Ethan snuggles under my arm. After breastfeeding for a while, he wriggles into a comfortable position. His little hand starts to grope around in the dark, moving across my face, to my ears, and then settling on my hair. I can feel him playing with my hair, twirling it in my fingers, sometimes pulling it … More Ethan
Sometimes, the grief creeps its way up though my body until it reaches my chest. Suddenly, I feel like a hand wraps around my heart and crushes it with an almighty force. My throat closes and I can’t breathe.
This is what grief looks and feels like for me. … More Stages of Grief
When Isaac was just over four months old, he was baptised in the Catholic Church. I am not religious, but my husband Craig was raised Catholic and it was important to him and his family, so I agreed. Truth be told, despite my initial hesitation, it was a lovely day. We held the ceremony in … More The Speech
On 4 August 2020, I lived through something that defies comprehension – the Beirut explosion, which destroyed most of the city and took with it the life of my two-year-old son, Isaac. I can recall the moment when the scale of what we had lived through, and lost, in the Beirut explosion really started to dawn on … More The Losses That Define Me
Ever since I started writing about my grief for Isaac, the response has been overwhelming. I have been contacted by so many people showing support and sharing their own stories of loss. I also had the honour of being contacted by Melissa Fleming, the head of United Nations global communications. Melissa invited me to be … More Awake at Night
How do you continue to parent your child after they have died? One of the first things I noticed after the death of Isaac was the silence. The past two years had been filled with laughter, music and the occasional tantrum. Then all of a sudden, it was just so quiet… Isaac was an outgoing, … More Once a Mother, Always a Mother
Five months ago, my son died. As I write these words and read them over and over again, they are so incomprehensible that they might as well be in a foreign language. Again and again I read them, unable to grasp that they relate to me, that they form part of my story. These words … More Five Months
415 days. A little over 59 weeks. That is how long, from the day I found out I was pregnant, to the end of last week, that I spent pretty much 24/7 with my newborn son. 415 days. Nine months of carrying him inside of me wherever I went, and five precious, but all too … More The Working Mama
Sarah Yvonne 