Grief Doesn’t Go Away. We Don’t Have to Face It Alone.

When Alexi’s husband, Sam, died suddenly, his family was left in shock.

His wife, Alexis, was suddenly navigating an unimaginable loss while caring for their two young daughters, Zoey, who was 5½, and Eva, who was just 13 months old. Family gathered around them, helping with the many immediate needs and decisions that follow a death. Early on, Alexis began grief counseling, which provided important support for her own grief.

But finding the right kind of support for her daughters took more time.

She first heard about A Haven through Sam’s brother, whose boss had a connection to the organization. Still, it would be 2½ years before the family walked through A Haven’s doors for an open house and feel ready to try a Family Group.

Zoey was 8 when they began attending Family Group. By then, Alexis had a clear hope for what A Haven could provide: a place where her daughter could “develop the tools and support she needed to grow up with the death of her dad.”

What she didn’t expect was everything else they would find.

A Place Where Grief Belongs

“I honestly do not know what expectations I had,” she says. “What I did not expect was to create such genuine connections with everyone from the staff at A Haven, the volunteers, fellow caregivers, and the other kiddos.”

Four years later, those connections have become an important part of the family’s lives.

Her daughters are excited when it’s an “A Haven night.” They know they are surrounded by people who care about them. Most importantly, they have a place where they don’t have to feel different because their dad died.

That sense of belonging is at the heart of what A Haven provides.

Grief can be isolating, especially for children who may not know anyone else who has experienced the death of a parent, sibling, or someone they love. At A Haven, they find other kids who understand. They find adults who are willing to listen. They find a place where they can remember the person who died—and talk about them openly.

And they find something that might surprise people who have never experienced a grief group:

There is laughter. There are happy moments. There is friendship. There is joy.

“We Don’t Get Over It.”

Five and a half years after Sam’s death, Alexis has learned that grief doesn’t follow a timeline.

“What I wish people knew about grief is that it doesn’t go away. We don’t get over it,” she says. “It can still hurt just as bad 5½ years later as it did the night it happened.”

What changes is not necessarily the presence of grief, but the ability to live alongside it.

She wishes more people understood that support is needed long after the funeral, long after the first year, and long after others may expect a grieving person to have “moved on.”

“Talking about our person may make us sad and it is also healing at the same time,” she says. “We know our person is dead. You are not reminding us by saying their name or talking about them.”

A Haven offers families a place to do exactly that: remember, talk, laugh, cry, and continue building a life that includes the person they have lost.

Finding Family in the Nest

Perhaps the most powerful part of Alexis’s experience has been the community she has found among the other caregivers.

Today, she describes her fellow Parent Loss caregivers as an “amazing group” who have become a source of support both inside and outside of A Haven. They text each other. They get together. They check in. They offer advice and simply understand what the other person is feeling.

“We have been able to create our own family,” she says.

And as a widowed mom raising grieving children, there is something else that means everything to her: seeing other people love and genuinely care for her daughters.

One of her favorite moments happens at the beginning of every school year, when everyone returns after summer break.

“They are all happy to see each other and catch up,” she says.

It is a simple moment, but it captures something profound.

After loss, children need more than resources. Families need more than counseling. They need people—people who remember, people who understand, and people who keep showing up.

For this family, A Haven has become one of those places - where grief is welcome, where Sam can still be talked about, where his daughters know they are not the only ones. And a place where, even in the midst of grief, there is room for laughter, friendship, love, and hope.

Because grief doesn’t go away. But we don’t have to carry it alone.