Category: bereaved parent groups

Grief Journey: Why is the Second Year SO Hard

It’s not true for everyone but it is true for enough of us. The second year after child loss can be especially hard.

Numbness and the rhythm of all the “firsts” in the twelve months following Dominic’s death kept me both anticipating the shock and protecting me from its full impact.

The second year was when it dawned on me that I was doomed to repeat this cycle as long as I lived.

I was absolutely overwhelmed.❤ Melanie

I remember very well the morning I woke on April 12, 2015-it was one year since I’d gotten the awful news; one year since the life I thought I was going to have turned into the life I didn’t choose.

I was horrified that my heart had continued to beat for 365 days when I was sure it wouldn’t make it through the first 24 hours. 

And I was terrified.

Read the rest here:  Why is the Second Year SO Hard?

Father’s Day 2024: A Bereaved Dad’s Perspective on Grief

I belong to a number of closed online bereaved parent groups.  

I’m not sure if it is a function of gender or not, but the moms seem to be a bit more willing to share their feelings and to respond to the feelings of others.  

Every now and then, a dad speaks up. When he does, I usually pay close attention to this male perspective.

Read the rest here: What I’ve Learned About Grief: A Bereaved Dad’s Perspective

Grief Journey: What I’m Learning From Other Bereaved Parents

There’s a kind of relational magic that happens when people who have experienced the same or similar struggle get together.  

In an instant, their hearts are bound in mutual understanding as they look one to another and say, “Me too. I thought I was the only one.”

It was well into the second year after Dominic ran ahead to heaven that I found an online bereaved parent support group.  After bearing this burden alone for so many months, it took awhile before I could open my heart to strangers and share more than the outline of my story.

But, oh, when I did! What relief!  What beautiful support and affirmation that every. single. thing. that was happening to me and that I was feeling was normal!

Read the rest here: What I’m Learning From Other Bereaved Parents

I Am SO Very Thankful For Support

I was reminded yet again when I spent a few days with other bereaved parents several weeks ago how very, very, VERY helpful it has been to do just that.

In the earliest days after Dominic ran ahead, a couple of local moms whose children were also in Heaven came to see me. How I hung on every word! How I longed for a glimmer of hope that I, too, could somehow survive this devastation!

It was much later that I discovered online support groups. And it opened a whole new world of experience, understanding and freedom to ask the questions that had been burning in my heart: “Is what I’m feeling normal?” “Did you still cry every day after months?” “Why can’t I remember anything anymore?”

Almost nine years ago I started writing here and found another level of compassion and companionship when y’all joined me and practically shouted, “Keep sharing!”.

At every turn I have been amazed that so many whose hearts are broken choose to reach out when I know from bitter experience it would be oh, so easy to withdraw.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, my precious wounded healers.❤ Melanie

There have been many well-meaning but woefully uninformed people who offered advice.  Some of it was helpful but most of it was predicated on misinformation and lack of real-life experience.

The MOST helpful advice has come from fellow bereaved parents.

They share their hearts and their hopes, their failures and their victories, their fears and their faith.  They don’t have to-they could simply focus on their own pain and refuse to offer aid.  

Read the rest here: Thankful for Support

Worldwide Candle Lighting Service: December 10, 2023

I love candles-always have.

I especially love them as the days get shorter and we creep toward the longest night of the year.

I love them more since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Every time I light a candle, I remind my heart that even the smallest light can chase the darkness.

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When hundreds, thousands and even millions of candles are lighted together, it does more than chases darkness, it undoes it.

Sunday, December 10, 2023 is the Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service (WCL) sponsored by The Compassionate Friends (TCF).

Read the rest here: Worldwide Candle Lighting Memorial Service: Second Sunday in December

Sunlight On The Ocean

One of the blessings of this awful, unwanted journey is the beautiful souls I have met along the way. Fellow travelers who, like me, wouldn’t have chosen this path but who are doing the best they can to walk it in a way that honors their child and Jesus.

One such precious friend is Rhyl Venning. Her daughter Kari-lee went to Heaven in 2014 a few months after Dominic.

We found each other through an online bereaved parents support group (While We’re Waiting) and discovered we both need to share openly and authentically about our child loss journey.


Over the years we’ve exchanged messages, participated in book studies together and very nearly met one another even though she lives in Australia and I’m in Alabama. (My mother’s illness and death prevented that.)

Rhyl has done what many set out to do but never accomplish: she’s written a memoir of her experience both as a mom and as a bereaved mom. It’s beautiful, heart rending, honest, riveting and ultimately, full of hope.

There is so much to be gleaned from her story!

The path to motherhood was not easy for Rhyl. Infertility, miscarriage and dashed hopes increased her longing for the precious daughter that finally made her way into the world.

Kari was born with cystic fibrosis though it was awhile before Rhyl and her husband knew. Thus began a lifetime of careful routine, watchful waiting and hope-filled pursuit of treatments and lifestyle choices and ultimately, a lung transplant.

In spite of that, Kari lived an exuberant, joyful and adventurous childhood, youth and young adulthood. She traveled. She loved. She was married.

Rhyl draws the reader into her world, into Kari’s world and into the world of her family and friends. She shares her inner life-her hopes, dreams, fears and sorrow. She doesn’t shy away from deep questions about her own faith and how much wrestling it has taken to reach a place of peace after her precious girl left for Heaven.

If you know a bereaved parent, you can gift this book to them without fear of adding pain to their suffering. They will find a fellow traveler-someone who is willing to tell it like it is and to lead them to the refuge of our Shepherd King without preaching at them.

I deeply love Rhyl and am so very thankful she has written her story and made it available for others to read.

I highly recommend this book to anyone but especially to bereaved parents.

You are not alone.

Not alone in your suffering,

in your wondering,

in your wrestling,

nor in the hope that is found in Christ Jesus. ❤

***You can find Sunlight on the Ocean at Amazon and Barnes & Noble***

The Best is Yet to Come!

Funerals.

Sigh…

I just came home from my uncle’s funeral. He met Jesus face-to-face the end of June but we didn’t have his service until July 29th for lots of reasons.

Then I opened my computer after a long day of travel and unloading a car full of memories to the news a precious friend-in-loss and indefatigable encourager of grievers had laid down for a nap and woke in the arms of her Shepherd King.

Joy Hart Young was famous for saying, “The BEST is yet to come!” and I believe she is experiencing it at this very moment. She’s in the Presence of the One who saved her, sustained her and loves her. She is reunited with her son, Matt, and tears will never again be her food.

No more night. No more death. No more sadness or sickness or disappointment or sin.

Hallelujah! Amen.

My uncle was old and full of years. Joy wasn’t exactly a spring chicken (she’d approve of my saying that) but she wasn’t the age one might expect to leave this world. Her son and my son were so, so young when their earthly lives ended and their heavenly ones began.

Death comes to us all. No one gets out alive.

Death is a line in the sand that cannot be crossed. What hasn’t been said or done can never be said or done. That’s one of the reasons it’s so very hard.

My uncle made some choices that were burdensome for his family to live with after he left. They will continue to mold his legacy in the hearts and minds of those who loved him.

Joy chose to take the pain of child loss and allow it to shape her into a vessel of hope, grace and encouragement for other parents suffering the same devastating sorrow.

So I’m reminded again that our time here is short. How short (or long) only the Lord knows.

What I do in that time matters.

I won’t get a second chance to live my life. I can’t recoup lost moments or lost years.

There are some practical things I can do like create an end-of-life file or notebook to make it easier on those left behind.

But there are more important things I NEED to do if I’m going to leave a legacy of love.

I have to keep short accounts, make amends, ask for and grant forgiveness.

I need to hug necks, speak aloud the beauty I see in others, shake off shame and emotional baggage.

One day (please Lord let it be!) I’ll lie down and not wake up.

I hope the only sorrow I leave behind is the sorrow of missing my presence, not the sorrow of unsaid words or unhealed wounds.

I’m human.

I’ll miss someone or someplace I need to address.

But (Hallelujah! Amen.) in Heaven it will all be made whole.

The best is yet to come!

Joy Hart Young