What No One Tells You
About Losing a Child

My son was killed by gun violence in Dallas. The details of that day — the phone call, the drive, the moment I understood what had happened — are seared into me in a way that time has softened but never erased. And in the weeks and months that followed, I discovered that the grief of losing a child is a category unto itself. It does not follow the rules. It does not respond to the usual comfort. And it does not end.

If you are a mother who has lost a child — to violence, to illness, to accident, to any cause — I want to offer you what I wish I had been given: honesty, companionship, and the assurance that what you are experiencing is real, it is valid, and you are not alone.

The Grief Has No Bottom

Most grief, over time, finds a floor. You reach the deepest point, and then — slowly, unevenly — you begin to climb. The grief of losing a child is different. It has no bottom in the conventional sense. It is not a pit you fall into and eventually climb out of. It is more like a landscape you now live in — one that is sometimes bearable and sometimes not, but that is always present.

This is not a pathology. It is not a sign that you are doing grief wrong. It is the natural consequence of losing someone who was supposed to outlive you. The order of things has been violated. And your heart knows it.

What this means practically is that you may grieve your child for the rest of your life — and that is okay. Grief is not a problem to be solved. It is love with nowhere to go. And the love of a mother for her child does not expire.

People Will Say the Wrong Things

They will mean well. Almost all of them will mean well. And they will still say things that cut you to the bone.

"He's in a better place." "God needed another angel." "At least you have other children." "You have to be strong for your family." "I know how you feel." These phrases — offered with love, offered in helplessness — can feel like erasure. Like your child's specific, irreplaceable life is being reduced to a platitude.

Here is what I want you to know: you are allowed to feel hurt by those words. You are allowed to need more than what people around you know how to give. And you are allowed to seek out community with people who understand this particular grief — because they are living it too.

Organizations like The Compassionate Friends exist specifically for parents who have lost children. Finding your people — the ones who don't need you to explain — is one of the most healing things you can do.

Your Grief Will Have Triggers You Don't Expect

Birthdays. His favorite song on the radio. A young man who walks the way he walked. The smell of his cologne on someone else. A news story about gun violence. A mother laughing with her adult son in a restaurant.

Grief triggers are not signs of weakness or lack of progress. They are evidence of love. They are your nervous system encountering the absence of someone who should be present. And they will come — sometimes years later, in moments you least expect — with the full force of the original loss.

When this happens, I want you to give yourself permission to feel it. Don't rush past it. Don't apologize for it. Let the wave come, and trust that it will pass — because it will. And on the other side of it, you will still be standing.

You Will Carry Him Forward

One of the most important things I've learned in my own grief journey is this: healing does not mean leaving your child behind. It means learning to carry them with you — into the next chapter, into the work you do, into the way you love the people still in your life.

My son's death is the reason I wrote Open Gate. It is the reason I became a grief advocate. It is the reason I show up for other mothers who are in the early, devastating days of this loss. His life — and his death — gave my work a depth and a purpose I could not have found any other way.

I am not saying this to suggest that his death was "worth it" or that suffering has a silver lining. I am saying it because I have found that the most powerful thing a grieving mother can do — when she is ready, on her own timeline — is to let her love for her child become a force in the world. To let his memory mean something. To refuse to let his story end with his death.

Faith in the Valley

For those of us who are women of faith, losing a child can shake the very foundation of what we believe. How do you trust a God who allowed this? How do you pray when you are furious? How do you sit in a church pew and sing about goodness when your child is gone?

I don't have easy answers. I don't think easy answers exist. What I can tell you is that my faith — battered, questioned, sometimes barely a thread — has been the thing that has held me. Not because it gave me explanations, but because it gave me a place to bring my rage and my sorrow and my "why." God can hold your anger. He is not fragile. And He is not absent, even when He feels silent.

The Psalms of lament — Psalm 22, Psalm 88, Lamentations — were written by people who were not okay. Who cried out to God in anguish and did not receive immediate comfort. They are in the Bible because God knows that this is part of the human experience. Your grief is not a spiritual failure. It is a human one. And you are held in it.

Resources for Grieving Mothers

You do not have to navigate this alone. Here are places to begin:

• Natasha's free grief resources — including journaling prompts for grieving mothers, caregiver support tools, and community encouragement.
• Open Gate — Natasha's novel about a Dallas mother navigating grief after her son's death. Written for every woman who has wondered if she could survive her loss.
• The Compassionate Friends — a national organization with local chapters offering support groups for bereaved parents.
• GriefShare — faith-based grief support groups available in communities across the country.