09/08/2026
It's been a very long time since I've posted here. Clearly I'm not on this page much anymore. But it was time to write with Acacia again, as her 17th birthday and deathday approaches later this month.
We Can Do Hard Things Together by Shelly King and Acacia King, September 7, 2026
17 years.
Oh, my love. My Acacia. It’s been almost 17 years. 17. 17. 17. 17. Oh, my love. 17 years without you. 17 years with you in ways I never imagined.
I’m sitting with my thoughts and lived experience of how things don't always work out.
To start with just a few of the jarring atrocities in our world… From the recent flood in Tibet due to climate change, to the 70,000+ killed in Gaza, to the genocides in Africa I never took the time to learn about, to so many more I am not mentioning. So much does not work out in one’s lifetime, in the lives of so many people.
This is how my heart and mind hold grief - I can’t think of my grief without thinking of everyone else’s.
(Side note for those that don’t know this about me). I had the gift of a study abroad trip to the Middle East in college. I walked in Gaza. I see that Gaza no longer exists as it was and that things did not work out for so many there. I can only imagine how many mothers have lost their children in this war. I understand the grief of a mother losing her child. Their grief is my grief.
I too know things don’t work out. I lost you, Acacia, my firstborn daughter. Your death taught me in the most painful of ways, life doesn’t always work out.
When I ask - what’s the point? Why did I lose you? In this moment, on this day, you responded quickly and assuredly - “because Mom, we are more together.” Right! Of course- the we (I’ll get to this)!
We - Acacia and I - are doing such good in the world as we work with other babyloss mamas, dads and families. I never would have asked for this work, or chosen this work. In some ways, it’s the work of nightmares. As we meet other families grieving the deepest loss of their lifetime - the death of their baby, or babies - their lives as they imagined and hoped for have been destroyed. Losing one’s child/ren, one’s hope, one’s dream is never an easy path. It is one filled with sleepless nights and terror. And not a dark night of the soul I learned something in hindsight kind of night. It is the night you wish never happened, the night you would go back in time and change it if there was a portal for that, the night where you wished you wouldn’t wake up in the morning to such a cruel reality where your baby/babies die.
All I know that is true within the death of one’s child was written by Megan Devine (grief expert and author) who in her book, It’s OK You’re not OK, wrote, “Here’s what I most want you to know: this really is as bad as you think. No matter what anyone else says, this sucks. What has happened cannot be made right. What is lost cannot be restored. There is no beauty here, inside this central fact. Acknowledgement is everything. You're in pain. It can't be made better.”
My life is not better without you, Acacia. There is no world in which there is a good reason for one's child/ren dying. While I live within that reality that there is no beauty here in your death, I have made purpose out of my life without you. I carry you with me in all that I do. I love you every day of my life. I share you with others. I have your sister who is the light of my life, hopefully not as her burden, but simply as her birthright, because she is amazing. I live with you in me, of me, around me. And simply, life will never be better without you.
Now, I support other loss families. We - you and I - support loss families.
A part of me knew that in your death, I needed others. I couldn’t walk this path alone. I couldn’t carry the weight and depth and grief and trauma and tragedy of your birth and death by myself. It would break me. Well, honestly, it did break me. I am now okay with that. Andrea Gibson’s one liner saved me when I read their words, “Why isn't it okay to say there are things we have not survived?” I, as I knew myself, did not survive your birth and death. It broke me, changed me, forever altered me. And that’s okay. I know that now. I wish someone had told me that then.
And here we are - you and I. Over the years, I have come to more fully realize and experience how we are wired for connection. How my loved ones help me, support me, love me, care for me, carry me at times, and are there for me. I am all those things to them too (or so I hope). We do this. We can do hard things. I have a quote on my end table that says, “Life is tough, but darling so are you.”
A teacher of mine once told me, when we were talking about grief, we are built for this. My first thought was, “f**k you. You have no idea the depth of the grief of one's child dying (since they haven't experienced this particular loss). We are not built for this.” But as I continue to do my own work, to learn about our brains and bodies, and to receive, receive, receive with my people - I am learning - we ARE built for this together. We are built to grieve together. We are built to love together. We are built to connect with each other. I am so focused on the “we” these days (just ask my partner). :)
And today, my dear Acacia, you came to remind me that WE - you and I - are helping others in their grief. I am not doing this work alone. I wouldn't be doing this work without you, in all the ways. Without your birth and death, I wouldn’t be here. I would have never “picked” babyloss as my niche, my life work. I wouldn’t be who I am today without you. Buddhism has a word for this - pratītyasamutpāda - the interdependent co-arising of events. So many things led me here, to this life I am living, and you, Acacia, are one of them.
So, my dear ones. Things don’t always work out. I imagine many (all?) of you reading this know this in some way, shape or form. My daughter died. It didn’t work out for her and me. I make no excuses for this reality. Back to Megan Devine, “Some things we learn to live with, and that’s not the same as everything working out in the end. No matter how many rainbows and butterflies you stick into a narrative, some stories just don’t work out.”
Acacia - my planned lifetime with you did not work out. You are turning 17 this year. September 25, your birth. September 28, your death. A lifetime lived within those 2 ½ days. 17 years with and without you. I miss you. I love you.
And my dear A - the light of my life. You are my sunshine. :) Without you, I wouldn’t be here - living and loving life with you, parenting the most amazing daughter that I am so deeply grateful for every day and love with every ounce of my being. Thank you for being my daughter. I love you lots. :)
I will leave you all with this.
“Grief is a part of love. Love for life, love for self, love for others. What you are living, painful as it is, is love. And love is really hard. Excruciating at times.
If you’re going to feel this experience as part of love, we need to start talking about it in real terms, not pathology, and not with some false hope of everything working out alright in the end.” - Megan Devine
So maybe what we’re really saying when we think or tell someone - it will be ok, it will all work out - is this: “I love you so very much. I *hope* it will all work out. If I could control this, I would make it all work out for you.” But since I (all of us) have so little control, instead what I tell you and can do is this - “I will be here with you. I will stay with you through the hard thing.” To borrow Bonnie Badenoch’s words (an amazing relational neuroscience/IPNB therapist who I’ve done training with), “I see you I am here. And I will stay with you.”
I will stay with you through hard things. I love you. Things don’t always work out, but I will be here for you and with you when they don’t. We can do hard things together.
Painting: Anguish by Friedrich Schenck
