Back-to-School season and grief

With August mostly behind us, we now shift into the start of the school year. The back to school season can be especially painful as you watch other kids go off to school or send your grieving child back to school without their sibling or without your partner by your side. It’s also very hard for grieving kids at school.

So many ways people can be missing. So many things your person will miss. So much pain stitched into what looks “ordinary” from the outside. And all of it made even harder by the ongoing pandemic.

Whether you’re looking ahead to fall, or you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, gearing up for summer, every season has its own hidden losses. What effort it takes to just show up. What effort it takes to keep going through the motions of a beautiful day, when your heart is in a million different pieces, and your mind is anywhere but here.

If your summer has been (or might be) a tough one, you aren’t alone. Certainly, no season is free of pain, but summer can feel like such an unfair time – warmth and playfulness, growth and expansion all around, when all you want is for the world to stop turning, to stop its relentless march forward. Fall brings a whole new set of grief, too.

Of course, the impending autumn might bring the tiniest bit of relief into your bones, a slight easing of pain, a shift in the weight you carry. Grief, like love, is so individual, so unique, there is no single story to tell.

If you’re looking for support resources for grieving kids and teens, for kids going back to school while grieving, or as a grieving family, we recommend checking out The Dougy Center and Experience Camps.

How about you? How does the back-to-school season affect you? What does it mean to you this year? Share with us in the comments.