Before you read…
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I was lucky enough to sit alongside other bereaved parents to watch Jon Bregel’s documentary A Sacred Pause. I never thought I would use the word lucky in the same sentence as being the mother of a dead child, but this is what I am. There is no escaping that. So yes, lucky because of the people grief has brought into my life, lucky because of the ones who have held me up when I could not stand. Even lucky for the ones who left. The ones who judged. The ones who consumed my pain in a voyeuristic way and then quietly stepped away because it was too uncomfortable to stay. In leaving, you made space. You revealed who you were, and in doing so, you revealed who I am. You showed me a strength I did not know I had. You forced me to see clearly.
And what I found were the truest of the true people. The ones who did not flinch. The ones who stayed when it was ugly, raw, and inconvenient. The ones who did not need my grief to be smaller to love me. Losing my child stripped everything down to its bones, and the ones who remained are solid gold. Most especially, I am lucky because of the woman who saved my soul and taught me what it truly means to inhabit my grief rather than run from it. Because of her, Ronan will never be fully taken from me. My grief is not the opposite of my love. It is my love. It is the proof of it.
That woman is Joanne Cacciatore. This film exists because of her and the extraordinary work I have witnessed with my own eyes since 2011, after Ronan died. Last night I sat among other grieving hearts and watched an incredible portrait of what it looks like to try to find meaning after catastrophic loss. I sobbed. I gasped for air. I held the hand next to mine. I shared Kleenex. I listened to the sobs of others around me. There was not a dry eye in the theater. I ached for everyone in that room. I felt my son. I felt all the other souls who left this world far too soon. Even though these stories already live in my bones, I still felt changed by what I watched, which tells you how extraordinary this film truly is.
To say I am proud of Dr. Jo is an understatement. The first time I met her, I was wailing on the floor of a tiny office tucked beside a freeway. I was shattered and feral in my grief and did not know how to survive what had just happened to my child. She sat with me in it. She did not try to fix it or silence it. She taught me how to stay. And now look at what she has created. Selah Care Farm is not just land, and it is not just a program. It is sacred ground for parents like me who have to exist in a world without their children. It is a place where grief is not rushed or minimized, where you can walk outside and scream into the wind or sit quietly under a tree and say your child’s name out loud, where animals graze, and the landscape holds your pain without asking you to tidy it up. It was built from the truth that grief does not follow a timeline, that no parent should be expected to reenter a world that keeps spinning as if nothing happened, and that love does not end just because a heartbeat does. And that sometimes animals know how to hold our pain better than most humans ever could. It was built for the people who are still shattered long after everyone else has resumed their lives, for the ones who cannot pretend to be fine, for the ones whose love did not die.
To watch her build this from that tiny office into a movement that is changing how we care for the bereaved is breathtaking. She has taken the most unthinkable pain and carved out a sanctuary for others to land. I hope this film reaches the masses and creates a movement that keeps people like me safe as we move through this world without our children, safe to love, safe to speak their names, safe to exist exactly as we are. I hope it softens people. I hope it teaches them to replace judgment and empty platitudes with real compassion. Jon owns my heart for the way he captured all of this. I truly do not think this film could have been made any better. To tell a story like this in thirty minutes and have it land with such depth, tenderness, and impact is extraordinary.
To everyone who poured their heart into this film, thank you. To those who donated and believed in it enough to help bring it into the world, thank you for making this sacred work possible. To my Dr. Jo, my words will never be enough. You met me at the lowest point of my life and did not look away. You did not try to fix what could not be fixed. You taught me how to survive the unsurvivable, how to sit inside my grief without abandoning myself. What you have built is changing lives, including mine.
What you have created is the closest I have ever come to believing that something sacred can still exist in a world that took my child. Thank you from my forever-broken, aching heart. I love you.
The film will be available to stream in the coming months, and I will share the links when it is.
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