All Episodes

Did you know the first Sunday of May is International Bereaved Mother’s Day? Yes, it is a real thing. A day just for us. Today’s episode talks about this special day. Laura also shares some real and honest thoughts and feelings about the following week, which is Mother’s Day. It is one of the hardest days we have to face each year after child loss, and there is no reason to not admit it or t...

“There is no magical age when the death of our child doesn’t affect us in a very deep and profound way. Whether the child died in the womb or was in their sixties, the wrongness of their death causes trauma, and we are never the same.” (Laura Diehl – When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life With Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child ) We bristle when someone who has never lost a child s...

Those of us who have lost a child have been through a trauma. We are dealing with traumatic grief. Many parents also have PTSD. How do we get through the suffocating darkness and things like night terrors? Some go to their physician who will write them prescriptions for anxiety or to help them sleep. It is very easy to get hooked on these prescriptions, needing higher and higher doses to work. Qui...

When we find ourselves thrown into the dark world of child loss, some of us know we need help right away and find ways to connect with other bereaved parents almost immediately. Some of us take longer to realize how important it is to be around others who “get it”. Other parents who are further along on this unwanted journey can let us know our thoughts and actions are not abnormal for grieving th...

There are times when Laura is sent something written by a pareavor that seems to capture the essence of who we are and how we feel after the death of our child, as well as what it is like to travel on this unwanted journey. On this episode, Laura reads three of these. This Mom’s Grief by Val Breslau It’s Been Two Years by Fran Rhodes One Day by Vickie Hickox Laura also reads something she wrote ba...

Those of us who have lost a child will talk among ourselves about how hurtful it is that our family and friends seem to abandon us after the first few weeks or months. Not only that, but many of these people also seem to expect us to snap out of our grief after a certain amount of time. We all know what helps and what hurts, but do those around us know? How could they, if they have never experienc...

After our child dies, we all seem to struggle with the guilt of why we didn’t do more, or do something differently, that would have prevented their death. How do we get past that? Does that feeling ever go away? In this episode, Laura brings on a guest, Sara Nelson, to discuss this. Sara Faith Nelson taught elementary and middle school grades for 15 years. Now she enjoys pursuing her love of writi...

Laura hears from many pareavors how they struggle with going to church after the death of their child. In today’s episode, she talks about some of the reasons this happens, along with some of her own struggles in this area. She also spends time talking about the difference between going to church as a Sunday morning  institution and being in fellowship as the church outside the four walls of a bui...

One thing Laura hears quite often from parents after child loss is their discouragement of not hearing from God or feeling His presence in their place of deep darkness and grief. She also hears from those who have read her book When Tragedy Strikes who are frustrated because God doesn’t speak to them the way He did to her during the darkest part of her grief after her daughter died. In today’s epi...

For those of us with other children, it is so difficult to watch them grieve the loss of their brother or sister. While we are relieved to be told that there is no right or wrong way to grieve for ourselves, we are often concerned that our children are not dealing with the loss of their brother or sister. Last week I shared why the death of our child affects our other children so deeply, because o...

Siblings play a big role and are meant to be the longest relationship in our lives. When a sibling dies, the ones left behind lose one of the only people who share a complete history with them, who are also supposed to be in most of their future. If they just had the one sibling, they lost the only person who shares the same history and future, having even more layers of grief to work through. As...

After the death of our child, many of us question God in ways we never thought we would, which puts us in a vulnerable place for attacks from the enemy. Satan does not use new tactics. He uses the same ones he used in the garden of Eden on Eve. In this episode, Laura calls attention to those tactics, reminding us how sly and dangerous the enemy can be, shares how to recognize the enemy’s ways of t...

In this episode, Laura brings on a guest to talk about a deeply serious and needed topic after the death of our child. How important is your child to you, and how important is God to you? Often, we don’t realize the love for our child can overshadow our love for God, causing us to get stuck in our suffocating darkness when our child leaves this earth before we do.  Laura and her guest, Shirley Thi...

Many pareavors (bereaved parents) struggle with feeling guilty for laughing or doing special things like taking vacations after the death of their child, believing it isn’t right to enjoy life again. We will always have an undercurrent of sadness and grief that can surface at any time. Sometimes there are known triggers and sometimes it seems to be for no apparent reason. But we can learn to build...

Many pareavors (bereaved parents) struggle with feeling guilty for laughing or doing special things like taking vacations after the death of their child, believing it isn’t right to enjoy life again. In this episode, Laura brings on Lin Findlay to share about her own journey in this area after the death of her daughter, Aubrie, and why Lin now hosts The Grief Cruise for those who have lost loved o...

In today’s episode, Laura is sharing what a gift it is to be with others who have lost a child because they get it. They understand the darkness and the struggles. It took her almost three years after her daughter, Becca, died to meet with a group who had lost a child because Laura didn’t think it would help to be around a bunch of others who were a mess like she was. When she finally made herself...

Without hope, we have no desire to live. It can be easy to feel hopeless when going into a new year without our child. But that does not have to be the case. Join Laura, as shares how we can stir up the seed of hope that may by lying dormant inside us after the death of our child.   Links Mentioned in th is episode: Find out more about GPS Hope get-away weekend retreats . Click here for infor...

Going into a new year without our child can feel horrible, knowing there is nothing we can do to stop it. Join Laura as she shares what that was like for her after the death of her daughter, Becca, along with sharing some words of encouragement for those who are struggling with feeling like they are leaving their child behind as we close out 2021. Laura also prays over the listeners as they begin...

This episode with Anne Moss Rogers is one with a lot of practical advice for those who are struggling deeply in the darkness of grief after child loss. Being a mom who lost her son to suicide, Anne Moss made a conscious decision to figure out how to work through the guilt, shame and horrific darkness to be able to live a life of meaning and purpose again, both to honor her son, Charles, and to hel...

For Beverly Shoemaker, finding meaning and purpose in her life was extremely difficult after her husband ended his own life three years after their son, Nick, died. Her husband’s decision to take his own life left Bev in an even darker place, filled with anger, bitterness, and deep depression. Bev thought she would never ever forgive the drunk driver who killed her son and struggled to forgive her...

Today Laura is joined by Bev Shoemaker, who lost her son, Nick, back in 2004 in a car accident. She was contacted within days by another mom who had lost her own son several years previously. This caring woman shared things with Bev that helped her immensely, in navigating through the darkness after Nick’s death. In this episode, Bev passes along some of the helpful advice that was passed on...

Our grief journey can be compared to taking a road trip – an unplanned road trip – which is what Laura discussed last week with her guest, Jill Theriault. In this week’s episode, Jill shares how the road signs we see while traveling can also guide us on our grief journey. They specifically talk about seven of the eighteen signs Jill has listed out on an available PDF. Jill Theriault’s son, N...

Most road trips are well planned, but occasionally they are not. Some things in life are planned, but losing a child is definitely an unplanned part of our life’s journey. Today’s guest, Jill Theriault, has been on this journey as a bereaved parent for over 20 years after her two-year-old son, Nathan, died from meningitis. In this episode, Jill compares our grief to taking a road trip with three d...

Many of us have been thinking about how to deal with the upcoming holidays, especially Christmas, for weeks or months already, so we might as well talk about it. Advent is a time of waiting, usually known for the four weeks of waiting for Christmas and the celebration of Christ’s birth. We think of Jesus coming as a sweet little baby, but He came as more than that. He came as a Shepherd for his lo...

The holiday season brings many dark and painful emotions to the surface for those of us who have lost a child from this earth. It is a time of year where the pain of who is missing can be so much greater than the joy of who is still here. Many of us don’t even want to acknowledge Thanksgiving (or Christmas), but it is hard to ignore because we are surrounded by reminders everywhere we look. Specif...