Parenting while grieving

This week, a dear friend of mine died suddenly.
And even as I am stopped in my tracks by the shock, the world keeps asking things of me.

There are children to parent. Plans to make. A festive season approaching that seems to demand organisation, cheer and energy that I simply do not have.

Grief does not arrive politely. It does not wait for a clear diary or a better time of year. And when we are parents, we can rarely give our grief our full attention. We have to grieve in snatches. In the car. In the shower. In the moments between one task and the next. In the quiet time before sleep, or in the middle of the night when sleep won’t come.

And yet grieving matters. Deeply. Not because it will make the pain go away. It won’t.
But because ungrieved grief has a way of hardening, or leaking out sideways, or lodging itself somewhere it does not belong.

So, I want to talk about parenting and grieving. About how we carry loss while still showing up. About letting our children see our sadness, while making sure they do not feel responsible for it. And about supporting their grief too, without freezing our own.

Parenting through loss

Many years ago, my husband and I lost our baby son. And at the same time, we were parenting three living children.

It was the most disorientating time of my life. Our son died, and I wanted to die too. And yet I still needed to be a parent. I did not know how to do any of it. The parenting. The grieving. Or the keeping on living.

I remember setting myself an intention: to grieve healthily.

I had no idea what that meant. I did not know what it would look like or how to do it. I just knew it mattered. Not only for me, but for our children, and for our marriage. In practice, it meant doing things slowly. Cancelling a lot. Messing up. Parenting imperfectly. And sometimes quite strangely.

I helped each of our children to make a memory book. Over days and weeks, we gathered photos, drawings and words. It gave them a place to put their love, their thoughts, their questions. Something tangible to hold when we’d lost so much and everything felt so unreal.

I made one too. Hours spent with images and scraps of writing spread across the ironing board, trying to make sense of having so few memories. There is a name for a woman whose husband has died. Widow. For a child whose parents have died. Orphan. There is no word for a parent whose child has died. I felt lost.

Every evening, I spent time individually with each child, massaging them gently before bed. Not in a therapeutic way. Just to be close. To be connected. Without needing words. Touch held what language could not.

One of our children found it especially hard to express his grief. He did not want to talk to us about it. So instead of forcing conversations, we invited another trusted adult in. A friend who could walk alongside him. Literally. They went into the woods together. They walked and talked. About seemingly ordinary things, which were of course connected to much deeper feelings. Out of that time, they created something together. An archway made from hazel branches which we used as part of our memorial ceremony, to tie little wooden hearts to, an opportunity for every person there to remember and name all the children who have died. And there were so many…

I also bought children’s books about death. Honest ones. Stories that made room for questions and confusion. Stories that could start conversations when we did not know how to. That list is here, on the Rites for Girls website.

What grief really does over time

What I learned back then is that grief takes time. But not in the way people often mean when they try to make you feel better by saying, “Time heals everything.”

The feelings do not go away. Not really. Not ever. The sadness. The anger. The despair. The fear for our other children. The sweet, piercing memories. What changes is our capacity to live with the feelings. Over time, the feelings become easier to carry. Not lighter. Just more familiar. Less frightening.

Part of grieving healthily also meant allowing myself to be a bit weird. Not long after our son’s death, we had tickets to a show in London. It felt impossible to go until I wrapped myself in the blanket I had last held our baby boy in. I did not explain myself. I did not justify it. I just did what my body needed.

The New Year was especially hard. Leaving the year in which our son had been alive felt unbearable. Birthdays and anniversaries were difficult too. Often the feelings arrived before the date itself, catching me unprepared. Over time, I learned to anticipate that, to make space in advance, to be gentler with myself in the lead-up.

Friends were essential. Absolutely essential. People who could parent when I could not. Like the friend who organised our eldest son’s birthday party just weeks after our baby died. Or those who simply turned up with supper. No fixing. No talking. Just food and presence.

Grieving again, years later

Sixteen years later, here I am again, grieving.

My children are grown now. They are around me in a different way. Tenderly aware of the shock I am in. Not afraid to hug me. And then, beautifully, to suggest we play a board game.

They can see my sadness. And they can bear it. They do not feel responsible for it.

I am thinking about my friend constantly. Then worrying that I am not thinking about her enough. Feeling unsure how to be. I crashed the car this week. My family have banned me from driving for a while. I have booked flights to go to the funeral. I cannot think clearly about how to contribute to the ceremony, even though this is work I know well.

Grief does that. It humbles us. It strips away our competence.

I notice I expect too much from my husband when I’m grieving. Wanting him to understand completely. To hold me. Even when he is stressed and stretched himself. I really want to appreciate the living ones around me, while being enwrapped in grief for the one I have lost.

When someone dies, we often only then realise how much we loved them. And exactly what we loved them for.

I know this place. I have been here before. And still, I feel cut adrift.

And still, I parent.

What I want parents to know

If you are parenting while grieving, I want you to hear this:

It is okay to grieve in snatches. It is okay that your grief does not look neat or consistent. It is okay to laugh one moment and cry the next.

It is important that our children see our sadness. It teaches them that feelings are survivable. That love and loss are connected. But they also need to know that our grief is not theirs to carry.

You can support your children’s grief without freezing your own. By staying curious. By offering both words and silence. By making space for their way of grieving, which may look very different to yours.

And if all you can do today is keep things simple, that is enough.

Grief changes us. It stretches us. And over time, it deepens our capacity to love, even when that feels impossible to imagine.

If you are in it right now, be gentle. Ask for help. Let yourself be held when you can.

This is not something to rush or get through. It is something we learn how to live with.

You cannot get this wrong.

You are doing something profoundly human.

Take care as best you can.