21/05/2026
💙🦋
For the Parents Walking This Journey.
I do not care what anybody says,
you do not get over losing a child.
You do not heal and move along,
you learn to live with grief so strong.
You do not move on,
you do not go back,
you do not return
to who you once knew.
That version of you
is gone as well,
it left this world
right along with them too.
You learn to live
a different way,
a life you never asked to feel.
A life shaped by one
unthinkable day,
a life that never
quite feels real.
A life where grief
walks next to you,
in every breath,
in all you do.
A quiet shadow,
a constant ache,
a heart that bends,
then breaks.
Some days you stand,
you make it through.
Other days it swallows
all of you.
It sits so heavy
inside your chest,
as grief has taken
part of your soul to rest.
There is not a day
they are not there.
Not a moment
they are not near.
In every thought,
in every breath,
in love, in silence,
in every tear.
In the memories.
In the space.
In the world
that holds their trace.
In the moments
that should be shared,
in the life
where they’re not there.
Photos can break you
in ways words can’t say,
not because you don’t want to see,
but because the missing
cuts so deep,
it steals your breath away.
But their name…
say their name.
Please never let it fade away.
Because love like this
does not disappear,
it only learns
a different way to stay.
You still cry.
Maybe quietly,
maybe loud.
Maybe alone
in a silent crowd.
Because grief like this
does not have an end,
it lives inside you
again and again.
One memory,
one photo,
one sudden wave
and everything shifts,
everything caves.
You can be ready
to walk out the door,
to try, to smile,
to be like before.
And then it hits,
and then you know,
you cannot stay,
you cannot go.
You don’t want noise.
You don’t want sound.
You don’t want people
all around.
You just want silence.
You just want space.
To sit with grief
and feel their place.
Because in that moment,
nothing else is true,
only the love
still living in you.
People will judge
what they don’t understand,
and they are lucky
they don’t hold this hand.
Because to know this pain,
to carry this weight,
is to live a life
forever changed by fate.
You can run.
You can hide.
You can push it
deep inside.
You can distract.
You can pretend.
But grief like this
does not end.
It stays in your bones.
It stays in your breath.
It walks beside you
in life and in death.
And still they speak,
and still they say,
how you should grieve,
how you should stay.
But they don’t know
this road, this cost,
this love that lives
inside the loss.
So yes, you speak.
Yes, you share.
Because your child
is always there.
Because they matter.
Because they exist.
Because love like this
cannot be dismissed.
And if your pain
becomes a light,
for someone else
lost in the night,
then let it shine,
let it be known,
no parent walks
this path alone.
This is not attention.
This is love.
This is grief
rising above.
This is a parent
learning how
to carry their child
here and now.
You do not get over it.
You do not move on.
You learn to carry
what is gone.
With the ache.
With the tears.
With the love
that outlives years.
And somehow still,
through all the strife,
you carry them
for the rest of your life.
P. Thomas. 🪽
Shared with permission.
Pippa Thomas
Celestara Alchemy
Pippa J. Thomas
