I have stood in rooms where loss was so big it swallowed the air. I didn't lose what you lost - I know that. But I have held someone I love as they left this world, and I have cried so hard I couldn't breathe, and I carry those losses with me still. They don't leave. They just become part of you.
So I'm not coming to this from a safe distance. And I'm not going to pretend I have words big enough for what you're going through. I don't. But I'm here, and I'm not looking away.
If you have lost a child - whether you held them for years or only for moments - you are carrying something that most people around you will never fully understand. And I think you already know that, because you've seen it on their faces. The way they want to help but don't know how. The way conversations go quiet. The way people stop bringing it up after a while, as if the absence has somehow gotten smaller.
It hasn't.
The Grief Nobody Prepares You For
People talk about grief in stages, like it's a process you move through and eventually come out the other side of. But the loss of a child doesn't follow a framework. It moves like weather - unpredictable, sometimes violent, sometimes just a low gray sky that never lifts.
You can be fine in the grocery store and then not fine at all because you walked past the cereal they used to ask for. You can have a good day - maybe even laugh - and then feel guilty for it, like joy is a betrayal. You can be years out and still get blindsided by a wave that feels exactly as strong as the first one.
None of that means you're stuck. It means the love was that big. And grief that big doesn't shrink on a schedule.
What You Actually Need
You've probably heard things by now that made you want to scream. "They're in a better place." "God needed another angel." "At least you had them for the time you did." People say these things because they're desperate to ease your pain and they don't know how. But meaning well and being helpful are not the same thing.
What you actually need is for someone to stop trying to make it better. To sit with you in the unbearable and not rush you through it. To say "this is awful and I'm here" and then actually be here - not for a week, not for a month, but for the long haul.
If the people around you have started to move on while you're still in the thick of it, that doesn't mean your grief has overstayed its welcome. It means their capacity ran out. That says something about human limitation, not about you.
Where God Is in This
I'm going to be careful here, because I think the last thing you need is a theology lesson about your child's death. I would never tell you this happened for a reason. I don't believe God took your child to teach you something. Some things in this broken world are just devastating, and I think God grieves them too.
What I do believe is that He is with you in it. Not explaining it. Not justifying it. Just with you.
Psalm 34:18 says, "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."
Near. Right next to you in the chair where you sit with their picture in your hands. Right there in the room that still smells like them if you close your eyes. Right there in the night when the missing is so loud it's hard to breathe.
And in John 11, when Jesus arrived after Lazarus had died and saw Mary weeping, the text says He was "deeply moved in spirit and was troubled" (John 11:33). And then verse 35: "Jesus wept."
He didn't explain. He didn't correct her grief. He didn't rush to the miracle, even though He knew it was coming. He stood in front of a grieving woman and He cried with her. That is who God is. Not a God who watches suffering from a distance. A God who weeps with you in it.
You Don't Have to Be Okay
You do not have to be okay. Not today. Not on the anniversary. Not at the holidays. Not ever, if "okay" means going back to who you were before, because that person doesn't exist anymore. This loss changed you, and it would be strange if it hadn't.
You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to have days where your faith feels like a thread. You are allowed to ask God why and not get an answer and still show up the next day with the same question. That is not weak faith. That is faith that refuses to let go even when it has every reason to.
Habakkuk looked at God and said, "How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?" (Habakkuk 1:2). He didn't tidy up his pain before bringing it. He brought it raw. And God didn't turn away.
He won't turn away from yours either.
For the Days Ahead
There will be days when the weight lifts a little. Not because you've forgotten, but because your heart has learned to carry it differently. That's not betrayal. That's okay.
There will also be days when it's just as heavy as it ever was. Those days are okay too.
I don't have a formula for you. I don't have a timeline or a promise that this will make sense. But the God who wept at a grave is weeping with you now. And He is not in a hurry for you to stop.
You are seen in this. Deeply, specifically seen. And the love you carry for the child you lost - that love is not wasted. It is holy. And it matters to the God who gave them to you in the first place.