10 Years after Child Loss & 10 Lessons Learned

If you’ve ever wondered whether grief changes over time, this is the blog for you. Ten years after losing my daughter, I can tell you that grief doesn’t disappear, but it does change. The pain softens and the waves come less often.

Whether you’re in the early days of child loss or years down the road, these ten lessons come from my own decade of learning, feeling, and slowly finding my way back to life again.

1. Grief & Child Loss Is Hard No Matter What — But Harder When You Stay Stuck in the Pain

Grief is brutally hard, but I’ve learned it becomes heavier when you stay connected only to the pain. In the beginning, I lived inside the ache; replaying memories, drowning in guilt, and questioning every decision. Eventually, I realized that staying tied to the pain kept me from feeling my child’s love.

Healing happens when we start connecting through love, not suffering. That shift — from heartbreak to heart connection — changes everything.

2. Time Doesn’t Heal — It Reshapes

You’ve probably heard that “time heals all wounds.” But when you’ve lost a child, that simply isn’t true. Time doesn’t heal; it reshapes. The pain doesn’t vanish; it evolves. The sharp edges become softer, and the constant waves turn into ripples that come and go. With time, you begin to breathe again, remember without breaking, and find space for both grief and gratitude.

3. Feeling Is Healing

For years, I tried to be strong for everyone else. I bottled up my emotions, afraid that if I started crying, I might never stop. But real healing began when I started to feel.

Crying, yelling, sitting quietly with sadness, all of it is helpful. Feeling isn’t weakness. Feeling is healing. Every tear is a release; every emotion is a step toward peace.

4. Your Child’s Life Still Matters

After loss, it’s easy to focus on the ending, but our children were so much more than how they died. Their lives were full of laughter, learning, and love.

When you speak their name, share their story, or live in ways that reflect their light, you’re keeping their legacy alive. Their life still matters.

Grief changes everything, including you. You may not laugh the same way or care about the same things and that's ok.

You are growing around your loss. The new version of you carries deeper empathy, softer strength, and a stronger understanding of what truly matters.

6. Joy and Sorrow Can Coexist

You can laugh again and still miss your child with every breath. Joy doesn’t mean forgetting; it’s love showing up in another form.

Grief and joy can hold hands. One doesn’t cancel the other. They coexist, beautifully and painfully, at the same time.

7. Comparison Steals Your Peace

There is no timeline in grief. No one’s journey looks the same. The moment you compare your healing to someone else’s, you lose sight of your own process and path.

Wherever you are is exactly where you need to be.

8. You Will Find Purpose Again

When your world shatters, purpose can feel impossible. But over time, it reappears; sometimes quietly, sometimes unexpectedly.

Maybe your purpose is to love more deeply, to create something in your child’s honour, or simply to live more intentionally. It doesn’t have to be big to be meaningful.

9. Grief Softens When It’s Shared

You were never meant to grieve alone. Speaking your child’s name and sharing your story allows others to hold space for you and that lightens the load.

Community won’t erase the pain, but it will remind you that you’re not alone in it.

10. Love Never Dies

After everything, this is what remains: love. It changes shape, but it never fades. Love shows up in signs, memories, and the way you keep living. It’s the bridge between heaven and here; eternal, unbreakable, and forever yours.

It's a lot, I know, but I hope in this article you found a nugget, no matter how small that you found helpful.

XO Lisa Boehm

PS: Here is a free download that will give you ideas to honour your child. Doing things in their memory can help you find a wee bit of purpose in the pain. Request it HERE.