Simple Sympathy

26/12/2025

26/12/2025

This is my reality, every single day.

26/12/2025

Christmas feels like a season of listening now, Dad.
Not to music or noise, but to what lives underneath. The world slows, the air feels heavier with meaning, and silence becomes something I no longer rush to fill. It feels like the right time to remember without fear.

You were never the kind of presence that demanded attention.
You led quietly, loved steadily, and showed strength through consistency rather than force. Being near you made life feel less chaotic. You didn’t remove every problem — you made them feel survivable.

I recognize your influence more clearly as time passes.
In the way I choose patience when frustration feels easier. In the way I try to stay grounded instead of reactive. In the way I measure success not by noise, but by integrity.

Christmas brings moments when your absence is undeniable.
But it also brings clarity. A reminder that what you gave me didn’t end with you. It lives on through the values I carry, the choices I make, and the way I show up for the people around me.

Dad, this season doesn’t feel like loss anymore.
It feels like continuation.
Like proof that love matures, deepens, and finds new ways to exist.

Merry Christmas in Heaven.
Your guidance is still shaping my life. 🎄🕯️

26/12/2025

Sending love to anyone missing someone this evening, to miss someone is to love them. Another moment with them, in our memories, in our hearts we’re never truly far apart. To those we cannot see, I miss you, I love you and my gosh do I wish you could be here ###

25/12/2025

I think maybe after this day is over, or after that day, or after this season passes. I keep believing there will be a point where the pain finally lifts, where I can say, today did not hurt. That day still has not come.
While some days hurt less, there are never any days that do not hurt at all. The pain shifts. It softens at times. It tightens again without warning. But it is always there, woven into the hours, present even on the days that look almost normal from the outside.
This is the part that really messes with your mind. You start to wonder if you are doing grief wrong. If you should be further along by now. If waiting for relief means you are stuck. But grief does not work like that. It does not ever give you a "clean break" from pain.
If this is where you are, you are not failing. You are not weak for noticing the pain is still there. You are living a life that was split in two, and there is no version of it that comes without hurt.
For now, all you are asked to do is stay. Stay breathing. Stay here.

22/12/2025

"Be Still And Know" Devotional
(Broadstreet Publishing)

22/12/2025

What a wonderful gift it is when I have a chance to talk about my amazing son Evan (1989-2007). We might get choked up a bit, but please say their name, please remember them, please ask us about them.
***de ***deloss ***delosssurvivor

22/12/2025

Holiday Burnout for Grievers 👇🏾

For many of us grievers, holiday burnout begins before the holidays because anticipation alone can be exhausting.

It’s the emotional labor of bracing ourselves: the memories, the decisions, the expectations, the “firsts,” the empty chairs, the questions about how much we can handle.

Our body and nervous system often start responding long before the calendar does. If you’ve been feeling it, know that you’re now alone.

Grievers check in, how are y’all doing?

Get support and resources to help you in this season and beyond. 🔗 and imnatashasmith.com 🫶🏽.

20/12/2025

Yes, I’m still grieving 🌸
And I always will be
Love doesn’t end with loss
It changes shape

The flower bends beneath its weight
Still rooted in the earth
Still trying to bloom
Through unbearable ache

Some wounds never close 🌫️
They become part of breathing
Part of waking each day
Without the sound of you

I don’t rush my sorrow
I let it speak
Because grief is love
With nowhere to go

Forever doesn’t scare me
If grieving keeps you close
I will carry this softness
As long as I live

— The Love I Lost

20/12/2025

This seems to say it all.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been walking this grief journey for days or years, grief never fully leaves you. It becomes a part of you. It’s woven into the intricate parts of our life.

We grieve because we love. And love never dies. May today be one of the gentler, sweeter days of loving remembrance. ♥️🫂♥️

20/12/2025

Loss changes you.

Not all at once, not neatly, and never on a timetable you’d choose.

There is the moment everything fractures, and then there is the long, quiet work of living afterwards. Learning how to breathe in a body that remembers. Learning how to smile without betraying what was lost. Learning that survival itself can feel like a complicated kind of courage.

What surprised me most wasn’t the pain, it was the becoming.

After loss, you don’t return to who you were.
You meet someone new. Someone more fiercely aware to what matters. Someone who carries grief, but also carries compassion, and an extraordinary capacity for love.

The journey after loss is not about “moving on”. It’s about moving forward, with truth, with memory, with them in your heart.

I have three books to help guide you through grief and baby loss and pregnancy after loss. ‘Saying Goodbye’, ‘The Baby Loss Guide’ and ‘Pregnancy After loss’ - you can purchase these from all good bookstores (including
).
If you need support please know is here 24/7 - www.sayinggoodbye.org

20/12/2025

Social situations when you are grieving can be incredibly confusing.

Your thinking brain knows you are “with family”, yet your emotional brain is scanning constantly for the person you have lost, for understanding, for safety. When it cannot find any of those, loneliness can feel even sharper in company than it does alone.

If you are smiling on the outside and silently breaking on the inside, that does not mean you are fake, it means you are trying to protect yourself and your relationships at the same time. That is a heavy load for one heart to carry.

You are allowed to step outside, to sit in the bathroom for five minutes, to take a walk, to text someone who “gets it”. Small pockets of honesty help your nervous system reset.

Sending love to anyone who is struggling today or in this incredibly hard season.

Zoe xx


Books to help you - For support navigating baby loss, read ‘Saying Goodbye’ and ‘The Baby Loss Guide’. For support journeying pregnancy after loss or infertility, read ‘Pregnancy After Loss’.
For anyone grieving another family member or friend, read ‘Beyond Goodbye’.

For baby loss support head to Mariposa International- ‘Saying Goodbye’ support division.