this day. Thanksgiving is designed for people whose worlds have not been shattered by loss. It's built...
13 days ago • 12 min read
Letters to A Grieving Mama Dear Reader, When you walk through the grocery store, no one sees the gaping wound in your chest. You sit in meetings at work and no one notices you're barely holding yourself together. You show up at family gatherings and people ask "How are you?" expecting you to say "Fine," not wanting to hear the truth that you're drowning. You post something on social media about your child and people scroll past it without acknowledging it, but when you post something...
20 days ago • 6 min read
Letters to A Grieving Mama Dear Reader, I know that it might not just the crushing pain of your child's absence—though that alone feels unbearable - that keeps you up at night. It's the weight of all the futures that died with them. You'll never see them buy their first house. Never watch them walk down the aisle or across a graduation stage. Never hold their children in your arms. You'll never witness who they were becoming, the person they would have grown into at 30, 40, 50. Their creative...
28 days ago • 8 min read
Letters to A Grieving Mama Dear Reader, Last year, I read a comment from a mama who had lost her adult son and it really broke my heart. Her comment was one of the reasons why I decided to focus my work on maternal grief. "My heart has been shattered for 5 years and there is no sign of repair. No signs of changing. The pain is horrific. If I could leave this body, leave this earth, I would. It's a horrific tragic life. Nothing anyone can say or do. That's the reality. That's the truth, it's...
about 1 month ago • 23 min read
Letters to A Grieving Mama Dear Reader, Maybe someone said it to you at the grocery store when you mentioned your child's name. Or perhaps it was a well-meaning friend who suggested you "get back out there" or "start living again." The words might have been gentler—"You need to find closure" or "They wouldn't want you to be sad forever"—but underneath, the message was clear: it's time to move on. And when you heard those words, something inside you recoiled. Maybe you felt anger rising in...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
Letters to A Grieving Mama Dear Reader, Your heart might be hurting today. You're looking at a picture of your baby, your little baby. You can see the individual hairs on their head but you can't touch them. This feels so cruel. Maybe your child transitioned during the holidays, or maybe it was another time, but as soon as summer ends, grief hits you like a sledgehammer. You withdraw, you lose weight, you can't sleep. You are lost. Completely lost. You want a magic pill to make it go away....
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
Letters to A Grieving Mama Dear Reader, Has a mental health professional looked at you with concern and used words like “complicated grief” or “prolonged grief disorder” because your loss doesn’t fit their textbook timeline for “normal bereavement”? Have they suggested your ongoing anguish years after your child’s death means you’re somehow stuck, unable to process your loss properly, or failing to “move through” grief in the expected stages? You’ve been told your grief is “complicated”...
2 months ago • 6 min read
Letters to A Grieving Mama Dear Reader, I know that there are moments when you catch yourself laughing at something funny, only to have the laughter die in your throat as crushing guilt floods in. You find yourself monitoring your emotional state constantly, policing any flicker of happiness or contentment that dares to surface. When a beautiful sunset takes your breath away, the guilt follows instantly: "I shouldn't be able to appreciate beauty when they'll never see another sunset." When...
2 months ago • 6 min read
Letters to A Grieving Mama Dear Reader, I see you staring at the ceiling at 3am, asking "What's the point?" about everything. The job that once felt important now seems trivial. Hobbies that used to bring joy feel empty and pointless. The future you had mapped out in your heart—all those graduations, weddings, and grandchildren that were supposed to be—now feels like a cruel joke. You might wake up each morning and everything feels flat, colorless, meaningless. People go about their daily...
3 months ago • 7 min read