"Dear Me" to 17 year old Jill

Dear Me Letter

The following letter came to us from Jill Kottmeier.

Dear 17 year old me,

I know that sometimes it feels like life is spinning out of control. You have had to say goodbye to 2 of your friends by senior year, and then your world was rocked by the death of Kaleb, one of your best friends baby.

I know you feel lost, you are not religious and you are seeking answers and support from something bigger than yourself.

You feel so alone, like no one in the world understands your grief. You remember special days and events, and your parents don't talk to you about you. You don't know what is normal and what is not.

It is ok to feel what you are feeling. It is grief. It will be part of you forever. It changes and it flows, sometimes it is too intense to bear and other times it calms down. But it is a part of you now. You are forever changed by the experience.

People say stupid things to you about your grief, even those who love you. Try not to take your dad's comments to heart about the photos of Kaleb and decorating his grave. It is his ignorance of the situation, it is not that he doesn't love you. He doesn't understand the death of a baby. Really no body does. Stick with Becki, she will be a lifelong friend and teacher.

One amazing thing is going to come out of all the grief you experienced as a teen. Your passion for helping others through grief, especially baby loss, will become a career. You will go on to become a labor and delivery nurse and help countless families going through the hardest times in their lives. Kaleb is one of your greatest teachers and inspirations in your life. You will continue to honor him and Becki through your work and land your dream job, Perinatal Palliative Care Coordinator.

You don't fully understand this right now, but the grief you are experiencing in high school is preparing you for things that lie ahead that might seem unimaginable. You will have to say goodbye to more friends, and your life will be forever changed after you bury your cousin, your father, and your brother. You have more resilience inside you than you could ever imagine. You will need to rely on that to get you through. The death of your brother will come just 6 months after your divorce. I promise you, you will get through it and you will find happiness again.

Lean on those who love you the most and accept help. All of your loss makes you who you are. It gives you new perspective to help other people and be there for them. Just remember your grief can bubble to the surface at any moment. Even when you think you have made it out to the other side, it is there. Acknowledge your grief, let it sit with you, cry, scream, feel it throughout every part of your body, become friends with it...that is what leads to healing.


Your 41 year old self

"Dear Me" by Meghan Kinney

The NAGC sent out a call for letters from those who experienced childhood breavement in their youth. The letters were to be written to their younger self, reflect on the grief process, and hopefully show today’s grieving children and teens that there is a future ahead.

The following letter came to us from Meghan Kinney.


Dear Nine-Year-Old Me,

Sweet girl, you are trying so hard to maintain a persona of maturity and strength. You want others to think you've got things figured out. You're the oldest; you want dad to watch over you and see that you can help with adult things now that he isn't here to do them himself.

Turns out you don't know the first thing about adult responsibility but you'll pretend like you do, because it feels like the right thing to do. You've never been shy about words and speaking your mind, but how does a nine-year-old talk to other kids about death?

It feels weird, like you are out of place. This event has shaped your entire life and is all-consuming, but how do you talk about it without seeming like a stormy cloud over everybody else's day?

Dear Thirteen-Year-Old Me,

You've been working so hard on trying to be brave again. Any activities outside of home make those anxious thoughts go round and round and round.

What if I'm not there and something happens to mom while I'm away?
What if I fight with my sisters and say something mean and it is the last thing they ever hear me say? Who would we live with if something happened to mom; would we have to lose our home too?

Every year, you've had to have that same dreaded conversation with your teachers as you fill out those emergency cards and have to write "deceased" next to "father's name and phone number".

It's getting harder and harder to remember his smell, remember the sound of his voice. You hold on to those precious memories and pictures, and hang them up in your locker to remind yourself that he is always with you.

Dear Sixteen-Year-Old Me,

There are so many things that have been impacted by childhood loss that you would have never expected. Learning to drive is agonizing: what if you get into an accident and kill somebody's dad and a child has to grow up without a parent because of your mistake?

Going on the annual family beach vacation is a double-edged sword: you can feel dad everywhere you are and this brings you immediate comfort and a sense of security, but also an aching sadness that it's not the same without him.

You almost fail English twice because you get almost all the way done with an assignment and burst into tears and frantic breaths once it's time to submit it. Once something is finished, you can't go back and change it. You don't get a second chance to make things better if it doesn't turn out the way you want it to. You don't want to disappoint your family and the legacy of this amazing man, and you spend many hours awake at night trying make sure this doesn't happen.

Dear Nineteen-Year-Old-Me,

You have now experienced quite a few other losses in your life: grandparents, an uncle, family friends. You begin to grieve the deaths of these beautiful individuals, but you also relive that first major loss, as you watch your cousins and aunts and uncles learn what it is like to live their lives without the person that raised them. Each loss hurts in a different way than before, but something unexpected happens. You begin to look at the grieving process as beautiful, raw, and authentic. You recognize how lucky you are to have a support system and you begin to slowly accept the things you can't change. You focus on the littlest, most beautiful parts of life because you know that no matter what else happens, these little moments give you a reason to wake up in the morning and live fully. You decide to live honestly and be transparent about what you feel and what you need from others. You begin to practice self-care, because you realize that you deserve to love yourself and that dad would want you to feel good about who you are and the decisions you make for yourself.

Dear Twenty-Four-Year-Old Me,

You are currently a teacher of students who are the same age as you were when you lost your dad. You remember feeling so old, but you look at these innocent, tooth-less rugrats running around and realize how much they have left to experience in their beautiful lives. You know that as you continue on life's ever-changing journey, you will reach new milestones that will fill you with bittersweet moments. You will feel a sense of adventure and excitement, followed by a pang of intense sadness knowing that he won't be there to dance with you at your wedding, or to help you move your couch through that too-narrow doorway into your first home, or to hold his grandchildren with a misty look in his eyes that he will blame on allergies. But you are ready to handle that, because you have made it this far, and you're not doing it alone. This loss has shaped you, but it has not defeated you. As Dad would say, "keep your chin up". You've got this.

- Meghan Kinney

"Dear Me" to 15 year old Becca

Dear Me Letter

The following letter came to us from Becca.


Dear Me,

You are going through a life changing experience right now. You are no longer the same girl you used to be. You are also no longer like other 15 year olds. You are going through a tragedy. And I am deeply sorry you are going through this pain right now. But I say this through years of hindsight; you are at the beginning of a new journey in life that will lead you to all around the world.

To be honest, I can’t remember a lot about the summer months after Mom died. I know there were lots of tears and an outreach of a variety of different people who never followed up. I know you will be hurt by family members who do not or cannot respect your new life and this will continue for many, many years. But there is always someone you can turn to whenever life gets hard and that’s Dad. Dad will be your rock. I have no idea how he found the strength to keep himself going, let alone how he found anything left to give me. He will encourage you in high school, he will go to every single pep rally, football game, and dance competition. Y’all will continue to show cattle in 4-H and continue to bond through hunting and fishing and all of your favorite activities. And in college and post-grad you will travel the world together as amazing travel partners. Your relationship with Dad is no longer the same. He is your Dad who provides excellent parental guidance but he is also your best friend who is your absolute number one fan. People will comment on your relationship and remark that if they had been in our situation they could not have done it and would have crumbled. You and Dad are so strong and you make each other stronger.

You’re beginning a lifelong introspective experience as well. Grief counseling and general counseling will become your new friend- don’t be afraid of it. Seek it out because it helps you so much. You will spend years going to counseling and that’s great and don’t resist it. It will help you figure out how to handle your family when they hurt you. It will happen. Counseling will help you realize how they have hurt you, that you are angry about it, and how to eventually forgive them in your own time and at your own pace.

College will be a rough transition. At this point, it will be the most transformative experience you go through after Mom died. It’s difficult because you not only learned how to survive after Mom died, you thrive because of how amazing Dad is and the work you put in at counseling to get there. Leaving that carefully cultivated environment will be difficult. But you need it. You need space to really find who you are. You will go through lots of changes in college and you’ll find great friends and no so great friends. But you will learn more about your Mom and the things that shaped her and how she shaped you in the time that y’all had.

You were always mature for your age but Mom dying will make you light-years older than your peers. It will make you more empathetic to others and will lead you to follow a passion of helping people, something Mom taught us how to do. Your world, even though it feels like it is crumbling around you, will grow exponentially. You are currently writing this from central London where you’re living while you are in law school. You have been all over the world and met all kinds of people. Always on a mission of helping people.

You are so strong. You will get through Mom dying with the help of dance, friends, music, school, travel, family, counseling, faith, and prayer. You will put in the work to get to know yourself and what you need to do to be successful. But the work you put in will not erase your grief. It won’t even stop it. You now have a new lifelong partner who will grow and change. As it does, you have to continue to take care of yourself. Grief is now a part of your life and it’s important to embrace it so you can grow from it and eventually become the person you needed when you were a lost, broken 15 year old.

I wish I could go through each moment step by step with you but I want you know you are strong enough to get through this, for it to not hold you back from life’s experiences, and to tell you that you still have a relationship with Mom. I know things did not end well at all between the two of you. I know the words you said and the way you acted that night will stay with you for years. But those things don’t define your relationship with Mom. The whole last year does not define your relationship. It will take counseling and time to be able to see that and talk about it with any kind of clarity. But none of it was your fault.

You are starting your new post-Mom life. Mom’s death will be a “before and after” marker for your life. But the ‘after’ will not be something that drags you down. You will see the world, you will fall in love, and you will find joy. Your grief will never go away but it will not define who you are as a person and what you do with your life. But I want to tell you, almost nine and a half years later, that you will be all right. You will be more than all right and Mom’s death will not hold you back in life even though that seems impossible right now. You are strong and there is so much the world is waiting to give you and you will get there even if you don’t think so right now.

Love always,

Future Becca

"Dear Me" from Tory

Dear Me Letter

The following letter came to us from Tory.


To the Children, Youth and Families grieving around the globe,

It was the traumatic death of my father at the age of 9 years that made me who I am today.

With this loss came a profound sense of grief which resulted in me experiencing all the common (but as individual as the individual) feelings and emotions of anger, unexpected happiness, loneliness and profound sadness.

However when my world had turn upside down I was fortunate to have had the unconditional love and presence of my mother.

At the time I didn’t understand how lucky I was to have a mother who understood that she had two daughters who were now vulnerable to being ‘at risk’ for mental health illness as well as social and emotional behaviour challenges. With much reluctance on my part, I was given the support and guidance to help me through such a difficult time.

Most of the time this support involved several different types of play experiences which clinicians used to navigate my thoughts and understanding around the death of my father. Naturally for me as a child this became an exciting ‘event’ in my week. Play was how I normalized my childhood and established a better understanding of the trauma myself and my family had experienced.

Fast forward 23 years. I am now a Registered Early Childhood Educator and Certified Child Life Specialist. I have found my passion as a clinician working with children, youth and families who have been touched by illness, grief and bereavement both within hospital and community organizations.

I firmly believe I wouldn’t be who I am today without having experienced the loss of my beloved father at such a young age. More so – without the support and love of my (at times relentless) mother. Without a shadow of a doubt I wouldn’t be the successful individual I am today.

Often I am asked how I emotionally handle the work I do. I am constantly questioned and looked at with a sense of wonder. People are so curious how do I do the work I do?

My answer is consistently this. I could not imagine I child not having someone there to simply the hardest things for them and support them through by helping them understand the toughest thing they have ever experienced by creating a space of acceptance.

My grief has changed and evolved as I have from a grieving little girl to a successful and professional woman working to support all children, youth and families who have experienced grief in their life. Your own experience will change and evolve just like your life ahead of you. Thank you for sharing and supporting Children’s Grief Awareness Day with me.

Kind regards,


"Dear Me" to 12 year old Todd

Dear Me Letter

The following letter came to us from Todd.

Dear 12-year-old Todd,

I know that you are going through an incredibly tough time right now, and I wanted to see if I could help out in some way.  I know how much you loved dad; how much you looked up to him and wanted to impress him.  I know that dad’s death has left you feeling lost, and that you suddenly feel different from all of your other friends who are lucky enough to still have a father.

I wanted to let you in on some lessons that I’ve learned over the past 33 years, in hopes that they will help you to navigate through your life:

  • Dealing with dad’s death does get easier, but it never gets easy.  For example, I used to really dread Father’s Day, especially all of the commercials about how great it is to have a dad.  For various reasons, it now bothers me a lot less.
  • Sometimes you will feel think about dad and feel really sad, especially on important birthdays, graduations and other special occasions.  That is part of the grieving process, and it is perfectly OK.
  • Sometimes you will feel angry with dad for abandoning you and putting a huge dark spot on your childhood and your life.  It is OK to feel angry, because losing a parent at any age is hard…losing a parent at a young age really sucks.
  • Sometimes you will go long stretches without thinking about dad, and that is OK, too. 
  • One of the most important lessons that I’ve learned over the years is that talking about what you are going through with people that you trust really helps.  I wish that I had done more of that when I was your age.  For whatever reason, I kept most of my feeling bottled up inside of me for years.  Once I started talking more about dad to my close friends, and asking mom questions about dad’s life (and his death), I began feeling more at peace with everything.

Keep your chin up.  Dad’s death, while a major event in your life, does not define you.  You are in charge of how your life goes.  It would be easy to use dad’s death as an excuse for making bad decisions.  Instead, I encourage you to use the lessons that dad taught you and the wonderful example that he set as the basis for making good decisions and setting yourself up for success.

All the Best,

Todd at 45

P.S. If you stay on the right path, I have a strong feeling that you will go to a great college, start an amazing business, marry a wonderful woman and have 2 incredible daughters!  Good luck kid.