Setting holiday boundaries after child loss can feel uncomfortable, especially when people are making plans and expecting us to do what we’ve always done. Someone asks what we’re bringing for Thanksgiving or when we’re getting together for Christmas, and we don’t even know what to tell them. We may barely know how we feel about getting through today.
Even the things we used to look forward to can hurt now. For me, Thanksgiving brought the memory of how the year before, Becca had insisted on hosting the family, even though she was wheelchair bound. Then came Christmas, Becca’s favorite holiday, and then the pain of the first time she was not there to celebrate her birthday.
There’s a memory attached to just about everything, isn’t there? And this can happen years later. Getting through Christmas last year doesn’t mean we won’t struggle with it this year.
Being Honest About What You Can Carry
Grief can leave us with far less emotional and physical energy than we had before. Things we once handled easily may now feel draining, overwhelming or simply too heavy to carry. This can be surprising to the people around us. Sometimes, it surprises us too.
For some of us, even the word boundary can sound harsh. It can sound like putting up a wall or shutting people out. But setting holiday boundaries after child loss may simply mean being honest about what we can and cannot carry.
You might need to say, “I love you, and I want to see you. I just can’t have everyone at my house this year.” That may feel uncomfortable, especially if you’re used to being the one who says yes. It’s okay to need something different now.
Sometimes we keep explaining, hoping they’ll finally say, “Oh, now I understand.” But they may not understand. We are still allowed to be honest about our limits. (If this is something you can relate to, you may want to check out the new 2nd edition of Come Grieve Through Our Eyes.)
Giving Yourself Room to Change Plans
We don’t always know ahead of time what we will be able to handle. We may accept an invitation genuinely believing we can go, only to discover when the day arrives that we can’t. We may arrive feeling okay and suddenly realize we need to leave.
Part of setting holiday boundaries after child loss is leaving room for that. It can help to say ahead of time, “I really do want to come. I just need you to know I might not be able to when that day gets here.”
If you go, give yourself a way to leave. Drive separately if you can or go with someone who will understand when you say, “I need to go.” Someone who will get their coat instead of trying to talk you into staying another hour.
That can be hard to explain, can’t it? “Please invite me, even though I might not come.” But those of us who have lost a child understand. We still want to know we’re part of the family, part of the friendship.
Letting Holiday Traditions Look Different
Maybe this is the year someone else makes the meal. Maybe you buy the pie. Maybe the decorations stay in the boxes, or you put out just a few things you want around you. You don’t have to turn your house into Christmas just because you always have.
And if putting up the tree feels comforting, put up the tree. We don’t all need the same thing. Even in our own homes, something that helps one person may be really hard for someone else.
This includes church services and activities, too. You can love the Lord and still find sitting through a particular service more than you can handle. If you want to go, perhaps ask someone to sit with you who won’t be uncomfortable if you cry or need to slip out.
Setting holiday boundaries after child loss might mean a few people instead of the whole crowd, or a couple of hours instead of the entire day. Please remember that you are deciding what to do this year. You don’t have to decide right now what Christmas will look like for the rest of your life.
Making Room for Your Child’s Memory
Sometimes what we’re dreading is being with everyone and wondering if anybody will say our child’s name. Are we all going to sit there and act like someone isn’t missing? People are often trying to keep from making us cry, but we’re already thinking about our child. Hearing their name can be such a gift.
If you’d like your child included, it’s okay to ask. You could set out a photo with a book where people can write a memory or ask someone to mention your child when they pray before the meal. You might say, “Would you do that for me? I’m not sure I’ll be able to say it myself.”
Please don’t hear those ideas as something else you should be doing. Maybe this year you just need to get through the day. You don’t have to do something public with your love for your child. God sees it. You know it’s there.
Giving Yourself Grace Through the Holidays
As pareavors, we may worry that saying no makes us selfish, rude or unreliable. We may say yes when everything inside us is saying no because we don’t want to disappoint someone. But there is a difference between gently stretching ourselves as we heal and continually forcing ourselves into situations that leave us depleted or wounded. Learning that difference takes time.
As you consider setting holiday boundaries after child loss, maybe there’s something you already know you need to do differently. Would you talk to the Lord about that instead of automatically telling yourself you have to do it? Maybe there’s a conversation you need to have with someone who loves you. You can start there.
I know none of these things can give us what we really want, which is to have our child here with us. I wish we could have that. But as we face these holidays with them missing, we can give ourselves some grace, let people know what we need, and ask the Lord to help us through the parts we don’t know how we’re going to get through. You don’t have to figure out the whole season today.
For more personal encouragement and practical ideas, join me for episode 374. Click here of the Grieving Parents Sharing Hope podcast, “Setting Holiday Boundaries After Child Loss.” We spend more time talking about these decisions, including when the people we love need something different than we do.
Come Grieve Through Our Eyes: How to Support a Bereaved Parent After Child Loss.
Reflections of Hope: Daily Readings for Bereaved Parents
Hope for the Future: An Advent Journey for Bereaved Parents
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Download our FREE GUIDE. Rebuilding Your Life: A Gentle Guide Toward Hope and Healing After Child Loss. Discover gentle encouragement for your broken heart, practical support for the days ahead, and hope that meets you right where you are.
AWARD WINNING AUTHOR, LAURA DIEHL, has written several impactful books that provide comfort and guidance to those navigating the painful journey of child loss, after the death of her own daughter in 2011. Her most acclaimed work, When Tragedy Strikes: Rebuilding Your Life with Hope and Healing After the Death of Your Child, has received multiple accolades, including the 2017 Gold Medal Centauri Christian Book Award for Non-Fiction and a Silver Medal in the 2018 Illumination Awards. Several of her other books have won awards as well.
In addition to her writing, Laura is an ordained minister and has an extensive background in international children’s ministry. She is a sought-after speaker and singer at grief conferences and churches, known for her compassionate approach and deep understanding of the grieving process, especially the unique loss of a child. Through her weekly award-winning podcast, her writings, and other resources provided by GPS Hope, Laura and her husband, Dave, continue to provide hope and healing to thousands of parents worldwide, helping them find light in the midst of profound loss and darkness.
For more information about Laura’s award-winning books go to gpshope.org/books.
To find out more about Laura Diehl and the ministry of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) visit gpshope.org.
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Anger is something many of us struggle with after child loss, and anger can easily lead to bitterness. Finding our way from bitterness to hope after child loss can feel impossible when we cannot reconcile the God we love with the pain we are living through. There is someone in the Bible who knew that struggle. Naomi lost her husband and both of her sons, and she was honest about how bitter her life had become.
When Naomi heard the famine had ended, she decided to return home. She urged her daughters-in-law to stay in Moab with their own families. Orpah reluctantly said goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. “Where you go, I will go. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God.”
Ruth didn’t fix Naomi’s grief. She simply refused to leave her alone in it. She stayed, walked beside her, and worked so Naomi could eat. Ruth had lost her husband, too, yet she loved Naomi enough to leave everything familiar and go with her.
Eventually, Ruth married Boaz and had a son, Obed, who became the grandfather of King David. Naomi’s story was woven into God’s unfolding plan, even though she could not have seen that when she returned to Bethlehem feeling empty.
When God’s love feels distant after child loss, it can be difficult to understand how He could love us and still allow our child to die. We may have prayed for protection or healing, believing He would intervene, and now we are left trying to make sense of a life that we never wanted.
The poem ends by saying God gives “the very best” to those who leave the choice to Him. I am going to be honest with you. When I first started sharing this poem at various places where I spoke, I left out those lines because I knew how painful they could sound to a grieving parent.
I recently heard a statement that made me stop and think: “In the absence of clarity, there is an invitation for intimacy with Him.”
We read Naomi’s story knowing what eventually happened, but she did not know the ending. She was a bereaved mother trying to live after the deaths of both of her children, and from where she stood, her life looked empty. Yet Ruth was beside her, loving her and refusing to leave her. Even while Naomi was expressing how abandoned she felt, there was care present that she could not yet fully recognize.
When our child has died, it can be hard to imagine that life could ever hold anything good again. We may wonder how we could possibly want to live fully while someone we love so deeply is missing from our lives. But I have learned that missing Becca and finding moments of joy can exist in the same heart, even though I could not always see how that would be possible.
As a 
Markie and her husband, Carlos, had already been through a lot before the fire. Carlos had nearly died from COVID, his mother had passed away, and a few months later, Markie’s father died as well. Their marriage had been struggling, but they were working things out and coming back together.
Something Markie said something during our conversation that I thought was pretty amazing, and I greatly appreciate it. She and Carlos have a hard time when people put them on a pedestal and say they cannot imagine how they are making it. As pareavors, we hear that from others, but Markie hears it from bereaved parents, too.
One of the hardest things for Markie and Carlos is thinking about how their children left this world. I know that is true for many parents. Sometimes, it is not only their absence that torments us, but remembering or imagining what they experienced before they died.
Markie relates deeply to Job, who also lost all of his children. But she talked about things she has that Job did not have in the same way. She has the example of Jesus, the Scriptures readily available to her, and the Holy Spirit living within her. She also still has her health, and she and Carlos are closer than ever.
If someone you care about has lost a child, you may want to be there for them but feel unsure about what to say or do. Perhaps you have checked in, brought meals or offered to listen, yet as time passes, you find yourself wondering what they need now. Learning how to support a bereaved parent after child loss begins with understanding more of what they are carrying.
Most people have never been taught how to walk beside someone whose child has died. They may know to bring a meal, send a card, offer condolences, and attend the funeral. Those things matter. But what happens when our need for support continues and they aren’t sure what to do anymore?
When our child dies, we lose so much more than our son or daughter. We lose the future we thought we would have, holidays as they once were, family traditions, ordinary conversations, expected phone calls and milestones we thought we would celebrate together.
There is a difference between holding hope for someone and trying to hurry them into feeling hopeful. None of us wake up one morning and decide we are finished grieving. We cannot choose when the fog begins to lift or force ourselves to be ready before we are ready.
Learning how to support a bereaved parent after child loss takes a willingness to keep listening and learning. You may not understand every part of their pain, but you can become someone they trust to care about their grief as it continues to surface in different ways over the years.
Does healing mean letting go of your child? For many of us, healing after child loss can feel frightening because we wonder what it will mean for the love and connection we still carry. Sometimes that question comes when we have laughed and then felt guilty afterward. Sometimes, it comes when we realize we enjoyed a family gathering, even though our child wasn’t there.
People mean different things when they talk about “letting go.” There may be things we eventually need help releasing, such as the belief that we should have been able to prevent our child’s death or the guilt we feel when we have a good day. But our child is not something we need to release.
We may be sitting with family, laughing together, and suddenly realize that we have been happy for a little while. For some of us, that realization brings guilt. How could I be happy when my child isn’t here? If I can enjoy this, am I leaving them behind?
Healing after child loss does not require the empty place where our child should be to disappear. I do not expect Becca’s place in my heart or in our family to disappear. I would not want it to.
The thoughts shared here come from two chapters in the newly released (on October 12, 2026) second edition of 
