Letter to the Grieving Mom When Everyone Else Has Moved On

May 8

Written By Ashlee Proffitt

Courtney Welch

Dear grieving mom,

This is motherhood.

It’s knowing a depth of love you never thought possible—and it’s so very sacred.

It’s sacred because life is sacred and, in a way, death is sacred too—because it means that there was once a life to love, even if they never breathed outside of your womb.

I know it’s been several weeks, maybe months, now—and the world seems to have continued to turn while your world revolves around your baby and the fact that they are no longer here.

Now that everyone has slowed or stopped calling to check in and ask how you’re doing, there is silence, the loudest silence you’ve ever experienced.

It’s called grief, and you are now face-to-face with it.

And you’re going to kick and you’re going to scream and you’re going to run in the opposite direction.

You’re going to try to do anything to get rid of the pain that accompanies the grief.

You’ll frantically call or text as many people as there are hours in the day as you ache for the words or phrases that might possibly bring some sort of comfort.

You’ll come up with at least a million questions that won’t always have answers—or at least not the answers you want to hear.

You’ll find things to distract you—work outs, home projects, giant to-do lists.

You’ll try to get pregnant again because maybe another baby, if even only on the inside to start, might fill the void.

You’ll beg God to please just make it stop hurting so much.

Because it does just hurt so much.

I distinctly remember when I begged God to take away the pain. I was already on my knees as I picked up my son’s toys for the night. I remember just stopping, crouching over with a toy truck in hand, tears rolling down my face, and verbally pleading with God to just take away the pain.

I sat and I waited, breath bated.

“But that would mean that she was never here.”

And it was in that moment that I reconciled that I would take the pain one trillion times over her never having existed.

That’s when I started to try to get comfortable with grief and the pain that it ushered in—because, in the end, it was simply a mirror of my love for my sweet daughter, Mayla Grace.

This was a depth of love I had never known—even after marrying the man I love so deeply and giving life to our gorgeous son.

The depth of this love was found in the incomprehensible fact that it was for someone I had never even truly known—only within my womb and for a handful of hours on the outside as she lay there, lifeless. I never even saw her eyes.

Yet, I had loved her more than anything in my life.

How is that possible?

Because this is motherhood.

It’s knowing a depth of love you never thought possible—and it’s so very sacred.

So very sacred that maybe, just maybe, the grief and the pain become bearable with time.

Love, a mom who understands

Perfect love casts out fear.

1 John 4:18

Meet the Author: Courtney Welch

Courtney is a wife and a mother of two—one on earth and one in heaven who loves Jesus, chocolate, and writing. Her greatest passion is to be still before the Lord and to submit to the prompting of the Holy Spirit as it leads her to point people to Jesus.

Connect with Author via Instagram: @courtney_jo5