We are broken, battered, and bruised. Just because our wounds aren’t visible doesn’t mean they aren’t real. The scars we carry are etched deep into our souls, leaving marks no one else can see — but that we feel every second of every day. Some of us are quiet warriors, carrying our pain in silence. Others scream their grief from the rooftops, desperate to be heard. We are all different, yet we belong to the same horrific club: the we have a dead child or dead children club — a club no one ever wants to join.

This club does not come with a handbook. There are no rules for how to live after loss. What we are given instead are endless questions, boundless pain, and the crushing realization that the world expects us to keep moving as if nothing has changed. We are bound together by unimaginable tragedy, yet treated as though we are too much. Too broken. Too sad. An uncomfortable truth people would rather not acknowledge.

Instead of presence, we are handed platitudes. Hallmark cards tell us, God only takes the best, or he’s in a better place, as if hollow phrases could stitch shut the gaping hole in our lives. The world is soaked in toxic positivity — urging us to find the silver lining, to be grateful, to move on. It’s forced on us like medicine we didn’t ask for and don’t need. And when we refuse to swallow it, we’re labeled bitter, toxic, or unwell.

It doesn’t matter if it’s been ten days, ten months, or ten years. The expectation is the same: you should be over it by now. As if grief has an expiration date. As if love for a child can ever diminish.

Many of us are abandoned by friends and family who don’t understand our grief — or are frightened by its depth. Some of us are shunned for raging at God, for standing in the dark and screaming into the void, Give me back my child, you cruel, heartless monster. Others are condemned for walking away from faith altogether, unwilling to believe in a God who allowed this to happen. And still, we are warned that if we don’t believe, we’ll never see our children again. A cycle of shame, fear, and coercion that only deepens the wound.

Grief is not linear. It cannot be contained. It does not fit neatly into the boxes society has built for it. Grief is wild and raw and relentless. It dismantles everything we thought we knew about the world — and about ourselves.

We are not only grieving the loss of our children. We are grieving the futures stolen from them. The birthdays that will never come. The first days of school. The graduations, the weddings, the ordinary moments that will never unfold. We grieve the lives we once had. The people we were before everything shattered.

And still — we carry love. An unrelenting, ferocious love that defies time and death. A love that keeps their names alive when the world would rather forget. This love is why we fight. Why we scream. Why we refuse to be quiet, polite, or convenient. Why we keep breathing when we don’t know how.

We are not asking for pity. We don’t need to be fixed, reassured, or made comfortable. What we need is acknowledgment. Presence. The willingness to sit with us in the dark and bear witness. Our grief is not a problem to solve. It is a reality to be honored.

We are the broken-hearted bereaved.

We are the mothers and fathers who have lost the most precious parts of our lives.

We are scarred — but not defeated.

We are grieving — but not weak.

We are angry — and still capable of love.

Our children mattered.

Their lives mattered.

And even in our brokenness, we will carry them with us — forever.