07/31/2026
July is Bereaved Parents Awareness Month.
I had a whole post written about what losing a child does to a mother, to any parent, but the last two weeks rewrote it for me. My stepdad needed open heart surgery, and the very next day my mom had a heart attack.
After you lose a child there is this looming fear that sits right underneath the surface. All. The. Time. It’s not a fear of something else bad happening, because that is inevitable in life. It’s that when things like this do happen the trauma that sits right below the surface inside of you comes back and there is no way to stop it. It cracks open a grief response in my kids, in my husband, in me that you have worked so hard to suppress.
Here’s the truth nobody tells you about losing a child: It doesn’t just devastate you once. It reshapes the rest of your life. Every hospital hallway, the beeping of the heart monitor in the hospital room, every phone call about someone sick, every sad situation that life brings, it all reaches back and finds Taylor again.
Since she died, I’ve worked every single day to keep myself just above the surface of my grief, to show up for Ty, Taytum, and Ryan and the people in my life that I love. But when it hits, it takes everything in me to still be the one who shows up. Not because I don’t want to be there, but because I know how close I am to falling back into the hell I have fought so hard to climb out of.
So what do you do? You show up, you work hard, and care for those that need us, all while knowing you are slipping back into that depression.
This is what bereaved parents carry every single day. So today and each day please know:
I see you.
I’m sorry.
I’m here.