One Step Forward - formerly Sedgefield Bereavement Support Group

20/05/2026

Lovely sentiment shared by one of the group 🤗

26/04/2026

When you think of me—
don’t stop at the ending.

Don’t replay the last days,
the hospital rooms,
the goodbyes that were never long enough.
That’s not the whole story.

Remember the way we laughed until we couldn’t breathe.
The stupid inside jokes.
The times I showed up for you when nobody else did.
The way I said your name.
The way we were just… us.

When you think of me,
don’t turn it into pain you carry like a punishment.
I don’t live in your grief.
I live in the pieces of you I helped shape—
the strength, the love, the spark you still have.

When you tell my stories, don’t whisper.
Say them out loud.
Laugh. Cry. Swear if you need to.
Let me still exist in your world,
not just in the quiet parts of your heart.

And when you wonder if I’m still with you—
I am.
Not in some grand, glowing way.
But in the small things.
The sudden calm that steadies you.
The warmth that shows up out of nowhere.
The way something ordinary suddenly feels familiar.

That’s me.
Still proud of you.
Still watching.
Still here,
every time you think of me.

Written by: Aimee Suyko - In Their Footsteps

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21/04/2026

For those who have lost someone close, the feeling of loss never goes, but we gradually learn to live around it 🧡

🧡 The Loss Foundation 🧡

16/04/2026

** Session Dates **

OSF will be getting together in the Welcome Room at St Ed’s on the following Thursdays this quarter:

Today (April 16th)
May 7th & 21st
June 4th & 18th
July 2nd & 16th

Sessions run from 2pm - 4pm. If you’d like to talk through anything before coming along, then pls get in touch.

Love from Sue & the Listeners 🙂

01/04/2026

** No Session tomorrow (2/4/26)**

We apologise for the short notice but due to varying commitments we’re going to have to cancel tomorrow’s session I’m afraid.

We’ll reconvene in a fortnight (16th April) & in the meantime apologies again & you know where we are 🙂

Lots of love for a relaxing Easter,

The Listeners xx

17/03/2026

Sharing another post from TCFVI

There’s something defiant about continuing to say their name.

The world has an unspoken rule about grief: soften it, shorten it, tuck it away so other people can feel comfortable again. Over time, conversations move on. Rooms adjust. Silence settles where a life once was. And somehow, we’re expected to follow that silence.

But saying your name breaks it.

When I speak about you, I’m not pretending you’re alive in the ordinary sense. I know the tragedy of what happened. I know the finality. I have stood in it. I stand in it still.

And yet, when I say your name out loud, something shifts. The air changes. For a moment, you are not gone.
Saying your name keeps you present in the only way I have left.

Grief is not only about missing you. It’s about fighting the slow erasure that time tries to impose. It’s about refusing to let the world reduce you to a date on a calendar or a photograph on a shelf.

I will talk about you forever because love doesn’t end at the grave. It changes form. It becomes language. It becomes storytelling. It becomes repetition.

It becomes your name, spoken again and again, so that in this house, in this body, in this life, you are still here.

17/03/2026

An important reminder from Australia group ‘The Compassionate Friends Victoria Inc’

You are the only ‘expert’ in your grief.

Grief doesn’t follow instructions. It doesn’t move in straight lines. And no matter how much support surrounds you, no one else is living inside your loss. Only you know what it takes to get through a day.
Carry it your way.
Some days that might mean speaking their name often. Other days it might mean holding everything close and saying very little. Both are grief, both are real.
Speak it your way.
Whether your grief comes out in words, silence, tears, anger, or quiet reflection, it is yours. It does not have to be softened for other people’s comfort or reshaped to fit someone else’s understanding.
Live it your way.
There is no prize for doing grief “well.” No timeline that proves your love. What matters is that you keep finding your own way forward, at your own pace, in your own voice.
You are the only expert in your grief.
And however you are carrying it today, that is ok, that is enough.

05/02/2026

With thanks to AMP for sharing in her Michigan-based blog: Our Memories - a Journey Through Grief.

Grief is nothing but baby steps. Tiny ones. The kind you don’t even notice until you look back.
Some days the win is getting out of bed.
Some days it’s making coffee.
Some days it’s just breathing through the ache instead of letting it swallow you whole.
Grief doesn’t move in leaps. It shuffles. It pauses. It sits down on the floor with you and refuses to be rushed. And that’s not failure—that’s survival.
Baby steps still count when your heart is heavy.
Still count when you’re tired.
Still count when you’re carrying love that has nowhere to land.
You’re not “stuck.”
You’re learning how to live with something that changed you forever.
And even on the days it doesn’t feel like it
showing up at all is brave as hell. 🖤

26/01/2026

A topic that comes up frequently at our group - & a reminder that there’s no right or wrong way, it just comes down to personal choice & perspective 🧡

When someone you love is gone, the ordinary stops being ordinary.
A sweater folded in a drawer.
The blanket they pulled over themselves night after night still draped over the couch.
A recipe written in their handwriting.

These items become relics, tangible connections to the people we’ve loved and lost. They tell stories, hold memories, and offer comfort in a world forever altered by their absence.

Sorting through what’s left behind is brutal. Do you keep it? Do you let it go? There’s no guidebook for how to decide which pieces of someone’s life you keep.
Every drawer you open, every closet you step into, feels like stepping into their world and being forced to decide what stays and what goes. And that decision can rip you open in ways you never saw coming.
Because every object holds a memory. Every choice feels like betrayal and love tangled together.
And in those moments, the emotions come—sometimes you smile, sometimes you sob. Most times, it’s both at once.

When my own losses came, I found myself clinging to things I never thought would matter. A recipe card smudged with flour. A beat-up tennis racket that should’ve been thrown out years ago. But they weren’t just objects—they were proof. Proof of love. Proof of time I can’t get back.

Eventually, I learned something I wish I didn’t have to: it isn’t the object itself that keeps them close. It’s the story tied to it, the memory that lives in you, the way they shaped who you are now.

So if you’re in the thick of it—surrounded by the things they left behind—go slow. Be gentle with yourself. Keep what you need. Let go when you’re ready. And remind yourself: releasing an object doesn’t mean releasing them.

They live in you now. In your memories. And in the way you keep going, one day at a time.
Written by: Aimee Suyko - In Their Footsteps

15/01/2026

Morning folks!

Just a reminder we’re bk on this afternoon after the Christmas break & are looking fwd to seeing you all! 🙂

See you at 2pm in the Welcome Room @ St Ed’s ☕️🫖🍪

Sue & the Listeners
X