We care deeply for our Grief Warriors – those bereaved mamas and daddys who carry their babies in their heart, rather in their arms. We are devoted to providing them help and hope. We champion their healing and honor their grief journey.

Today, on #warriorwednesday, we spotlight a fellow Grief Warrior and their beloved baby to bring awareness to the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Community and light the path for other grief warriors coming behind us with hope. We’re asking each warrior the same five questions as we learn more about their story and their cultivation of beautiful scars.

Today’s #warriorwedneday spotlight is Kelly, an author and advocate for grieving dads at The Grieving Dad’s Project, and his babies, Katie & Noah.

  1. What is your name and your baby/babies’ name.  Katie and Noah
  • How far along your grief journey are you? I am 16 years out from losing Katie and 14 years for losing Noah.
  •  What aspect of the pregnancy and infant loss community have you chosen to get involved with and why did you chose that, specifically?  My mission early on was to avoid the pain all together.  I didn’t want to be involved with any of it and in fact hide from the pain for a long time.  Then it caught up to me and I was forced to deal with it on its terms.  Through that journey, I realized there weren’t many resources for men.  As a result of that realization, I decided to start a blog and ultimately wrote a book to help men through the loss of a child.  My main focus has been men and grief.
  • How has your grief journey evolved since the early days of raw grief?  It has gone from barely surviving to what I would say today is closer to thriving.  The early days for me involved fighting off the pain and it caused a lot of damage that I probably still don’t understand.  However, once I surrendered to the process, it became apparent to me that I could get back to a normal life again.  Not the life I had before, that guy was gone.  I needed to learn how to evolve into the person I was going to be.  I am still working on that, but so far it’s going pretty well.

5. If you could give your raw grief self a piece of advice, what would you say?  The following sounds so simple, but it isn’t.  It takes hard work.  You have to learn how to surrender and learn to be transparent.  You must tell your story, all of it.  Even the the stuff you buried down deep.  Go to a support groups. Seek counseling.  Surround yourself with other grieving parents.