Healing the Loss

20/11/2025

Now believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe, our annual Worldwide Candle Lighting unites bereaved families in remembrance of the children, grandchildren, and siblings who have died and will never be forgotten.

On December 14th at 7 pm local time, families gather to light candles and participate in a special memorial ceremony honoring their beloved child, grandchild, or sibling.

You’re invited to attend one of the hundred formal candle lighting events or participate in quiet remembrance alongside your family at home. Whether with others or in private, you’ll join thousands of families in creating a wave of light to remember the children forever loved and forever missed.

For more information on how to participate in this meaningful event, please visit our website.

17/11/2025

17/11/2025

17/11/2025

Sometimes loss sweeps through your life like a fierce tide, pulling away everything that once felt important, leaving only what is real, what is nourishing, what is true. You start to notice how much of the world is padded with noise, how much energy is spent on things that never mattered, how easily conversations skim the surface when your heart is living at the bottom of the ocean.

Grief sharpens you, but it also softens you. It strips away the clutter and hands you a new compass, one that points toward depth, presence, honesty. You learn to reserve your strength for the moments that deserve you, the people who steady you, the beauty that helps you breathe again.

And maybe that is one of grief’s quiet gifts. It teaches you to honour your time, protect your peace, and choose substance over chatter. It reminds you that life is too precious, too fragile, too breathtaking to waste on anything that doesn’t lift your soul.

If you find yourself craving real connection today, you’re not alone. Loss rewires us, but it can also refine us, guiding us back to what truly matters.

Sending love to everyone this resonates with this 🩷

For more support on baby loss, read Saying Goodbye, The Baby Loss Guide, and Pregnancy After Loss.
For anyone grieving another family member or friend, read Beyond Goodbye.

17/11/2025

Hearing you’re doing so well can land strangely, even painfully, when you’re grieving. On the surface it sounds encouraging, but underneath it often misses the truth. Grief isn’t a performance we master or a milestone we race through, it’s a private landscape we’re learning to navigate, inch by fragile inch.

Let me explain why this phrase is so difficult.

The person saying it usually means well. They see someone still turning up to life in whatever way they can, still speaking, still breathing, still moving through the world despite the weight they carry. From the outside it may look like resilience, even recovery.

But what the bereaved often hear is something entirely different.
They may hear you got over the loss so fast, or this hasn’t affected you as deeply as I imagined. They may feel pressure to prove their grief is real, or wonder if their heartbreak is invisible.

Grief is infinitely more complex than what can be seen from the outside. People can appear composed while barely holding themselves together, they can smile while their inner world is cracked open, they can function while battling waves that would undo most hearts.

This is why I encourage all of us to pause before commenting on how a grieving person seems to be doing. None of us can truly judge another’s sorrow by surface appearances. Instead, let the person who is hurting tell you how they are today, in their own words, at their own pace. Ask gently, listen fully, and avoid blanket statements that might deepen their pain.

Compassion grows when we resist the urge to label someone’s journey, and choose instead to honour the vast, unseen work it takes to survive the unthinkable.
For more support on baby loss, read ‘Saying Goodbye’, ‘The Baby Loss Guide’, and ‘Pregnancy After Loss’.
For anyone grieving another family member or friend, read ‘Beyond Goodbye’.

17/11/2025

🤎💚💛
When the Years Go By

There is no loss like the loss of a child. It’s a pain that has no words — a grief that becomes part of your very being. In the early days, people often surround you with care. They ask how you’re coping, they speak your child’s name, they remember birthdays, anniversaries, and small details that mean so much.

But as the years go by, the world moves on. The questions fade. Their name is spoken less and less. People assume that time has done its work, that somehow the ache has softened, that life has “gone back to normal.”

Yet nothing is ever truly normal again. The missing never ends. The love never fades. You carry your child in every breath, every thought, every heartbeat — even if others no longer see it.

You sit among friends or family, listening to conversations about everyday things, and suddenly you feel that familiar loneliness wash over you. They laugh and chat, unaware that your heart is quietly breaking all over again. You smile politely, but inside you long to walk away — to be somewhere you can whisper their name and know someone will listen.

The loss of a child isn’t something you “get over.” It’s a love that had no chance to grow old — a bond that time can never weaken.

So if the world has grown silent around you, please know — there are others who still understand. Others who still remember. Others who will never stop saying your child’s name with you.

Words by: TCFV

Art by: Brooklyn Swenson

09/11/2025

For your consideration:

01/11/2025

For your consideration

We are entering into a trio of days that I have loved for a long time: Halloween, the Feast of All Saints, and the Feast of All Souls, that thin place in the year—also known as a thin time—that acknowledges how close the worlds are, even when they seem horribly far apart.

I am thinking especially of those who have lost beloved ones since this time last year, and whose grief is new and raw. And I am thinking always of those who have carried their grief for a long time.

These days invite us into memory and hope—and sorrow and joy and, most of all, love. In everything we carry, may we keep figuring out what it means to live fully and wholeheartedly here and now, in this world and in this life. Wherever these days find you, may they hold solace and mysterious grace. This blessing is for you.

ATTENDED

We are attended.
We are accompanied.

We are asked to open
our eyes, our hearts,
to the grace of it,

that we might bear witness
not only to the fall of the sparrow
but also to what follows it:

the aching mystery that
comes to sing in our bones,
the presence that releases us
into this living and into this world

but also,
with wondrous strangeness,
goes with us still,
making a nest in us
and helping us
find our way
home.

—Jan Richardson
from Sparrow: A Book of Life and Death and Life
janrichardson.com/books

Image: “A Gathering of Spirits“
© Jan Richardson

30/10/2025

🎃 Halloween, Day of the Dead, and Finding Meaning in This Time of Year 🕯️

As October comes to an end, many parts of the world mark this time of year with traditions that honour those who have died. While Halloween is often seen as spooky or fun, its origins and many celebrations around this date are deeply rooted in remembrance.

In Celtic traditions, especially in Ireland and Scotland, Samhain marks the end of the harvest season and the belief that the veil between the living and the dead grows thin. Many light candles or fires to guide loved ones’ spirits home.

In Mexico, families celebrate Día de los Mu***os (Day of the Dead) — a vibrant and meaningful time to remember and honour loved ones who have died. Altars (ofrendas) are decorated with photos, candles, marigolds, food, and special items that their loved ones enjoyed in life. It’s not a time of fear, but of love and connection — a celebration of life and memory.

In parts of Asia, families mark Ancestor’s Day or similar rituals with lanterns, food offerings, and time spent in reflection. Around the world, this season is seen as a time to pause and honour those who came before us — to speak their names, tell their stories, and keep their light shining.

For those who are grieving, this time of year can offer a quiet opportunity to remember your loved one in your own way. You might like to:

🕯️ Light a candle in their memory
🌼 Create a small space at home with a photo and something that reminds you of them
💐 Visit their resting place
💌 Write them a message or share a favourite memory
💞 Spend time with others who understand

Whether you mark Halloween, Día de los Mu***os, Samhain, or simply take a moment of remembrance, know that your love and your grief are shared and understood by many.

Photo taken from Pinterest

29/10/2025

healingtheloss.com

26/10/2025

Healingtheloss.com