Christmas 2025: What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

Dominic left us in April, 2014.

At the time all I could manage (barely!) was the twenty-four hours of each long, lonely and pain-wracked day.

After eleven-plus years I’ve learned to look ahead, plan ahead and forge ahead to birthdays, holidays, special days and not-so-special days.

But it takes a great deal of effort and often uncomfortable conversations because no matter how long it’s been, I’m still dragging loss and its after affects behind me.

I wrote this in 2016 when I was desperate to communicate how hard it is to try to marry joy and sorrow, celebration and commemoration, light, love, life and darkness, grief and death.

It remains (I think) my most useful post: Grief and Holidays: What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family

*This is now available on my ministry website (http://heartacheandhope.org) as a downloadable resource:

Click to access fc3456_0100d55e210d4ffa8cffa6f113eef48a.pdf

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Author: Melanie

I am a shepherd, wife and mother of four amazing children, three that walk the earth with me and one who lives with Jesus. This is a record of my grief journey and a look into the life I didn't choose. If you are interested in joining a community of bereaved parents leaning on the promises of God in Christ, please like the public Facebook page, "Heartache and Hope: Life After Losing a Child" and join the conversation.

One thought on “Christmas 2025: What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family”

  1. Your ministry has been my “lighthouse” in the darkness of child loss.

    It is the first email I read and reflect on before moving on to prayer and reflection.

    I have sat with your own grief and cried as I know how Dominic’s death impacted your lives.

    Because you don’t have to personally know someone to know how they feel and the pain and sorrow they carry.

    That connection only happens with child loss as no one outside this particular loss will ever understand why we are still grieving our child.

    Christina graced Heaven February 2017.

    By the grace of God and ministry like yours I have found my safe place where I can come broken and will not judged.

    I thank God placed this ministry in your heart to reach others.

    May God pour fresh healing waters on the hard days, so that they sprinkle over us as well.

    God bless you and yours and your giving heart this Christmas.

    Isabel, Christina’s mom

    “I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.” ― Audrey Hepburn http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/692403.Audrey_Hepburn

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