Our Keepsake Journal is Here! 🎉

An empty chair.

One fewer place to set.

One fewer present to buy.

No matter how many years have passed, the holidays are a painful reminder you aren’t here. 

All at once the memories come flooding back.

Your infectious laugh and the way your smile lit up any room you entered.

How you could never seem to run out of hugs or candy.

The way you would cock your head to the side and ask with a smile, “What’s happening in your little world?”

Memories weave a bittersweet path down memory lane. It feels like yesterday and so long ago at the same time. Although we miss you every day, your loss is amplified each time our family gets together. My eyes keep searching for you. I keep expecting you to walk through the door any moment.

My heart aches to hug you once more.

I wish I could go back to the days when you were still here, and we were all together.

I wish I could still hold you and tell you how much I love you. 

I wish you could watch my children grow up.

I wish I could ask you for advice.

I wish I could hear your voice.

There are so many things I want to ask you: How are the holidays in heaven? What was your first Christmas there like?

We do our best to honor you by doing the things you loved in life. It’s in those times your presence is felt the most.

I feel you by my side as my hands carefully decorate the tree with the ornaments you made and looking over my shoulder as we make your favorite recipes. I see you in the eyes of my children when I tell them stories about you and share memories of Christmas growing up.

RELATED: Even Though You’re In Heaven, Your Grandchildren Will Know You

Missing you never gets easier. Sometimes the grief is slow-burning; other times it’s an all-consuming fire. The pain of your loss is always there. But in those times, I try to remember how you would say, “Life is full of peaks and valleys,” and, “We only part to meet again.”

Grief is a delicate dance of learning to let go of the pain of losing you while holding onto the joy you brought into our lives.

The holidays aren’t the same without you. But nothing ever stays the same. We must carry on in faith and know the overwhelming grief we carry is a sign of the unspeakable love in our hearts. While memories may fade over time, my love for you never will.

Until the day when I can wrap my arms around you once more, part of me will be missing. No matter how long you have been gone, you are forever a part of me, and those treasured times we shared will always be the best part of coming home for the holidays.

Grief is messy and can feel so lonely. It’s OK That You’re Not OK is a great read for anyone who is grieving or supporting a loved one through grief. Don’t have time to read? You can listen here, on Audible.

Recommendations in this post contain affiliate links. Her View From Home may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase.

So God Made a Mother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Order Now

Check out our new Keepsake Companion Journal that pairs with our So God Made a Mother book!

Order Now
So God Made a Mother's Story Keepsake Journal

Melanie Mogensen

Melanie Mogensen is a writer, wife, and mother of three who knows all too well how life can change in an instant. From becoming a young mom in her early 20s to managing twins and battling cancer, she is no stranger to adversity and God’s grace. Two years ago, in the middle of her own struggle with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, she began sharing her story to help cope and let others know that even the most difficult times there is always hope and something to be grateful for. Check out more on her blog hopefulwarrior.com or follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

We’re Walking the Road of Twin Loss Together

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood
Mother and son walk along beach holding hands

He climbed into our bed last week, holding the teddy bear that came home in his twin brother’s hospital grief box almost 10 years earlier. “Mom, I really miss my brother. And do you see that picture of me over there with you, me and his picture in your belly? It makes me really, really sad when I look at it.” A week later, he was having a bad day and said, “I wish I could trade places with my brother.” No, he’s not disturbed or mentally ill. He’s a happy-go-lucky little boy who is grieving the brother who grew...

Keep Reading

Until I See You in Heaven, I’ll Cherish Precious Memories of You

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood
Toddler girl with bald head, color photo

Your memory floats through my mind so often that I’m often seeing two moments at once. I see the one that happened in the past, and I see the one I now live each day. These two often compete in my mind for importance. I can see you in the play of all young children. Listening to their fun, I hear your laughter clearly though others around me do not. A smile might cross my face at the funny thing you said once upon a time that is just a memory now prompted by someone else’s young child. The world...

Keep Reading

The Day My Mother Died I Thought My Faith Did Too

In: Faith, Grief, Loss
Holding older woman's hand

She left this world with an endless faith while mine became broken and shattered. She taught me to believe in God’s love and his faithfulness. But in losing her, I couldn’t feel it so I believed it to be nonexistent. I felt alone in ways like I’d never known before. I felt helpless and hopeless. I felt like He had abandoned my mother and betrayed me by taking her too soon. He didn’t feel near the brokenhearted. He felt invisible and unreal. The day my mother died I felt alone and faithless while still clinging to her belief of heaven....

Keep Reading

To the Healthcare Workers Who Held My Broken Heart

In: Grief, Loss
Baby hat with hospital certificate announcing stillbirth, color photo

We all have hard days at work. Those days that push our physical, mental, and emotional limits out of bounds and don’t play fair. 18 years ago, I walked into an OB/GYN emergency room feeling like something was off, just weeks away from greeting our first child. As I reflect on that day, which seems like a lifetime ago and also just yesterday, I find myself holding space for the way my journey catalyzed a series of impossibly hard days at work for some of the people who have some of the most important jobs in the world. RELATED: To...

Keep Reading

Can I Still Trust Jesus after Losing My Child?

In: Faith, Grief, Loss
Sad woman with hands on face

Everyone knows there is a time to be born and a time to die. We expect both of those unavoidable events in our lives, but we don’t expect them to come just 1342 days apart. For my baby daughter, cancer decided that the number of her days would be so many fewer than the hopeful expectation my heart held as her mama. I had dreams that began the moment the two pink lines faintly appeared on the early morning pregnancy test. I had hopes that grew with every sneak peek provided during my many routine ultrasounds. I had formed a...

Keep Reading

I Loved You to the End

In: Grief, Living
Dog on outdoor chair, color photo

As your time on this earth came close to the end, I pondered if I had given you the best life. I pondered if more treatment would be beneficial or harmful. I pondered if you knew how much you were loved and cherished As the day to say goodbye grew closer, I thought about all the good times we had. I remembered how much you loved to travel. I remembered how many times you were there for me in my times of darkness. You would just lay right next to me on the days I could not get out of...

Keep Reading

I Hate What the Drugs Have Done but I Love You

In: Grief, Living
Black and white image of woman sitting on floor looking away with arms covering her face

Sister, we haven’t talked in a while. We both know the reason why. Yet again, you had a choice between your family and drugs, and you chose the latter. I want you to know I still don’t hate you. What I do hate is the drugs you always seem to go back to once things get too hard for you. RELATED: Love the Addict So Hard it Hurts Speaking of hard, I won’t sugarcoat the fact that being around you when you’re actively using is so hard. Your anger, your manipulation, and your deceit are too much for me (or anyone around you) to...

Keep Reading

Giving Voice to the Babies We Bury

In: Grief, Loss
Woman looking up to the sky, silhouette at sunset

In the 1940s, between my grandmother’s fourth child and my father, she experienced the premature birth of a baby. Family history doesn’t say how far along she was, just that my grandfather buried the baby in the basement of the house I would later grow up in. This was never something I heard my grandmother talk about, and it was a shock to most of us when we read her history. However, I think it’s indicative of what women for generations have done. We have buried our grief and not talked about the losses we have experienced in losing children through...

Keep Reading

A Friend Gone Too Soon Leaves a Hole in Your Heart

In: Friendship, Grief, Loss
Two women hugging, color older photo

The last living memory I have of my best friend before she died was centered around a Scrabble board. One letter at a time, we searched for those seven letters that would bring us victory. Placing our last words to each other, tallying up points we didn’t know the meaning of at the time. Sharing laughter we didn’t know we’d never share again. Back in those days, we didn’t have Instagram or Facebook or Snapchat or whatever other things teenagers sneak onto their phones to capture the moments. So the memory is a bit hazy. Not because it was way...

Keep Reading

I Asked the Questions and Mother Had the Answers. Now What?

In: Grief, Living, Loss
Older woman smiling at wedding table, black-and-white photo

No one is really ever prepared for loss. Moreover, there is no tutorial on all that comes with it. Whether you’ve lost an earring, a job, a relationship, your mind, or a relative, there is one common truth to loss. Whatever you may have lost . . . is gone. While I was pregnant with my oldest son, my mother would rub my belly with her trembling hands and answer all my questions. She had all the answers, and I listened to every single one of them. This deviated from the norm in our relationship. My mother was a stern...

Keep Reading