An Unexpected Family

I was at grief group last night with my kids. We go every other Tuesday, driving over 40 minutes one way to get there. It’s important. It’s the only place in our lives where my kids can just sit, be, and play with other kids who have lost siblings. There’s no one at school. There’s no one on their sports teams. There’s no one at church. At grief group, it’s the one place where their story is shared. Every child they meet has also suffered the death of their sibling, their best buddy, their everything.

And the same goes for me. I don’t know any bereaved parents in the real world. It’s only in my grief world that I’ve met others who truly understand. I’ve actively sought them out and built relationships with these people because it matters to me. It matters that I feel connected to other moms and dads who sometimes cry themselves to sleep and wake up crying, too. It matters that there are parents who, like me, have to have the difficult conversations with their surviving children about how their siblings died, why they died, and whether their new siblings might die. It matters that we belong together in this shared space, supporting one another, sharing wisdom, telling our stories, and saying, “Yeah, me too,” when we talk about the strange ways we all cope with our grief.

So, my grief group is incredibly important. Last night, it was the birthday of one of the little boys. His mom brought cupcakes, and after our closing ceremony, we all turned to him and sang "Happy Birthday." As I sang, I took a moment to look around at all the other faces—the moms, the dads, the kids, the practitioners. An outsider, a non-griever, would have such a hard time fitting in here. With the candles lit on the makeshift altar, the pictures of all our dead kids, it’s a place only we truly understand. We feel so comfortable here, talking openly about death, life, and all the things in between. We belong, and finding a place where you belong is everything.

We are a family, and last night, we celebrated one of our kids' birthdays together. It was kind of magical. I don’t know if I would have met these people if William hadn’t died. We come from different backgrounds and live in different places, but because of death, we’ve come together and created something beautiful—a family. And I’m so grateful every time we get to celebrate one another. When someone has a birthday, it feels even more meaningful. Because, more than most, we know that not everyone gets another birthday.

Memory Walk event at our grief group