TCF #2556

05/24/2026

grief weeds out your circle. it’s always the ones who haven’t experienced true loss that are the quickest to judge. you don’t owe anyone an explanation for
surviving the unimaginable.
- makayla de boer
Grief has a way of showing you who can sit with pain… and who only knows how to judge it from a distance.
When you are surviving unimaginable loss, your world changes completely, but many people still expect you to behave as though it hasn’t. They become uncomfortable with your sadness, your anger, your withdrawal, or the way grief has changed you. Not because you are grieving wrong, but because they have never had to carry that kind of pain themselves.
The truth is, grief often weeds out your circle. Some people disappear when your loss no longer feels “recent” enough for them. Others offer opinions about how you should cope, heal, move forward, or behave. But loss changes a person forever, and there is no neat or comfortable way to survive it.
You do not owe anyone an explanation for how hard this is.
You do not owe anyone proof of your pain.
And you do not have to shrink your grief just to make others comfortable.
Sometimes surviving the unimaginable means disappointing people who expected you to stay the same after your world fell apart.
Artist Credit: Unknown AI modified via Pinterest

05/18/2026

📣

Someone needs to say this out loud...

You are allowed to grieve however you need to grieve.

You are allowed to cry in public and not apologize for it.

You are allowed to laugh at a memory and not feel guilty about it.

You are allowed to be angry without explaining yourself.

You are allowed to talk about them every single day for the rest of your life.

You are allowed to not be okay two years later.

Five years later.

Ten years later.

You are allowed to skip the party.

Leave early.

Say no to things that hurt.

Protect your peace without justifying it to anyone.

You are allowed to grieve loudly.

Or quietly.

Or both on the same day.

You are allowed to fall apart on a Tuesday for no reason anyone else can see.

And you are allowed to put yourself back together on your own terms.

Not theirs.

Society did not love who you lost.

Society did not sit with them.

Laugh with them.

Hold them.

Miss them in the specific way that only you miss them.

So society does not get to tell you when to be done.

How to do it.

Or what it should look like when you're healing.

You get to decide that.

You always did...

Give yourself the grace to grieve the way your love actually feels.

Not the way the world is comfortable with.

Your grief is yours....

Honor it.

05/16/2026

Lynda Boucugnani-Whitehead shares in her article, "The Experience of Grief." Visit our website to read the full article.

05/04/2026

BEREAVED MOTHER'S DAY 2026
Today is Bereaved Mother’s Day – a day that holds deep meaning, but also deep pain.

For many, this day is not filled with flowers or breakfast in bed, but with aching hearts and quiet reflection. It's a day for the mothers who hold their children in their hearts instead of their arms. A day that recognises the love that continues long after loss.

For many bereaved families TODAY is the day they choose to go out for lunch, light a candle, or spend time with others who understand. For others, it’s a time for solitude and self-care.

Next week – Mother’s Day – may be too overwhelming for those who have lost a child, while social media fills with smiling families and celebratory posts, many bereaved mothers are simply trying to get through the day.

To all the mothers grieving their child, in any way or at any age – we see you. We honour you. Your love, your motherhood, your grief – all of it matters.
Artist credit: Unknown via Pinterest

04/25/2026

Grief has seasons.

Not the kind you can track on a calendar.
Not winter, spring, summer, fall.

But the seasons of the soul.

There’s the early season—the stormy one—where everything is loud and raw and sharp. Where tears come without warning, and the pain sits on your chest like a weight that won’t move.

Then comes the quiet season. The outside world seems normal, but you feel like a stranger in it. People think you’re okay again. But inside, it’s still gray. Still empty. Still aching.

There’s the angry season, too. The one where you're mad at everything and nothing. Where you snap, retreat, question everything, and silently scream at the unfairness of it all.

And the numb season—when it doesn’t hurt as much, but you also don’t feel much of anything. You float. You function. You wonder if this is healing or just surviving.

And maybe, eventually… the tender season arrives. Not a season without sadness, but one where the memories bring more warmth than sting. Where the love feels alive, even in the absence.

But here’s what they never told us:

These seasons don’t come in order.
They don’t stay for a set time.
They loop.
They repeat.
They collide.

One day you’re okay.
The next, you’re not.
And that’s not failure.
That’s grief.

Grief doesn’t follow the rules.
But it does follow love.
And love, real love, lasts forever.

So, if you’re in a hard season right now, hold on.
Another one will come.
Not easier… just different.
And eventually, you’ll learn to live in the rhythm of them all.

Written by: Aimee Suyko - In Their Footsteps

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04/21/2026

Feeling this today

Grief never lets me land anywhere for long. Sad, angry, exhausted, lonely, hurting… it feels like I’m somewhere in between them all. Somewhere that doesn’t have a name yet. Somewhere that changes by the hour and makes absolutely no sense to anyone who isn’t living it.

And the hardest part is being asked how I am when the honest answer takes too long and sounds too complicated and usually ends with me reassuring the other person that I’m fine, actually, don’t worry, I’m fine. When really I’m somewhere between fine and falling apart and I’ve been there for so long I’ve started to think this is just what I am now.
-

03/21/2026

We are very pleased to bring you the Spring 2026 online issue of "We Need Not Walk Alone," courtesy of The Compassionate Friends! Visit our website to read the latest issue.

02/16/2026

It will always be strange to me how comfortable people are judging the way a parent grieves their own child.

Imagine watching a parent survive the worst thing imaginable and deciding they’re not doing it right.

As if there’s a rulebook for parents burying their children.
As if there’s a timeline to get over it.
As if there’s a “correct” way to deal with walking out of a hospital room with empty arms.

What’s strange is not the way I grieved.
What’s strange is the way people felt entitled to talk about it like they would do it all differently.
“I would never post that”
“I can’t believe she did that”
“I wouldn’t handle it that way”
You don’t know what you would do.
And I pray you never have to find out.

You do not get to critique the way someone crawled out of hell.

You do not get to decide it was “too much” or “not enough.”
Too public.
Too quiet.
Too angry.
Too emotional.
Too fast.
Too slow.

When someone is walking through the worst season of their life, they are not wondering if they’re doing it right. They are thinking about survival. About making it to tomorrow. About holding themselves together with whatever thread they can find.

And it is so insanely arrogant to stand at a distance and analyze the way they did it when you have no idea what it costs someone to get out of bed after their world falls apart. You don’t know what it took for them to post that photo. Or show up to that event. Or smile in that room. Or avoid that party. You don’t know what their nights look like. You don’t hear the silence they sit in.

You are seeing a fraction. And if you have never stood in their exact fire, you do not get to critique how they walked through it.

There is something deeply human about coping imperfectly. About grasping for light in ways that don’t always make sense to other people. About surviving in ways that are messy and visible or messy and invisible.

What’s not human is turning someone else’s tragedy into a topic of conversation.

If you don’t understand how someone is getting grieving, that’s okay. But judging it says more about you than it ever will about them.

Some people are just trying to stay alive.
Let them.

02/02/2026

“Let what you loved most about them keep breathing through you”.

Some people leave this world, but they never truly leave our lives. They remain in the quiet ways we choose to show up, in the softness of our words, in the patience we offer when it would be easier to turn away. Love does not end — it transforms into responsibility. Into continuation. Into embodiment.
If you miss their gentleness, let your hands become gentler with others.

If you admired their kindness, let your voice become a place where others feel safe.
If their strength carried you, let your courage carry someone else.
Grief can make us feel empty, but it can also make us intentional. It asks us not only to remember — but to become. To take the invisible inheritance they left behind and make it visible again through how we live.

Legacy is not only written in stories told about them. It is written in the way you forgive a little sooner. Care a little deeper. Stand a little steadier. Love a little wider.
The most beautiful tribute is not built from words carved in stone — it is built from character carried forward. From choosing, each day, to let what you loved most about them keep breathing through you.
In this way, they are not gone. They are still at work in the world — through your heart. 🕊️🪽🤍✨

✍ Mitra @ https://www.facebook.com/tipsthatchangeyourlife/

01/12/2026

Beautiful…heartbreaking❤️💔

💙🩵💙
I’ve come to believe that some souls simply aren’t meant to stay here long.
And I don’t say that lightly.
It’s not something I understand in any earthly way, because truthfully, I don’t.
There’s no logic that can explain why someone we love so deeply could be here one day and gone the next. If there’s a reason, I wish I knew it.
But I don’t.
What I do believe is that we’re each sent here to touch certain lives. To love certain people. To leave imprints that carry on long after we’re gone.
Maybe our time, no matter how painfully short or unexpectedly brief, isn’t measured in years but in the depth of love we give and the connections we make.
I’ve seen how a single person, even one who has left this world far too soon, can change everything for those they loved. The ripple of their kindness, their laughter, their very presence, it never really disappears. It lingers in every person they touched, in quiet moments of memory, in the ways we love others because of how they loved us.
Here’s the thing…maybe that was their purpose.
Maybe that was their gift.
Still…knowing that doesn’t erase the pain I still feel every day. It doesn’t fill the space they left behind. Because the missing never fully goes away.
But sometimes, I can still feel the love. Like they’re whispering to me, “I did what I came here to do and I left my love with you.”
And that’s enough for me now. To hold onto the idea that their time, no matter how brief, was important and special. That the love wasn’t taken away, it only transformed.
That even though they couldn’t stay, that gift of love they gave me will continue to grow for as long as I live.
In many ways, I feel like that love is still here, because love isn’t something you can touch and hold in your hand. It’s a feeling.
And it’s still here…moving through my heart.

Words by: Gary Sturgis – Surviving Grief https://www.facebook.com/SurvivingGriefGarySturgis

Art by: Nakata Illustrations