No One Knows What Someone Else Is Going Through...
Tell Nell What's Up, Canby Chronicle
There is a term for a wife who lost her spouse: a widow. There is a word for a child who lost their parents: an orphan. But there is no word in the English dictionary for a parent who has lost a child.
I know this loss personally. My son Joshua died of SIDS at 2 months old. And I am far from the only parent in Canby who carries the name of a child who is no longer here. Micah’s name lives on each spring through an Easter egg hunt his mother organizes in his honor. Pamela was only 15 when domestic violence took her life at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, mere days before Christmas 2025.
But losing a child isn’t the only grief we don’t know how to talk about and grief isn’t exclusively about death. Someone is grieving the loss of a job. Someone’s parent has dementia, and they’re grieving a person who is physically still here but no longer the parent they once knew. Someone lost a pregnancy, a child no one got to meet. Someone is mourning a marriage, a friendship, their health, their independence, a child leaving home, a relationship with a living child, or simply the future they thought they were going to have.
Profound loss changes us. So many of us now have a "before" and an "after." Society often talks about grief as though the goal is to eventually return to who we were before, but sometimes there is no going back. The person on the other side of significant loss may simply be different. Grief becomes something we learn to carry rather than something we leave behind.
We are often so afraid of saying the wrong thing that we say nothing at all. There can be a fear that mentioning someone who died will remind us they’re gone. I promise you, we haven’t forgotten. For many of us, hearing their name is a gift. We want the opportunity to talk about the people we’ve lost and to know that someone else remembers them, too.
In the beginning, people show up. There are meals, flowers, phone calls, and messages. Eventually, everyone understandably returns to their own lives. But grief doesn’t follow the same schedule. There isn’t always a funeral for the things we grieve for.
We don’t have to understand someone’s grief to acknowledge it. We don’t need the perfect words. Sometimes, “I’ve been thinking about you” is enough. Sometimes it’s asking about the person they miss. Sometimes it’s remembering an anniversary everyone else has forgotten. Sometimes a simple text asking, “Hey, how are you doing?” is all it takes.
No one really knows what someone else is carrying unless we ask. So, might I encourage you this week to check in with someone? No one is “fine” all the time. They may not feel comfortable sharing in the grocery store aisle, or they may be worried that what they’re going through is simply too much for someone else to hear.
Canby, can we make someone else feel a little less lonely today? We are all walking around carrying something heavy, but we were never meant to carry it alone. We need community, and our community is one of the best!
If there’s something you'd like to talk about or want to tell the community of Canby, I’m here for you. Please remember - you are not alone.
tellnellwhatsup@gmail.com
