child loss grief – Page 2 – Words Can Express

On The Love That Outlives Safety

This photo was taken just hours before her life was taken. I share it not to mourn what was lost, but to honor who she was.

She was five the first time she disappeared. Just long enough for my body to forget how to breathe. Just long enough to taste what it might mean to lose her. I got her back that day. Years later, I wouldn’t.

I was at work when I was told I had an important phone call. Panic didn’t set in until the new babysitter said Becca had never made it to her house after school. This was a babysitter Becca had met her a few times. She’d been at the house once. She was to be dropped off at the front door by the school bus. For whatever reason . . . this failed to happen.

This was the first time I knew: the world would not keep my child safe.

Hurried phone calls were made. From the bus garage I learned the driver had not let my daughter off in front of the babysitter’s house as was the normal protocol. Instead, she let a five year old get off the bus at an intersection more than half a block from where she needed to be. The driver did not tell my child which direction to go. The bus door was shut and the driver pulled away. Leaving a scared confused little girl standing vulnerably at a busy crossroads.

All I could see in my mind was the smallness of a five-year-old girl and the indifference of a school bus door shutting behind her. My hands trembled as I hung up the phone, only to pick it back up and dial the police.

I was frantic. Words spilled out in the wrong order—too many at once, none of them calm. It took a full minute before the voice on the other end could piece together what I was trying to say.

Officers would be dispatched immediately, I was told.

But that didn’t bring peace.

My daughter had been missing for nearly an hour. That meant she’d been wandering—alone, scared—for far too long.

It was a teenage girl who saved her.

Walking home from school, she saw my daughter—small, crying, and clearly lost. She didn’t ignore the scene. She didn’t keep walking. She took Becca’s hand and walked her slowly through the neighborhood, up and down the streets, until they came upon the right house.

A police car was parked out front.

The moment they saw my daughter, they knew it was her. The clothes matched the description I had given them. A puffy pink winter jacket with fur. White boots. She was safe.

Later, Becca told me a man had pulled up in a car and asked her to get in. Said he would help her find the house.

She didn’t get in.

To this day, I don’t know if he meant to help or if something darker lived behind that invitation. I try not to let my mind go there, but it does.

Two hours passed from the time the bus driver let her off to the moment she was found.

Two long hours when it was hard to breathe. Hard to move. Hard to speak.

One hundred and twenty minutes in which I did not know if my daughter was dead or alive. Or whether I would ever see her again.

I got her back that first time.

I wrapped her in my arms and promised she was safe now. That I would never let anything happen to her again.

But safety is a fragile thing. It only stretches so far.

There would come another day. Another phone call. Another stretch of time where I didn’t know if my daughter was dead or alive.

Forty-five minutes. Not as long as those two hours when she was five, but infinitely heavier.

Because part of me already knew.

I knew she was in trouble. I knew it was bad. But until someone said the words out loud—until they confirmed it was her—there was still that small, desperate hope. The kind that gasps for breath. The kind that claws at time. The kind that doesn’t survive the truth.

I kept her safe when she was small. I fed her, clothed her, and taught her to look both ways. But I could not teach the world to love her the way I did. I could not make it hold her life as sacred.

I knew this wasn’t going to end like it had when she was five.

That night, unease wrapped itself around me and wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t name it, but something inside me knew: something was about to happen, and it would change my life. Irreversibly.

The call came in the early morning hours.

But before the phone ever rang, I felt her.

Becca sat on the side of my bed and stroked my leg the way she always did when she wanted to wake me gently. I stirred, confused—why would she have come over in the middle of the night?

I opened my eyes, expecting to see her. Expecting the outline of her body, the glow of the hallway light behind her.

But there was no one there. No shape. No shadow. Only the certainty of her presence.

I could feel her. I could smell her. She had touched me. And I knew.

I sat up in bed, searching for her. But I already knew I wouldn’t find her there.

The air was too still. The silence too loud. And then I looked at the phone. The message light was blinking. That blinking light. It felt like a countdown. Like the final seconds before the world collapsed.

The message was from my parents.

“Becca’s been in a crash,” my mother said, her voice uneven. “And it doesn’t look good.”

I would later learn that another driver had seen the accident and ran to help. He reached the car, saw her, and knew she was beyond help. She was already gone.

He found her phone and pressed redial. The last number she had called. My parents.

I can’t explain why, but I find comfort in that – that one of the last things her phone did was reach for the people who loved her. That someone was there, even for a moment, trying to reach back.

Again, I found myself in a space of time when I didn’t know, for certain, if my daughter was alive.
A stretch of minutes where I held that fragile hope like I had eighteen years earlier, when she was a lost child.

Hope is cruel in those moments. But it’s all we have. Hope keeps you upright, even when it rips through your insides like glass.

It asks you to imagine your child still breathing. And then punishes you when she’s not.

There’s something that happens to a mother’s body when she spends time in that liminal space. Between the not-knowing and the knowing. Between she might still be alive and she is dead.

It rewires you.

Something primal stretches thin. The nerves stay coiled. The heart never really goes back to beating in rhythm with the world.

After the first time, when she was five and lost, I learned that safety is a myth. That all it takes is one careless act – a bus door closing too soon, a turn in the wrong direction—for everything to unravel.

After the second time, when she was killed, I stopped believing the world cared about keeping anyone safe at all.

I walk through life differently now. Suspicion hums under the surface. Joy feels like a dare.
Trust has to be earned in ways I can’t always explain.

The truth is:

Even when everything looks okay – even when the sun is shining and the news is good and the children are laughing – my body is always half-ready to grieve again.

It’s not anxiety. It’s memory. A memory so deep it lives in my marrow.

Because I have stood in that unbearable place where a phone might ring and everything might end.

After she was found at five, I never again assumed she’d be safe just because she was supposed to be. After she died, I never again believed the world had any interest in protecting what I loved.

Grieving mothers wait. We wait for hope to return only to feel it slip through our fingers like mercury – impossible to hold. Impossible to let go.

I’m sorry I didn’t keep you safe my Becca.

But I never stopped loving you with every part of me that remains.

On The Quiet Work Of Still Mothering

Mothering doesn’t stop after the death of a child. It simply shifts into a kind of prayer. We find a way to carry love beyond the edges of this life.

Their life begins with us in the most intimate way, and sometimes, it ends this way, too. Even when death separates us, nothing can sever the otherworldly tether. Our bodies knew theirs. Our hearts shaped theirs. That intimacy doesn’t end—it just becomes invisible to everyone else.

After she died, my mothering didn’t disappear. It just had nowhere to go.

I didn’t realize this for a long time. That deep need to keep mothering my deceased child was all-consuming. I went from expansive, all-encompassing mothering to the implosion of that care after loss—and the desperate need to put it somewhere.

Before, mothering was in everything: meals, plans, worries, dreams. Death collapses all that vastness. And when it does, the absence doesn’t feel quiet—it feels feral. This can feel like madness. It did for me.

Without knowing I was doing it, I began creating a space where I could still care for my daughter. It started with a simple instinct—the same quiet rhythm I once used to fold her clothes or lay out her favorite books beside her bed. I began gathering things. Placing them near her urn. Not with ceremony, just with care.

Little by little, a kind of altar formed. Not to worship. Not to heal. Just to keep mothering.

In my home, I’ve made a small altar for Becca. It sits on my dresser.

Her urn is marble—cool, smooth, solid. It rests behind a photo of her as a little girl, maybe three years old, with her sweet, mushy lips and soft cheeks. Just looking at it makes my heart skip. Her glasses are nestled at the bottom of the frame. A gift from a friend, the angels on the frame cradle her image like a relic.

To the left is a mason jar filled with fairy lights. I turn them on for her when the nights feel heavy. Behind it stands a white metal statue of a young girl with wings, a bird resting in her hand. My sister gave it to me, saying it reminded her of Becca. We don’t speak anymore, but I’ve kept the statue. Some things still belong.

There’s a peaceful Buddha head that sits nearby—not for religion, but for the sense of calm it offers me when I look at it. On top of her urn is a tiny ladybug house she received as a gift when she was young. Next to that there is a small smooth stone I brought home from Sicily. I know she was there with me.

There’s also a delicate, flower-shaped votive holder. I don’t use it for candles. I tuck inside it the jewelry I’ve been given by my children—gifts from the ones still here, resting beside the one who isn’t.

Behind it, there’s a tiny glass jar filled with cat whiskers. I can’t seem to throw them away. When I find one, I keep it. I don’t fully know why—but it feels like something sacred. Something she’d understand.

This is one of the ways I keep mothering.

I mother through my work, too—through the animals I care for, especially the ones who have been hurt or forgotten. I mother in quiet, invisible ways every day.

But this… this is different.

This is the intimate space between mother and daughter. The one place where I am still doing only for her. No one else. Just her. Just me. Just love that hasn’t stopped.

I’m not the only mother who does this. We all find our own ways to keep mothering.

Some visit their child’s grave weekly, sometimes daily, tending the space as carefully as they once tended their child’s room. I’ve seen mothers kneel beside headstones, gently scrubbing away moss with water and a soft cloth, whispering as they work. Sometimes they lie down on the earth itself—stretching their bodies across the grass, as if to wrap themselves around the child who rests below.

Others return to the place where their child took their last breath—a roadside, a quiet clearing, a stretch of sidewalk—and turn it into a sacred place. Flowers are left. Rocks are painted. Names are written again and again. These places, transformed by love and grief, say: You were here. You mattered. You still do.

These acts may seem small to outsiders. But they are essential. They give us something to hold. Something to clean. Something to protect. A place for our hands to go when our arms are empty.

One does not simply stop being a mother when the child is gone. That’s one of the hardest truths of child loss—we are still mothers, just with no child to mother in the ways the world recognizes.

We are left with silence in the space our child once filled. A silence so loud it can feel like it might break us. And into that silence, we pour what remains of our care. We light candles. We straighten photos. We gather little trinkets, or brush leaves off gravestones, or place our hands on the earth and whisper, I’m still here. I will always be here.

This is not denial. It’s not unhealthy. It is love, made visible.

Continuing to mother after death is not holding on too tightly. It is holding on rightly—to the truth that love does not end when life does. And so we build our small altars. We tend them as we once tended scraped knees and tangled hair. They are not substitutes. They are sacred spaces where we place the mothering that still lives in us.

And in doing so, we remember: we are not alone in this.

All over the world, in quiet corners and sacred places, other mothers are still mothering too. There are small altars. Sacred shelves. Sun-warmed headstones. Jars of buttons. Half-folded blankets. Unopened birthday cards. There are mothers who tuck notes into the soil, who leave offerings at crash sites, who talk to the sky in whispers only their child would recognize.

We each find our own way. We create places where our mothering can still live. Places where we can do, when so much was taken. Places where we can say, again and again, I remember. I still love you. I always will.

These acts may be quiet. They may be unseen. But they are not small.

They are the threads that keep us tethered—not just to our children, but to ourselves. And to each other.

This is how we keep mothering.

On The Space Grief Carves For Care

When I was told that Kimchi was coming in tomorrow for spay surgery my first words were: no, I don’t want to see her. My immediate reaction was to shut down seeing her again because letting her go had been difficult.

Kimchi is the momma dog I fostered after she gave birth at our shelter to seven puppies. She’d been surrendered because her owners could no longer care for her. In the immediate days following the birth of her puppies, five of them passed. I was asked if I would take her home, with her two remaining babies, and foster until the puppies were able to be adopted. I said yes.

Loving fully and completely knowing it will end in a goodbye is a bravely foolish thing to do.

Two days after she came to my home one of her babies died. A daughter. This left me with a petite dog who was fiercely protecting the one baby she had left. I understood why she couldn’t trust me. Why she curled protectively around her one remaining baby. Life is hard to trust when your baby dies.

Kimchi didn’t have to explain her grief to me. I was already fluent in it.

I recognized the wild grief in her eyes because I’ve seen it in my own. The kind of grief that makes you curl around what’s left, even if it hurts. I, too, am a mother who lost a daughter. I, too, once stood over a body that no longer breathed and didn’t know how to go on. So I didn’t ask Kimchi to trust me. I simply sat nearby, heart open, until she chose to.

Six weeks later I found myself completely in love with this little cream-colored dog and could feel my heart breaking as I drove her to the shelter to meet her new family. As I walked out of the visiting room, leaving her behind, I sat in my car and broke down. I told myself: you did it. You did what you promised to do and now it’s done.

I hadn’t thought about seeing her again, ever, but especially not so soon after saying goodbye.

Yesterday, I said no. I don’t want to see her. Today, I saw her.

When she realized I was there she became excited and jumped all over me. I scooped her up and told her how much I missed her. I knew I was going to break again when I said goodbye but I couldn’t help but feel joy in seeing her.

I didn’t want to see her. And yet I asked to be the one to recover her after surgery.

I hovered close as she went under. I needed her to feel safe—even in unconsciousness.

And when she came out of anesthesia—trembling, crying, her body unsure of where it was or what had happened – I was there. As I held Kimchi, I felt as if I was also holding the part of myself that woke in a world I didn’t recognize—one where my daughter was dead, and nothing made sense. A part of me that was in pain, scared, lonely. A part that cried out, just like she did coming out of anesthesia, unsure of where she was or why it hurt so much. I couldn’t comfort that version of myself back then—not the way I wanted to. But I could comfort Kimchi.

I held her in my lap like a child. Whispered to her like a mother. She wailed, and I spoke softly into the space between us.

I told her about her son. About his sweet, blonde eyelashes and the way he leans into people when he wants love. About how he is filled with confidence no matter what he is doing. I told her she made something beautiful, and that I had kept my promise. That he was safe now. That she could rest. I held her close and whispered all the things I once needed someone to say to me. You’re safe now. You did your best. You are not alone.

“You did good, Momma,” I told her. “Now it’s your turn.”

Her new owner was on his way to pick her up and I felt my heart beat faster. I had to say goodbye to her again and I didn’t know if my heart could take it. I told her how much I loved her and left her with one of my coworkers so she could give her to her owner. I was in the back of the clinic when she came slowly running into the room, looking for me. She’d slipped her harness and had followed me. I gently picked her up and returned her to the front. My heart aching all over again.

Why do we give ourselves over to loving a creature, a person, when we know it will end in pain. Yes, there is always the chance something will happen and an end will be forced upon us, but why choose it knowingly?

Because the love is worth the breaking. Because what they give us is more than what we lose.

Maybe the not knowing IS the sacred space.

Maybe that’s why I do this work.

I can’t mother Becca in the ways I once did. But I can mother the ones who show up broken, confused, too small for the world. I can be there for the tremble after surgery, the first safe sleep, the fear that softens into trust.

Maybe I seek them out. Or maybe they find me—these small ones who are lost or hurting. Maybe they sense something in me, some quiet knowing. I sit beside them. I hold them. I whisper that they’re safe.

Maybe it’s them I’m comforting.
Maybe it’s her.
Maybe it’s me.

Or maybe the lost and hurting find me because somehow they know I can see them. Really see them. The way I wish someone had seen me in the first days after Becca died. The way I still long for her to be seen, remembered, mothered—wherever she is now.

Every act of care is a whisper to her: I didn’t stop loving you. I just had to find new ways to show it.

All I know is that when I care for these fragile beings, some part of my mothering still lives. And it matters. The work doesn’t fill the hole Becca left. Nothing ever has. Nothing ever will. But maybe it gives the hole shape. Edges. Texture. A way to carry it without constantly falling in.

I used to think grief would blur everything—make the world dim and muted. But instead, it sharpened my sight. I see pain more clearly now. I notice the flinch that others miss. The tremble. The look in an animal’s eyes that says I need someone to see me. I recognize it because I’ve lived it. Because I still do.

Grief didn’t take my tenderness—it amplified it. It made me softer in the places that matter and fiercer in the ones that I protect. It turned me into someone who can sit beside the hurting and not look away. Someone who can say: I don’t have to fix you. I’ll just be here while you find your way back.

As I carried Kimchi back to the front of the clinic, her small body pressed against mine, I realized I wasn’t just saying goodbye to a foster dog.

I was saying goodbye to another piece of mothering.

Another moment of fierce, selfless love with no promise of return.

Another act of showing up for the scared and the hurting, simply because I could.

She buried her head in my chest like she used to, and for a breath, I let myself believe that all the love I still carry for Becca—the kind I can’t give her directly—was being received by this little dog who once guarded her son with everything she had.

“You did good, Momma,” I whispered again, unsure whether I was speaking to Kimchi, or to myself.

On The Sanctuary Of My Own Making

My inner safe place is often different each time I visit. The way it appears to me carries the nuances of where my mind is at the time. But there is one thing that is always there, no matter how my sanctuary shifts and changes: the memory of the first time I held her.

I wasn’t supposed to keep her. She was meant to be released for adoption. She was taken away from me immediately after her birth, as planned. But somewhere in the hush of the hospital night, a nurse — not knowing the arrangement — brought her to me for a feeding.

And I touched her. And in touching her, something deeper rooted itself inside me.

It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t planned. It was something far older than paperwork, older than fear. It was a bond sealed in the space between heartbeats, before anyone could stop it.

That moment created the foundation of my sanctuary. It is the place inside me where no one else’s decisions could reach. Only she and I existed there, beyond anyone’s plans or expectations.

No matter what other objects are in my sanctuary, this truth is always here.

It is my anchor.

Those first months after her death, I spent entire days there.

The first time I found my sanctuary, it wasn’t soft. It wasn’t comforting. It was a small, dark hole.

The walls were jagged — rough enough to slice open my skin if I reached out to steady myself. The floor was wet and cold, with no place to sit, no comfort to be had. There was no light. No warmth.

Just the truth — the simple, terrible truth — that she was gone.

Gone and never coming back.

The space was small, because that truth was everything. A single, shattering moment that collapsed the rest of my life beneath it.

But over time, as I began to see not just her death but the destruction it left behind, the space changed.

It grew.

It opened into something cavernous, and that was almost worse.

There were ledges, sudden drop-offs. Unstable footing. The air smelled like warm earth and something ancient — the faint scent of decomposing plant matter, like the forest floor in late autumn.

The sounds I made — the screams, the sobs, the broken words — bounced off the stone walls and came back to me louder than I meant them to be. They shattered against the cavern walls and tumbled into the darkness below, as if even my grief had to fall somewhere.

But then, one day, something shifted.

I heard a voice — a woman’s voice — echoing softly from around a bend.
It wasn’t calling out to me exactly, but I recognized it. Somewhere deep in my bones, I knew it.

It was her. The night nurse. The one who unknowingly undid everything.
The one who, by accident or grace, brought my daughter to me that first night.

She didn’t know the plan. She just saw a baby and a mother and did what made sense.

Her voice in my memory is gentle but clear, like light catching the edge of a wall in the darkness. I follow the sound through the cavern, around the bend, and suddenly — I’m there again.

Back in the hospital.
Back in that moment.
Back in the quiet where I first held her.

And that moment — that simple, sacred, accidental moment — becomes the first thing in the sanctuary that offers me comfort.

And it’s the one thing that is always there when I visit.

The first time I held her.
The moment I didn’t mean to have.
The moment I’ll never let go of.

Though there were times I entered the sanctuary and found memories waiting — uninvited, unexpected —there were other times when I carried them in with me.

Some memories refused to be avoided. They planted themselves firmly in my path, and so I picked them up and descended, holding them close.

Not just the worst memories — but the ordinary ones. The small, intimate ones.
Those hurt more, somehow, than the life-shattering moments.

A mischievous smile. A shared joke. Her voice saying “I love you” in that way that shattered my heart all over again.

Yet through the pain, I was learning how to be again.

Bringing memories down into that space helped me understand them better.
I would sit in the small places worn smooth from previous visits and cradle them to my chest. Places to rest — places where I didn’t crumble under the truth of her death.

I think that’s where healing begins. Not in the outside world, but in the stillness of rest.

And so it went, for years and years. Thousands of visits. Each one reshaping my soul, turning it — slowly, faithfully — back toward the light.

Grief made room for memory. And memory made room for life.

Over the years since her death, my inner sanctuary has undergone immense change. Years passed as the architecture softened and shifted.

As I changed.

Sharp edges wore down as memories and emotions continually washed over them. Towering stone cliff faces — once solid and impenetrable — cracked in places, allowing small beams of sunlight to slip through. The light reached the cavern floor and revealed things I needed to see.

But only when I was ready.

My soul allowed me to acknowledge what it could bear to carry, in its own time.

And then one day, not long ago, I noticed something new.

The gathered light — once scattered and hesitant — had begun to rise.
It spread upward, casting a warm illumination, and for the first time, it touched nearly the entire space.

And I could see. Not just the grief. But the shape of who I had become inside it.

Dozens of memories are nestled among the moss that now covers the stone floor and climbs up the walls. Not all of those moments are happy ones. But I am content they are there. This is how it must be.

I never want to forget anything connected to Becca.

More often these days, though, I see something new. Something from my life since losing my daughter. And there is room for those, too, in my sanctuary.
There is a necessity that they exist among the past.

My core self is still different every time I venture within. I think it will always be this way — until the day I am no longer here. Shifting as my relationship with grief continues to deepen and expand.

I am perpetually becoming.

Becoming as life draws me in and forces me to make changes,
and acknowledge there is still a future for me.

On Becoming Wild

Spring makes me sad, but it used to make me rage. Because what season dares to bloom when your daughter is dead?

Spring is the season of renewal. Months earlier, the earth slowly closed down for a long, cold slumber, with the promise of new life as the seasons turned. As the blanket of winter snow melts the air warms up, and storms start to form. Delivering the rain needed for the new growth bursting forth across the land.

Spring—and its promise of new beginnings—seemed obscene to me in the years following Becca’s death. The only season that felt comfortable to me was winter. Even though it held hard days and anniversaries, I made sense in the frigid days and lengthy nights. My soul was in its own winter, and I accepted this truth.

The first spring after losing my daughter was brutal.

Not only did it betray my idea of the world, it also held court proceedings for the drunk driver who killed my child. So much of it is a blur, memories spinning into each other, but I do remember seething when the sun shone brightly and splashed warmness all around me.

No. Not acceptable.

My world was still in the deepest part of winter.

I was rage-filled because my daughter did not have the hope of a future.
Hers was stolen from her that January night on the dark highway.
Her life was finished. Completed in a way that was not her choice.
Any dreams she had for her life were wiped out in a split second.

Yes, I lost her—but she lost herself.

I had years of this anger. Spring promised what we couldn’t have.

This is our first spring in the new house, so the budding and flowering plants are new to me. There was a rhythm in the old house I was accustomed to watching unfold — including which plants came to life first. Next to the driveway there were five flowering bushes that would show the first buds, then blooms, of the season. I had found them in the dumpster outside a local nursery, small and half-dead, so I dug them out and brought them home.
I had no idea they would take off and grow so big when I planted them.
I felt like I had saved their lives, so I was always happy when I saw them bloom

Various other plants and flowers would arrive shortly thereafter — Tiger Lilies, Lilacs. The Bridal Wreath Spirea was one of my favorites. Its long slender branches spilled over the brick half-wall onto the front porch. The flowers were delicate, but their existence was fleeting.

Much like my daughter’s time here on earth.

I’d sit near them, on a rocker, when I had a chance, because I knew they would soon be gone.

The new house has a whole different variety of plants — a new variety, but much fewer in number. I have a clean slate, of sorts, to plant what we choose.

I was sitting on the front steps and noticed a tree on the corner of the yard and the alleyway. It’s a good-sized tree. I’m not sure of the type. The main trunk is probably twenty-two to twenty-four inches in diameter, so I am unsure of the age. Multiple limbs have been removed over the years because they came too close to the roof, we were told. My roommate, the actual owner of the house, mentioned that she might take the whole tree down.

As I was sitting there looking at the tree, pondering its past, I wondered if it hurt when its limbs were removed.

Were the round scars, where life used to be, sensitive?

I felt a sadness because in a few weeks the entire tree might be gone.

Then I noticed something I had not seen before — dozens of thin branches growing from near the base of the tree. I had seen them in the winter when everything was bare, but now they had little bursts of tender green leaves along each one.

Had I thought they were dead and not just in hibernation?

The thought struck me that though the tree had been cut, vital parts of its whole taken away, it still believed in life.

The tree resonated with the innermost parts of who I am as a grieving mother.

Wounded, but still sprouting. Still trying to make something of the light.

To most, I think, those spindly, defiant branches would need to be trimmed off.
They are unsightly, I was told. Left would be dozens of tiny new injuries for the tree to scar over. The hopeful defiance in reaching toward life would end. How tragic.

Losing a child is much the same.

Child loss doesn’t break you. It un-makes you.

You’re no longer who you were before — it’s like every cell was burned down to ash, and only some are able to rebuild. Like the tree, you lose vital parts.But in child loss, it’s not a limb — it’s the roots. Somehow you’re still expected to stand.

And, miraculously, you do stand.

You exist. Waiting.

Waiting for your child to come back.
For all of it to make sense.
To breathe without suffocating from the grief.

I think winter understands this resting — the space between.
The life that held your child and this one that doesn’t. The holding steady.
That is where healing begins, I believe. Not in the exuberant insistence of spring. But in the small places of hibernation. Unseen places.

Our winter of the soul is a different length for each of us. Often, we can spend years in this season. I did. Over a decade, truthfully. Well over.

There is a strange safety in winter. You know what to expect — the bare branches, the muted sky, the sharp air that cuts when you breathe.

You don’t trust spring at first when it comes. You feel the sun one day, unexpected and gentle on your face, and you think — maybe.

Maybe the hold is loosening.

Maybe it’s time to stretch toward life again.

And then the dark clouds gather on the horizon. The temperature drops.
The wind returns with that certain smell — the one that tells you snow is coming, even before you see it. Pushing back against the warmth you dared to welcome.

It reminds you: winter isn’t finished with you yet.

Grief is like that, too.

Just when you think you’ve found your footing again, it howls through the empty places inside you, knocking you off balance. But maybe — just maybe — those moments of warmth aren’t lies. Maybe they are promises.
Not that winter is over — but that spring will, eventually, outlast it.

Then there comes a day when you realize: spring came earlier this year.
Not in the physical world, but in your own. Though it seems the two seasons cannot possibly co-exist… they somehow do. And you find yourself walking through them both at the same time. Winter and Spring. Sorrow and joy.

And maybe this is how healing begins. Life overlaps the pain. We don’t leave winter behind. Instead, we learn to turn toward the sun more often.
To take the places deep inside where our child’s death slaughtered us —
and let the new green shoots of healing take root, and have a chance to grow.

Just like the branches at the base of the tree — too wild for some, too unkempt — that is how healing can appear to the world.

Not pretty.
Not curated.
Not understandable to those who don’t know.

As I sit and admire the tree at our new house, I am struck at how alike we are.

I didn’t plan to survive after Becca died.
I didn’t know how anyone could survive this unimaginable loss.

But survival, it turns out, isn’t always a choice you make.
Sometimes it’s what happens while you are lying broken on the ground. When your soul is in hibernation.

I look at the tree’s tangled base — the low, rough branches, the scars twisting its trunk — and I realize: It didn’t grow that way to be admired. It grew that way to stay alive.

So did I.

Healing didn’t make me prettier.
It made me wilder.

And maybe that’s the truest thing about surviving the unbearable:
You don’t grow back into the person you were.
You grow into someone the world might not recognize —
someone rougher, braver, rooted deeper than before.

Someone who knows that new life doesn’t erase the scars.
It rises up through them.

On The Sacred Space Of Loss

This piece of writing contains a death of an animal. The photo above is not the puppy who passed but the one who is doing well.

Roughly ten days ago, I brought home a foster dog from the shelter affiliated with the veterinary clinic where I work as a vet tech. Her backstory was sad, as most of them are. Though she appeared well cared for, she was pregnant. And appeared close to term. A pregnancy-terminating spay was not going to be performed, so she had her puppies in the isolation unit of the shelter. Seven babies for a very small chihuahua-dachshund mix.

Caring for such fragile creatures is daunting. Unfortunately, momma wasn’t producing enough milk to feed them all. The decision was made to supplement their feeding and pull them through the first critical days. Numerous people were involved in this endeavor. The physical work is exhausting as they need to be fed every two hours, stimulated to both urinate and defecate, and kept at a very exact temperature. Mentally, it’s brutal. Lack of sleep. Intense worry. Trying to make the right decisions then second-guessing yourself. Animal care is not for the weak.

There were various genetic issues as well as being premature; the odds were stacked against them from the beginning. A dozen people were involved in her, and their, care but sometimes there is just nothing that can be done. Unfortunately, five of the puppies passed in a matter of days. I have nothing but respect for my coworkers who tried so valiantly to save such fragile creatures. Knowing, though this battle was lost, they won’t give up when the next one comes to the door.

Momma remained at the shelter, in the isolation room, fiercely protecting her two remaining babies: one girl and one boy. It was decided that the three of them might do better if they were in a quieter environment without so much activity. That’s where I came in. I was asked if I would take them home for “a while.” To say I didn’t think about saying no would be a lie. My heart already hurt for the babies who’d passed. As well as the mom who kept losing her pups. A job in animal welfare is fraught with pain nearly every single day. I didn’t know if I wanted to add the possibility of more to my already heavy load.

I carry, as most bereaved mothers do, monumentally heavy emotional pain. I think the only time of my existence when I am not acutely aware that my child is dead is when I am asleep. Even that isn’t a safe place because this truth often weaves its way into the storyline of my dreams. The mornings after nights filled with those dreams I awake exhausted, as if I have had no rest at all. Those days my mood is darker, my temper is short, and I am close to tears until it’s time for bed again. What would taking home a new mom with critical puppies do to my mental health?

But, of course, I drove to the shelter to pick up momma and babies. Still wondering if I could give this dog what she needed.

I walked through the main area where the majority of adoptable dogs are kept. Noisy and full of commotion as always. I thought some quiet might do momma good. I could provide quiet. I would set her up in my bedroom in a pen. My dogs would stay out of the room, except to sleep at night. The room gets a lot of sun and is warm. Perfect for tiny puppies. I’ll take the opportunity to mention that every puppy weighed less than half a pound at birth, so they were truly tiny. Our house is generally quiet unless our big dog sees something he doesn’t like outside. Otherwise, it’s relatively calm. I could provide an environment that would be better for a new mom than a loud shelter.

I followed the shelter director through the door that led to the isolation rooms. The door to momma’s room had a window in it and she lunged up to the window when she saw me. I was told that she had become extremely protective as each puppy had disappeared. She was going to do everything she could to keep the remaining two safe. I thought, how am I going to care for her and the babies when she wants to eat me?

When the door was open she rushed out and started jumping up and tried to bite my hands. Not mean bites but bites that were meant to tell me not to mess with the babies. She was warning me. I understood. I would have protected my daughter if I had been able to. After losing Becca I was terrified that something was going to happen to my twin boys and I had an excruciating time in letting them go out into the world for anything. I completely understood where this little fifteen-pound momma was coming from. I knew I would have to go slow.

We managed to get her into a carrier by placing the pups inside while she was outside. She came in, realized her babies were snuggled in the blankets, and got right in. I was afraid, however, to pick up the carrier and get my fingers anywhere near where she could reach them. I loaded everything I would need to care for them into the car then loaded momma and babies up last.

The drive home was short and momma growled the entire way. She was pissed, I get that. She was unsure. I understand. She was scared, of course. And, she was grieving. I didn’t know how to help a grieving creature that I couldn’t hold a conversation with.

Setting up her area was easy. Getting her to stay in the pen was hard. I was told she was a jumper but I didn’t realize she could have won a medal in the sport! I am not exaggerating when I say that she cleared the side of a three-foot-high pen with ease in one leap. Her short chi-doxie legs did not slow her down one bit. It was impressive. Except, when she got out she came right at me. Every time. I kept talking to her, calmly, telling her I wasn’t going to let anything happen to her babies. Begrudgingly, she started to trust me. Not completely, I could tell, but enough to change out her food and water and pick up each pup for a weight check twice a day.

The first few nights with her I slept lightly. Getting up often to be sure I could see both babies and making sure momma had plenty of water or if a pad needed changing. We finally got into a routine and I felt more at ease. Enough that I slept through the night without waking with worry. Everything was going great . . . until it wasn’t.

Monday morning I woke up and weighed both babies as I did daily. They’d been gaining about half an ounce overnight regularly, so I was a bit surprised to see the little girl hadn’t gained that much. I fed momma, my dogs, then left for work. At work, I talked to the vet and told her about the very small weight gain the female had overnight and asked what I should do, when should I worry. She gave me a few suggestions and I pushed the worry to the back of my mind because there were other animals that needed my attention that day.

When I got home, the first thing I did was weigh the pups. The girl had lost weight and her stomach wasn’t as full and round. I pinched her skin and it tented, meaning she was dehydrated. I know an animal can crash quickly once they are dehydrated, so I started care right away. I warmed subcutaneous fluids. Stimulated her. Helped her urinate and defecate. Syringe fed. Karo syrup on her tongue. I stayed awake with her nearly the entire night.

I begged her to live. I told momma, who by this time knew (I think) that I was trying to help her baby, that I was sorry. I kept saying, “I’m so sorry momma, I’m so sorry.” As a bereaved mother, I did not want another mother (no matter the species) to lose a baby on my watch. I knew the baby was fading. I could tell by her breathing that she was dying. There was literally nothing else I could do but let nature take its course.

At four a.m., I fell asleep in the pen with the little family. When I awoke, I could tell she was gone. She had passed. She was still tucked up next to her mother who was giving her little licks on her head. I was devastated.

I just sat there and cried. For her, for the baby who died, and for the loss of my daughter. All of these emotions were whirling over each other in my soul and I felt broken. I did the only thing I could, which was to take care of the puppy’s remains with love and let momma say goodbye.

I used a hand towel as a shroud for the baby. I held her tiny body, still warm from her mother’s body, and let momma sniff her. I told her I was going to wrap her baby up and take care of her and I wanted her to understand what was happening. She looked at me as if she did understand. She really did. I felt a spiritual connection with her at that moment. I knew the pain of losing a child and she did, too. I believe momma knew I did my best and that she was thankful for me being there.

Exhausted from no sleep and raw with emotion I wrapped the baby in the towel that was wet from my tears. I was sad. I was angry. I was full of guilt that I didn’t do enough. I had failed.

There is a sacredness in tending to such fragile life. Holding a tiny body against your chest, coaxing breath and warmth into it with trembling hands. It feels like a ritual, an act of communion between species who share an understanding of grief. Caring for her babies was more than just an act of duty; it was something holy. I was witnessing life in its most vulnerable form, grasping to survive against the cruel indifference of nature.

I know that I often transfer human emotion onto animals. Anthropomorphism is the word. I just looked it up because I couldn’t remember it. I’ve heard it isn’t healthy to give animals human emotions. I think it’s ridiculous not to understand that animals have many of the same emotions we have as humans. Momma dog lost a baby. She’d lost multiple babies. I could see the sadness in her eyes, in the way she kept grooming her baby. I did not have to speak the same language as another grieving mother, animal included, because there is a universal language that transcends any barrier.

Maybe she needed to be with me so I could be the one who cared for her after this loss. To hold vigil over her grief, acknowledging her pain without expectation of healing. Perhaps it was the only way to lessen the heaviness of both our burdens. There was a connection forged between us, stronger than words, rooted in shared loss.

My daily morning and night weigh-ins turned into four times a day. I didn’t want to miss any change in weight before it got too far for me to be able to intervene successfully. It’s been four days since the little female puppy passed. I am happy (and guardedly optimistic) to say the little boy pup isn’t so little anymore. Two important thresholds were crossed: weight over a pound and the two-week-old mark. He’s chubby and becoming very mobile. Everything a little pup should be doing.

I’ve often written about the healing I find in working with animals. Being able to be a part of helping a sick animal become better. Of being present when an owner chooses humane euthanasia. And now, the healing in being in the sacred space with a mother who has lost her child. Being present in this situation has brought a facet to my understanding of the acceptance of death and the fragility of life.

As I write this I am sitting on my bed and can see momma happily grooming her only remaining baby. Both of my dogs are curled up against me, asleep, and it’s peaceful as the rain falls outside in the dark night. Momma is happy. Her baby is healthy and content next to her. All is perfect in her small world.

My boys and their families are healthy and happy. They have grown into men I am deeply proud of—kind, resilient, loving. They have navigated their own grief, carried their own pain, and still managed to carve lives of joy and purpose. They are strong in ways I sometimes feel I am not. They have families of their own now, children whose laughter fills the spaces Becca left empty. I watch them as fathers and feel a warmth that is almost painful, a joy intertwined with sorrow.

They are here. Alive. Their faces reflect fragments of Becca at times—a tilt of the head, a shared smile, some subtle likeness that leaves me breathless. I have to steady myself, to remind myself that life continues to grow around the scar her absence left.

But that scar is part of me now. It always will be. And I have come to accept that my world will never be truly whole again. There is a piece missing—a child who will never grow older, who will remain forever young and vibrant only in memory. A loss that echoes beneath everything, constant and unyielding.

Yet, I have also learned that the beauty of life is not erased by loss. It is complicated by it. Made richer, somehow, by the acknowledgment of what is gone and what still remains. It is the recognition that grief and joy can exist side by side, tangled and inseparable. It is the understanding that healing doesn’t mean forgetting or even moving on. It means learning to carry both the weight of pain and the lightness of love.

On Learning to Stand With Death

Yesterday, I met the gentle sorrow of an ailing dog during a euthanasia consultation—a moment that reminded me how deeply intertwined my life has become with the final chapters of living. The owners, having exhausted every avenue—from countless tests at an emergency clinic to multiple veterinarians opinions—faced the heart-wrenching reality that answers might never come. In the end, they chose to let their cherished companion pass peacefully, sparing her further suffering as her condition worsened.

In the quiet that followed their decision, the room filled with a solemn reverence. I stepped away to give the couple space for their private goodbye, while behind the scenes we prepared the paperwork and the medication needed for the procedure. Whether owners stay for every heartbeat of the farewell or depart as the process begins I make the promise to stay with the animal, especially if they leave—ensuring that no creature has to face its final moments alone.

It has been nearly two decades since I lost my daughter—a loss that forced me into an unchosen, lifelong dance with death. I did not decide to walk this path rather I was forced upon it. Death chose me, marking my existence with a sorrow and a solemnity that would forever shape my understanding of loss and compassion. Bringing to the forefront the truth about the fragility of life.

In the raw aftermath of her passing, I raged against the merciless force that had stolen her from me. A mother’s heart, meant to cradle and protect, was left with an unfillable void—the agony of not being there in her final moments fueled an intense, burning anger. I would have fought with every fiber of my being to keep her safe, but this turn of fate’s wheel left me powerless, forcing me to confront a reality that I neither selected nor could change.

With time, the sharp edges of my anger softened into a quiet, persistent sorrow. I began to understand that death was not an enemy that could be vanquished, but a part of life’s fragile continuum. We are conditioned to fear death, to see it as a thief that robs us of those we love, but in truth, it is a presence as certain as birth.

It is the final exhale, the closing of a story, a transformation rather than an annihilation. It is not the darkness we assume it to be, but a return to something older than memory itself.

In everyday tragedies . . . a bird injured by the world’s indifference, a stray cat seeking warmth in my arms, or a beloved pet whose eyes slowly dim . . . I recognize the sacred ritual of letting go. These moments teach me that while death is unyielding, it is also a tender transition, imbued with a dignity that I had once failed to see.

Death is not a singular event, but a process—one that begins long before the last breath is drawn. It is the subtle decline of a once-vibrant body, the softening of a gaze that no longer sees this world, the surrender of tension as the spirit prepares for departure. And in this process, there is a profound need for presence. The act of witnessing, of standing beside another being as they slip away, is not just about comfort—it is an acknowledgment of their life, an assurance that they are seen, valued, and loved until the very end.

I learned that my response to death need not be one of unrelenting fury. While I know I could never offer my daughter the calm and compassionate farewell I now provide for animals, it is in these shared, quiet moments that I have found purpose. Standing beside a creature at the threshold of life and death, I offer them the comfort of not being alone—a small act of grace in an otherwise relentless journey.

This intimate understanding led me to seek certification in euthanasia. Not to seize control over life’s final act, but to ensure that a peaceful, dignified passing is available to those in unbearable pain. I have held trembling bodies as their suffering eased, whispered quiet reassurances as they slipped away, and supported grieving owners with the empathy of someone who has weathered profound loss.

I had to choose how I interpret death. How I relate to it. How it fits into my life. Death is with me everyday and learning to coexist with its presence was necessary in order to survive.

Death has become my quiet companion, no longer an adversary but a presence I have learned to stand with. I have seen its gentler side—the way it frees the suffering, the way it offers release where medicine no longer can. Yet, even as I have made peace with death in many forms, I remain forever scarred by my daughter’s absence—a loss that will always echo in my heart. Some losses are too vast, too cruel to be reconciled, and hers will always be one of them.

Still, I have learned that while the weight of passing is heavy, it carries within it the quiet dignity of life itself, a reminder that even in our final moments, we are never truly alone. In standing with death, I do not seek to overcome it, but to bear witness to its presence with grace, knowing that to honor the end is also to honor the love that came before it.

Don’t Forget Her – Please

I’ve always wondered what the moments immediately following my daughter’s death were like for her. Was she scared? Confused? Angry? Sad? Maybe all of them. Probably all of them. I can let my mind ponder these things for only so long before I dissolve in tears. Recently, I saw a contest that invited the writer to choose one of five prompts and craft a story around it. I chose a simple prompt: write about someone who is afraid of being forgotten. I knew I could use the question to dig down into losing my daughter, Becca.

None of us want to be forgotten. Not when we are alive but especially after we die. I started to imagine how Becca would have taken some time, before leaving this plane, to ensure she didn’t easily disappear from people’s thoughts. What would she have done? Who would have mattered to her? How could she affect physical action when she no longer had a corporeal body. A story started to form and I decided to enter the contest with my writing.

Those of you who knew my daughter when she was alive understand when I say she is truly unforgettable. Those who never met her . . . I hope my writing brings her to life for you.

Below is my piece entered into a Reedsy Prompt Writing Contest.

“Don’t Forget Her, Please”

In the quiet place between life and eternity, the in-between place dividing then and now, there was a girl named Becca. In life she’d had an infectious laughter and a lightness of spirit. Truly a gift to those who knew her. Where she stood now, there was a solemness and her being felt stuck. Becca had died too young, with dreams left unfinished and a heart heavy with the weight of time she would never have.

She had spent her twenty-three years filling journals with poetry, capturing the world in sketches, and weaving laughter into the lives of those she loved. As she had grown it had felt as if time passed slowly. But in the grand scheme of things, she feared it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to have made a difference in the world, to have left her mark. What was a handful of years compared to the vastness of forever?

Becca stood in the place between, a division of two very different realities, an ethereal landscape of soft lights and whispering winds. A soft humming hung in the air around her. From which side did it emanate? Was it the buzzing of the activity of the living or the soothing, somewhat disconcerting, sounds of timelessness?

She could see the world she left behind, a hazy fragile globe cradled in the hands of the living. Her mother, her twin brothers, and a few close friends—they mourned, they remembered. Becca could feel their pain. But she knew memories were fleeting things, like footprints in the sand, washed away by the tide of time.

“I don’t want to be forgotten,” she whispered to the nothingness around her. The universe didn’t answer. It rarely did.

And so, Becca resolved to make herself unforgettable.

Her first act was to find a way to linger in the minds of those she loved. She watched over her mother, who sat at the kitchen table every night, holding one of Becca’s old notebooks and looking at her daughter’s picture. Guilt gnawed at Becca’s spectral heart. If only she had written more, she thought, left behind more words. She longed to touch the pages again, to whisper in her mother’s ear and tell her to share the poetry with the world.

“Let them see me,” she pleaded, invisible hands brushing over the paper. And somehow, her mother’s hands turned the pages to Becca’s favorite poem. With the line “she was here in the beginning and there in the end – don’t forget her please”. A soft smile touched her mother’s lips as she traced her fingers over her daughter’s handwriting. Becca felt a whisper of relief.

But she needed more.

Becca wandered through the lives of her brothers, whispering old jokes into the air between them, nudging them toward memories they had buried under grief. She slipped into their dreams, crafting moments of their childhood—midnight snacks, summer days spent by Lake Michigan, their yearly Halloween parties where the whole neighborhood celebrated. Slowly, they started talking about her again, as if she were still present, as if she had left more than a fading shadow.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

She turned to the world outside her family, haunting the spaces she once loved. She watched as her best friend, Linda hesitated considered deleting Becca’s number from her phone. Becca felt a moment of panic. That number was a thread connecting her to the world of the living. So, she whispered into Linda’s thoughts, planting the idea of writing down all their adventures. A memoir of sorts— through Becca and Linda’s eyes. And Linda, sensing something more than nostalgia, began to write. As she wrote, her endless tears mixed with moments of laughter and her heart began to heal.

But even that didn’t feel like enough.

In the next moment Becca found herself in her old college library, floating among the shelves where she had spent so many hours. Her plan had been to be a teacher and use art to help children learn. A thought struck her—what if she could leave behind more than memories? What if she could lead people toward the books, she had left her sketches in?

With a determination only the dead could muster, Becca began nudging people toward the forgotten corners of the library, where her sketches were tucked away inside textbooks she had once studied. She watched in quiet joy as strangers stumbled upon her drawings—little pieces of herself scattered through the world. Some took pictures, some smiled and moved on, but the thought that her work might continue to exist beyond her death filled her with a fragile kind of hope.

Still, the fear lingered.

Becca knew she couldn’t stay forever. Spirits weren’t meant to cling to the living world for too long. And so, she made her final effort—an act of quiet defiance against oblivion. She whispered into the hearts of those who knew her, urging them to live boldly, to carry pieces of her within them. She wanted them to chase dreams she never would. To create in ways, she didn’t have the chance to, and to live the life, fully, she no longer had in front of her.

One by one, they listened.

Her mother shared her poetry on a blog she wrote about healing from the loss of a child, where strangers found solace in both of their words. Her brothers took her dreams of travel and embarked on adventures they knew she would have loved. Linda finished the memoir, sharing Becca’s stories with anyone who would listen.

And Becca? She watched it all unfold, a soft presence in the breeze, a shimmer in the corner of their eyes. Eventually, she felt the tug—the quiet call of the beyond, the promise of peace. And though she was afraid, she realized something profound: being remembered wasn’t just about clinging to the past. It was about inspiring others to carry a piece of you into their future.

With that, Becca let go, drifting toward the unknown with a heart that no longer feared being forgotten. She had left enough echoes behind.

And that, she realized, was enough.

On Eighteen Years of Grief

Tonight is the hardest night in my grief journey. The countdown until my daughter dies again has dwindled from months to weeks, then days, and now mere hours. Yet, the number of years since that unbearable night continues to rise. Eighteen years tonight. I can’t stop it.

As the clock creeps past the 2 a.m. mark, on January 21st, the weight of knowing my daughter was breathing her last breath is almost too much to bear.

In those early years after she left this earth, I would stay awake all night, unable to let the moment pass unnoticed. I needed to feel it, to acknowledge it, to be present in my pain as if my awareness could somehow tether her memory to me more securely. As if my being aware of what was about to happen would somehow allow me to stop it. The pain, now, is a different kind of unbearable. I find myself hoping for sleep. Needing unconsciousness to mercifully shield me from reliving those final moments once again because, try as I might, there is nothing I can do. My heart cannot withstand losing her over and over.

The night she was killed in 2007, I had an unsettling feeling that something monumental was about to happen. I didn’t know what it was, but I wish I had. If only I had known, I would have done everything in my power to keep her by my side. To hold her close until the danger passed. I would have protected her. I would have kept her alive.

I woke abruptly from a restless sleep, that night, moments after she died.

Someone had sat gently on the edge of my bed and rubbed my leg, the way she used to wake me. I know it was Becca. I felt the shift in the mattress as her weight pressed down, her familiar touch. She had come to me in that moment, to say goodbye. I know it was her. I will always be thankful she came to me.

Eighteen years have passed, and I still don’t know how I have survived without her. My first true love. My only daughter. Each day feels like forever yet they blur together with a quickness.

Today, I went through the motions of work, caring for the animals at the clinic while my mind replayed her final hours. She was supposed to go to her grandparents, but when her new computer didn’t arrive on time, she changed her plans. A family friend had called, hoping she could babysit, and I know she would have said yes. So many tiny decisions, so many inconsequential moments that could have, should have, led her away from the place where she died. But instead, they conspired to lead her right to it.

People say, “time heals all wounds,” but I know now that isn’t true. The pain doesn’t lessen; it burrows deeper, intertwining with every fiber of my being. The grief becomes heavier, and though I carry it every day, I will never become strong enough to bear it with ease. My soul remains fractured, an open wound that time cannot and will not mend.

So here I sit, crying as fiercely as I did the moment I learned she was gone. The raw, primal wail of a mother who has lost her child—a sound born from the deepest pits of anguish. I cared for her, I cherished her, and yet someone else treated her with such cruel disregard and stole her from me.

I often strive to offer hope and encouragement in my writing, but tonight, I cannot. Tonight, I am shattered. I am angry. I am a mother who longs to hold her daughter once more, to feel the warmth of her embrace, to hear her laughter fill the room.

Becca, wherever you are, know that you are loved beyond measure and missed in ways words cannot capture. I see you in the delicate hush of dawn, in the soft glow of twilight. Your laughter echoes in the babbling brook, and your voice whispers in the wind as it brushes against my cheek. I search for you everywhere, and I will never stop searching because the truth is, I can never fully accept that you are gone.