The Compassionate Friends NSW

24/08/2026

And I will miss you
🧡💛💜
in a thousand different ways,
at a thousand different times
on a thousand different days
Grief doesn’t come all at once, it finds us in the quiet moments, the loud moments, unexpected places, and the small, ordinary things we never thought to treasure. Missing you is not one single ache but a thousand small ones, scattered across time. I miss you in ways I didn’t know were possible, in moments I never anticipated. I feel incomplete. Missing you isn’t just something I feel, it’s something I live, again and again and again.
- Artist Credit: Unknown via Pinterest
With thanks to TCF Victoria

21/08/2026

💛💛💛💛💛

❤ For Lily Hooper and her family ❤

There are moments when words feel painfully inadequate.

This week, the family of 18-year-old Lily Hooper endured eight agonising days of waiting, searching and hoping for the news that their daughter would be found alive and well..

Then came the words they had been desperately waiting to hear.

Lily had been found alive.

For a brief time, hope was restored. Their daughter had been found. She was alive. She was coming home.

And then, with unimaginable cruelty, that hope was taken from them when they were told that the information was wrong.

Lily had died.

There is something especially heartbreaking in knowing that a family was taken from fearing the worst, to believing their daughter was coming home, only to then be confronted with her death.

The death of a child is already beyond measure. This added another devastating layer to the moment their lives changed forever.

No one can know exactly what Lily's family are living through. Grief is as individual as the person we love and the relationship we shared with them.

To Lily's parents, her family, her friends and all those who love her, we extend our deepest and most heartfelt condolences.
With much love - The Compassionate Friends Victoria ❤💔

19/08/2026

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16/08/2026

💛🩵💙🩷💚

Men grieve too.
🧡💙💜
It might not always be visible, but their pain is just as deep, their sorrow just as profound. Often, they carry their grief in silence, keeping it hidden behind a stoic exterior. They might not talk about it, but that doesn't mean they aren't feeling it. Each tear they don't shed, each word they don't speak, is still a reflection of the loss they feel. Grief can be a lonely journey, and men often walk it without letting anyone see how much it hurts. Behind the strong facade, there's a storm of emotions, of memories, regrets, and the pain of missing someone they loved. Just because they don't always share their pain doesn't mean it isn't there, lingering ijust below the surface and heavy with every unspoken word.
Artist Credit: David Agenjo via Pinterest

15/08/2026

💛🩵💚🩷💜

Say Their Name Saturday

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For many families, friends and loved ones, the hardest part isn’t just the loss, it’s what comes after. The silence. The way a name slowly disappears from conversations, as if saying it might hurt too much, or make others uncomfortable.
But for those living with grief, not hearing their loved one’s name can hurt more.
Their name matters. It always will.
Saying their name acknowledges that they were here, that they were loved, and that they are still part of someone’s life. It allows space for grief to be seen, instead of quietly carried.
Today, we invite you to share your loved one’s name in the comments.
Share their name.
Because they deserve to be remembered. Always.

13/08/2026

💛 💛 💛

Someday when it’s my turn
to leave this earthly realm
behind, I will run straight
to you.

We will hug and cry and laugh.
You will tell me about all of
the beautiful signs you had
sent me and I will tell you
how they looked from down
below.

I will tell you about all of
the things you missed and you
will insist you were watching
from the best seat in the house.

We have a lot of catching
up to do.
-in.noahs.name
Artist Credit: Jessica do Vale via Pinterest

11/08/2026

Bereaved mum, Sue, wrote about losing her son, Joe, unexpectedly one August:

"Joe is still an enormous part of my life. He occupies more space in my brain than anybody or anything else. But it is not all pain and sadness. There is also my love for him. Huge massive wonderful love. That has not died. If anything, it has become stronger.

So here I am, 13 years on. It’s that time of the year. Facebook is full of family camping trips, and I’m seeing all the “back to school” clobber in the supermarkets. Those things used to tear me apart. But I seem to have developed a tolerance to them now. My other two have grown up and are leaving home. My new life is moving forward, and Joe is there right in the centre of it."

Read Sue's full blog at the link in the comments.

08/08/2026

💛🌷💛

❤️🧡💜
When someone we love dies, the life we were living changes.

There is a before that can never be returned to, and an after we did not ask for.

The future does not simply look different. It no longer contains the person around whom so much of our life, our love and our sense of the world had formed.

We may continue to work, care for others, make decisions and move through the years. We may build lives that still hold meaning. But none of this restores the life that ended when they died.

There are parts of us that could only exist because they were here.

There were ways of knowing ourselves that belonged to our relationship with them.

There was a future that was not imagined in detail, yet was still understood to include them.

Their death changed the course of our life. It changed what was possible, what felt certain, what mattered and who we were within our own family and our own world.

This does not mean the life we live now has no value.

It means grief asks us to live a life we never would have chosen, while carrying the person whose absence changed everything.

At TCFV, we understand that bereavement is not confined to the moment someone dies.

It reaches into identity, family, belonging and the future itself.

The person we love remains at the centre of that grief.

And so does the life that could only have existed with them in it.
Artist Credit: Digital Art 064 via Pinterest

05/08/2026

💛💛💛

When we are living with grief, the littlest glimmer of happiness
can be such a wondrous, yet underappreciated lifeline.
And although sometimes we don’t want those
moments of happiness, we deserve them; we need them.

Living with grief can feel all-consuming, making even the smallest moments of happiness feel unfamiliar or undeserved. But in those brief glimmers, those fleeting instances of light amid the heaviness, there’s something essential. Even when we resist it, thinking it doesn’t belong in the shadow of our loss, happiness becomes a lifeline. It doesn’t erase the grief or take away the pain, but it reminds us we’re still here, still human, and still capable of feeling something beyond the weight of sorrow. And in those moments, no matter how brief, we find a piece of what we need to keep going.
- TCFV
Artist Credit: Unknown via Pinterest