Nothing makes sense, because it isn’t supposed to happen.

Your tears are love with nowhere to go. They are not weakness, and they don’t need to be hidden or stopped. Many parents say the crying came in waves they couldn’t predict: in the shower, in the car, in the cereal aisle.

• Find a place where you can cry freely. The car and the shower are where many of us let go.
• Keep tissues, water and a soft blanket within reach.
• When a wave comes in public, it’s okay to step away. You don’t owe anyone an explanation.

Grief keeps the body on high alert, and nights can be the loneliest time. Some parents can’t sleep at all; others sleep for hours and still wake exhausted. Both are common.

• Rest even if you can’t sleep. Lying still with your eyes closed still helps your body.
• Keep a notebook by the bed. Write down the thoughts that circle, so you can set them down until morning.
• Soft music, an audiobook or a familiar show can keep the silence from feeling so loud.
• If weeks go by with little sleep, please talk with your doctor. Asking for help is not weakness.

Many parents are frightened to find they can’t cry, can’t feel, or are moving through the days like a robot. Numbness is not a sign that you didn’t love your child. It is the mind’s way of protecting you from more than any heart can take in at once. Feeling returns, slowly, when you are able to carry it.

• Don’t judge yourself for what you feel or don’t feel. There is no right way.
• Simple routines, like a shower, a short walk or a cup of tea, can be anchors on the days you feel far away.

Grief is the hardest work there is. Even sitting still, your mind and body are carrying an enormous weight. Exhaustion is not laziness. It is grief.

• Choose one small thing a day, and let that be enough.
• Say yes when someone offers to bring a meal, mow the lawn or pick up groceries.
• Drink water and eat a little, even if nothing tastes like anything.

Why my child? What if I had done something different? How could this happen? Your mind may replay the last days or moments again and again, searching for a different ending.

These questions are part of loving your child. Some may be answered in time. Some never will be, and that is one of the hardest parts of this road. Please be gentle with yourself: hindsight shows you what no one could see at the time. You would have saved your child if you had been given the chance.

• Write your questions down. Sometimes getting them out of your head brings a little quiet.
• Say them out loud to someone who won’t try to fix them. At our meetings, you’ll find parents who have asked the very same things.

Before, you believed that if you loved your child and did your best, they would be okay. That belief has been broken, and with it, your sense that the world is safe and makes sense. You may be afraid for your other children, your partner, yourself. You may jump every time the phone rings.

This fear is a natural response to something that should never have happened. It does soften with time and with support, though the world may never look quite the same.

• Slow, deep breaths, in for four counts and out for six, can calm a racing heart.
• Stay close to the people and places that feel safe for now.
• If panic or fear starts to take over your days, please talk with your doctor or a grief counselor.

There may not be words for this. You may not want to talk at all, only to find something that says what you can’t. That’s why so many of us searched for a poem, a song, or one kind sentence that understood.

• Words of comfort for loss of a child
• Music for grieving hearts
• The Compassionate Friends Credo, read aloud at the close of every meeting

Some parents find it easier to write than to speak: a letter to your child, a journal, a few lines a night.

Many parents fear forgetting their child’s voice, their laugh, the way they smelled. Your love doesn’t fade, and neither does your bond. You will carry your child with you always.

• Write down memories as they come, even small ones: a funny thing they said, a favorite meal.
• Save voicemails and videos in more than one place.
• Say your child’s name. At our meetings, we say our children’s names, and we love to hear yours.