One of the Most Loving Thing You Can Do for a Grieving Parent (That Almost No One Talks About)

When someone we love loses a child, we often ask the same question:

What can I do?

Especially if we live far away. Especially if we feel helpless. Especially if casseroles and flowers feel insufficient.

Here is one answer that almost no one talks about, but that grieving parents desperately need:

Help with the admin. Help with the logistics. Help with the unbearable paperwork that comes after a child dies.

When our elderly parents die, we expect there will be accounts to close. Final taxes to file. Paperwork to complete. It is sad, but it makes sense. It follows the expected order of life.

When a child dies, nothing about that makes sense.

And yet the paperwork still comes.

Bank accounts. Medical bills. Insurance forms. School records. Summer camp emails. Sports registrations. Streaming profiles. Mail addressed to a child who no longer exists.

Each envelope, each email, each login can feel like a landmine.

And the cruel part is that much of this arrives months or even years later, long after the initial wave of support has faded, when a grieving parent is expected to be “functioning” again.

That is often when these tasks hurt the most.

Why This Is So Hard for Grieving Parents

Closing a child’s bank account is not a neutral task. Deleting a Netflix profile is not a small thing. Calling a coach to explain, again, that your child is dead is not “just a phone call.” These moments force parents to say the words out loud repeatedly, explain the unexplainable to strangers, and encounter blunt, bureaucratic language that has no regard for grief.

They are ambushed by phrases like: “Deceased. Do not mail.” “Remove from roster.” “Account closed.” As if a parent could ever forget.

Two Experiences I’ve Never Forgotten

I knew immediately that I could not write my son William’s obituary. I simply did not have the cognitive or emotional capacity.

A dear friend stepped in. She gathered family and friends around a table. She listened while we told stories, funny ones, tender ones, painful ones. She captured William in our words and turned them into something beautiful.

That was a gift I will never forget.

Two years later, I logged into a summer camp portal at 5 a.m., trying to register my living son, Kai. I wanted to get a jump on enrollment.

Both my children’s names were still there.

Next to William’s name, in all caps, were the words:

DECEASED. DO NOT MAIL.

I screamed. I fell to the floor.

It was not that the camp intended to be cruel. The note was meant to be internal, never forward facing. But the damage was done.

My sister-in-law immediately stepped in. She called the camp as soon as they opened. She handled the conversation. She protected me from having to explain or relive it.

That is what support looks like.

What You Can Do (From Near or Far)

If you want to help a grieving parent, truly help, here are things you can offer:

• Ask if you can handle phone calls or emails to schools, camps, teams, doctors, churches, or activity leaders

• Offer to close accounts such as bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, subscriptions, apps, and memberships

• Manage paperwork related to insurance, billing, or records

• Help write or edit an obituary

• Call the funeral home or cemetery on their behalf

• Create a master list of who needs to be notified so the parent does not have to remember or repeat it

• Monitor mail and flag anything that may be triggering

• Set calendar reminders to follow up on lingering admin tasks months later

  
  

You can say something as simple as:

“I know there are a lot of logistical things that come with this.If you want, I can take that on for you, fully or partially.”

And then, this is key: follow through. Do not wait for the grieving parent to organize it for you. Their brain is in survival mode. Ask for a pile of papers. A login. A list of names. Permission to step in.

Why This Matters So Much

Grieving parents are already doing the hardest work imaginable, learning how to live in a world where their child is missing. Every administrative task they do not have to do is one less moment they are forced to confront that reality in a cold, transactional way.

This kind of help reduces unnecessary retraumatization, protects parents from avoidable triggers, and allows grief to be held with more care and less violence.

It is quiet work. Invisible work. But it is profound.

A Final Thought

Supporting a grieving parent is not about fixing their pain. You cannot.

But you can soften the sharp edges of the world around them.

You can stand between them and the systems that were never designed for this kind of loss.

You can say, “I’ve got this. You don’t have to.”

And sometimes, that is love in its purest form.