Grace & Angus – The Ordinary Moments

What looks small from the outside isn’t small to a bereaved parent.

There are the big milestones, the birthdays, the anniversaries, the death dates. The dates we know will come around. The ones we prepare ourselves for, even though we can never really prepare for them.

But then there are the small ones.

The ones nobody else sees.

The ones that don’t make it onto a calendar.

The ones that might seem like nothing to someone else, but can completely break you.

A car journey.

A birthday invitation.

A baby turning another month older.

Seeing the next size of clothes in a shop.

A child starting school.

A date passing on the calendar.

Someone asking how many children you have.

Or simply realising you’ve gone an hour without thinking about them.

Sometimes it’s the first time something happens.

The first time you see a child who is now older than your child ever got to be.

The first time you buy the next size of clothes, knowing they won’t be for your little one.

The first time you tell someone new about your child and realise you can say the words without crying, even though those few sentences contain a whole world of pain.

These are milestones too.

They just aren’t the milestones we ever wanted to have.

And sometimes there isn’t a reason at all.

Nothing has happened.

There isn’t an anniversary.

There isn’t a birthday.

There isn’t a date you have been dreading.

You just wake up and the grief is there.

Because grief doesn’t always arrive because something happened.

Sometimes grief is simply there.

And I think that’s something people don’t always understand about being a bereaved parent.

We don’t only grieve on the big days.

We grieve in the ordinary moments.

In the things that seem so small to everyone else.

Because after losing your child, nothing is really just a small moment anymore.

A moment can hold a memory.

A memory can hold a lifetime.

And something that takes seconds for everyone else can take everything out of you.

So, when a bereaved parent tells you that something small has been difficult, please believe them.

You might not see the significance of that moment.

But they do.

Because they know exactly who should have been there.

To every bereaved parent. If it feels big to you, it is big. You don’t have to justify your grief. You don’t have to explain the small things. We know. We see you. We carry our children with us through everyone.

With Love,

Grace, Angus’ mummy