01/28/2026
Time Does Not Heal a Bereaved Parent’s Heart
Bereaved parents often wish the world understood one simple truth:
Time does NOT heal all wounds!
There is no time limit on grieving the death of a child. What changes over time is not the love, the loss, the yearning, or the ache. What changes is how a parent learns/adapts—slowly, painfully—to carry their grief. It settles into their body. It reshapes their daily life. It becomes something they have to live with, not something they “get over.”
The familiar phrase “time heals all wounds” was never meant to apply to the grief of bereaved parents. It is a modern oversimplification of much older ideas—ideas that never suggested deep loss disappears. Ancient writers believed time could soften pain, create distance, and help people function again—but NOT repair what has been torn away.
A parent’s grief is not a surface injury that closes neatly with time. It is a wound of the heart and soul—deep, enduring, and unseen by the world.
Several years ago, I broke my ankle and spent six weeks in a cast. Everywhere I went, doors were opened for me. At church, chairs were pulled up so I could elevate my foot. People asked how I was healing and what they could do to help. My pain was visible—and because it was visible, it was acknowledged.
When the cast came off, my ankle was not healed. It still ached. It still throbbed. But no one opened doors anymore. No one asked how I was doing, because they could no longer see the injury.
Bereaved parents live with that same kind of invisibility.
Their wounds are real, but they cannot be seen. And because they are unseen, they are often misunderstood and neglected —or quietly assumed to be healed.
If broken hearts were outside of their chests—if the world could see the fracture, the tenderness, the pain—they would likely receive the patience, care, and the compassion people naturally offer visible injuries.
But bereaved parents broken heart does not wear a cast. It does not announce itself. It simply lives deep within them.
This is why the phrase “are you still grieving?” can cut so deeply. Time may soften some of the sharpest edges, but it does not erase the love.
The death of a child is a jagged wound that does not close. It may transform, they may carry it differently, but it is a permanent amputation of the heart and the heart ‘s expectations.
“Time heals all wounds” may sound soothing—but it is a myth. Those who grieve know this intimately. To those who have never buried a child, it can sound reassuring. But time itself does not heal. Time only passes. Healing grows from what is held, tended, supported, and honored within that passing time.
The bond between a parent and a child is unbreakable—so strong that even death cannot sever it.
Scripture itself speaks to this truth:
Isaiah 49:15
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?…”
So before you consider using this unrealistic and over used cliché, please remember:
Time does not heal all wounds.
It simply removes some of the sharpest edges—
while love and yearning remain.
Dr. Cali
Bereaved Mother
Bereaved Parents Advocate
Grief Educator
Compassionate Friend
