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Same Ol’ Pictures
Remember when you had to wait for film to be developed and your pictures to be ready? You’d pick up that envelope from the drugstore photo counter and excitedly flip through them, deciding which ones to frame, put in an album, or have copied to send to grandparents. You might also look through old family…
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More Than I Can Handle
I talked last week about the unhelpful or hurtful things people unwittingly say to grievers. Often they say the first thing that comes to mind in an awkward situation. They feel like they have to say something, so they blurt out a statement that’s supposed to be comforting, but isn’t well thought out. As a…
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Things People Say
After five years of living without my younger daughter on this earth, my skin has thickened a bit to things people say that are insensitive or ignorant. But I still remember how emotionally fragile I was the first year or so. How hard it was to talk about Rachel, and especially to have to tell…
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My Mother Tongue
Of all the lessons child loss has taught me The most unexpected is the need to learn a second language I have no choice; there are things I have to say That I had no words for before The phrases are hard to pronounce My daughter’s ashes My sweet girl’s funeral My child is dead…
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Bereaved Mothers’ Day
Today is Bereaved Mothers’ Day. It is a day set aside to commemorate mothers who have lost a child and is always the Sunday before Mother’s Day. I say commemorate, not celebrate, because there’s nothing celebratory about losing a child. So, why acknowledge it at all? Because, for a mother who has lost a child,…
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What’s In Your Pocket?
My dad dressed pretty much the same his entire adult life. He wore a long-sleeve button-down shirt over a white tee shirt with the cuffs folded back twice. It was tucked into dad jeans or old man pleated pants with a leather belt. In the shirt pocket he had his checkbook, a small leatherbound notebook,…
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My Nonstick Heart
When I was nine years old, at a routine checkup the pediatrician detected a heart murmur. After a few tests a specialist told my parents I had an atrial-septal defect, essentially a hole in my heart. A few months later I had surgery at LeBonheur hospital in Memphis and went home with a Teflon patch…
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The Blessing of Knowing
Good Friday I’ve talked about the blessing of not knowing. That we think we want to know the future, but we really don’t. If we knew everything that was going to happen and when, we couldn’t live authentic lives. We wouldn’t be able to truly enjoy the good things knowing bad things were also coming.…
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The Blessing of Not Knowing
—————– Journal Entry 2/9/2017 ——————– My baby’s getting married tomorrow. Well, no one else would call her a baby. They would call her a competent, confident 30-year-old woman. And I do, too. But to me there is so much more. I still feel the exquisite weight of a sleeping baby on my lap. And the…
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The Future’s So Bright
Eight years or so ago we decided we wanted to buy a vacation place that would be our spot to relax from the pressures of work and the busyness of suburban life. It would be a fun place to get together with our daughters and grandchildren and also be somewhere that my husband and I…
A Light for My Path
Carrying the torch for bereaved parents.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.” Psalm 119:105
Why I’m Here
It feels impossible that I have lived for more than eight years now (ed. 2025) without one of my children in my life. Yet, here I am. And, here I will be for however many more years I have in this world.
I’ve learned a lot in these ensuing years. Some lessons I didn’t want to learn and some I wouldn’t have learned any other way than through losing Rachel. I would give anything to have remained ignorant. I have learned that losing a child changes you fundamentally, just as becoming a parent does. I have learned that those changes can be hard on relationships. That members of the same family will grieve differently, and we have to give each other grace. That deep and lasting grief can be frightening or uncomfortable to others. That some of those others will pull away. That many more others will stand beside you even when your changed self is hard to be around, awkward, talking too much, silent, laughing inappropriately, or crying uncontrollably.
What doesn’t change is God’s grace and mercy. He is here in the midst of the deepest grief. His Spirit groans for us when we don’t know what to pray. And, in my case, He led me to a wonderful group of other hurting hearts who shared their loss experiences, their faith struggles, and their recognition that though we grieve, we grieve with hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).
I’ve decided that just maybe I’ve attained enough life lessons to be of some help to other grieving parents. To that end, I launched this blog site and a companion Facebook page. They are open to all, but the target audience is parents who have lost a child and those who love and want to support them. My posts reflect my Christian beliefs and will follow Biblical principles. I welcome questions, comments, humor, soul-baring, vulnerability, doubt, strength, and support.
Laura 3/28/2022
We are all just walking each other home.
Ram Dass
A Light for My Path 