What Bible verse would you choose to share when visiting a family whose child has just died? Perhaps something about God comforting his people? Or something about the hope of the resurrection? (Maybe not.) What about Philippians 4:8? Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is […]
Last night I wiped the tears and kissed the cheeks and hugged the skinny little body of my anxious three-year-old, who as he thinks about our trip to Australia, is constantly checking that Mama AND Dadda AND Elliot will be there too. “Please don’t leave me,” he sobbed. This is […]
Here we are at Easter Sunday. Resurrection Day animates the Christian hope, without which our faith is meaningless. Red Twin loved Easter Sunday. My feelings are complicated. I’m not so numb this year. When I think of the resurrection, there is a stirring in me; a feeling wells up, but […]
When Red Twin died, my world collapsed. It wasn’t that she was my whole world, but that grief was so encompassing, it touched everything in my world. You know how in Inside Out there are the ‘personality islands’, the things that make up who Riley is and energise her personality? […]
Do you know what’s harder than being in the soul crushing fog of grief? Coming out of it. Overall in life, things are starting to normalise a little more. You know that thing where your kid’s been sick and he’s not well enough to go to school yet but he’s […]
You have to treat yourself gently when you’re grieving, which can make it hard to find entertainment. I looked for things that were absorbing (to distract from me from my pain for a little while) but not too dark or complex or highbrow, or that had twins or cancer or […]
Some years ago my friend Emily gave us the book ‘Owl At Home’. It’s an early reader collection of short stories, and it’s become something of a classic in our family. In one of the stories, Owl makes himself ‘tear-water tea’ by thinking of sad things and crying until he […]
