Why Is Forgiveness So Hard After Child Loss?
THE HARDEST PERSON TO FORGIVE ISN’T ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE.
Sometimes the heaviest weight in grief is the one we’ve never even named.
Forgiveness after child loss is one of the most complicated journeys a grieving mother will ever walk.
When we hear the word forgiveness, most of us immediately think of someone who hurt us. But after the death of a child, it becomes so much more layered than that.
Sometimes the hardest person to forgive isn’t someone else. It’s ourselves. Sometimes it’s the medical team, a drunk driver, an ex-spouse, a family member.
And sometimes… it’s someone who is no longer here to ask for forgiveness.
If you’ve ever thought, “I know I’m supposed to forgive, but I don’t even know where to begin,” I want you to know something before you read another word.
Forgiveness is an invitation… a process. Nobody gets to put a timeline on this for you.
Not your family. Not your church. No one.
When the Person You Can’t Forgive Is You
Let’s start with the hardest one. Because sometimes the hardest person to forgive is the one in the mirror.
I should have called.
Why didn’t I know.
I should have made them stay home.
Why didn’t I see the signs?
If any of those thoughts live in your mind, I want to talk to you about hindsight.
Hindsight judges yesterday with information we only have today. That is an impossible standard. You are holding yourself accountable for knowing something you could not have known.
And hear this: regret is not proof that you failed your child. It’s proof that you loved them.
There is a difference between responsibility and imagined responsibility. And so many grieving moms are carrying responsibility that was never theirs to carry.
What Forgiving Others Actually Means — and What It Doesn’t
For some of you, the person you can’t forgive is the drunk driver. The doctor. The person that sold your child the drugs. A spouse. Family members who said hurtful things. Friends who disappeared when you needed them most.
Whoever just came to your mind, hold that name gently for a moment.
Forgiveness doesn’t say, “What happened was okay.”
Forgiveness says, “I’m choosing not to let this continue controlling my life.”
One excuses them. The other frees you.
And these three truths might be the most freeing words you read today.
Forgiveness is not reconciliation. Forgiveness is not trust. And forgiveness is not removing healthy boundaries.
You can forgive someone and still never sit across a table from them again. You can forgive someone and still protect yourself and your family.
Forgiveness releases the grip on your heart. It doesn’t hand them the keys back.
When the Apology You Deserved Never Comes
Some of you are carrying a forgiveness that feels impossible, because the person you need to forgive is no longer here — or is simply incapable of taking responsibility for what they did.
Many moms never get the words “I’m sorry.”
So we wait. We hope for the apology, longing for the acknowledgement and for someone to finally say what we deserve to hear.
But waiting for an apology can become another prison.
I know that prison. I lived in it.
My need to forgive in Andrew’s story sat on me like a heavy weight — and I didn’t even realize it. Bitterness and hatred had filled me to the point that I wanted to hurt back. More than anything, I wanted integrity to be shown in the death of Andrew. As his mother, I felt like I deserved that.
That voice of integrity never surfaced.
So the bitterness and the anger churned inside my heart and my soul, and it nearly destroyed me — because I had no voice.
But after about three years of living inside this world of bitterness and hatred and anger, I finally realized it was only hurting me. And then I was able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit loud and clear. He freed me from this burden by teaching me that I did not need a voice — because He was my voice.
for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
— Romans 12:19 (KJV)
Sometimes forgiveness becomes something we do before God, without ever hearing the words we deserve.
That is not a lesser forgiveness. That may be the bravest kind there is.
The Kind of Forgiveness Many Parents Don’t Even Recognize
This might sound shocking at first. But there is another kind of forgiveness that many bereaved parents don’t even recognize.
Forgiving your child.
I’ve heard moms quietly wrestle with thoughts like these:
“How could you leave me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you fight harder?”
And most never say these thoughts out loud, because they feel guilty for even having them.
But beneath those questions is real hurt. And naming that hurt does not dishonor your child. It acknowledges the complexity of love and loss.
You can love someone with everything in you and still carry a question that hurts.
And here is what naming it does: it opens the door to extending the same grace to your child that your Heavenly Father desires to extend to you.
Forgiveness Is Usually a Process, Not a Single Decision
Somewhere along the way, you pray the prayer. You release it. You mean it with your whole heart.
And then, a week goes by, maybe a month later, and the anger surfaces again. And you think, “I forgave them. Why am I still angry?”
Because forgiveness isn’t amnesia. It isn’t one prayer. It isn’t one emotional breakthrough.
Instead, it is often a repeated surrender — especially around the anniversaries, the birthdays, the court hearings, the family gatherings, the new milestones your child isn’t here for.
The wound gets touched again. And when the wound gets touched, sometimes forgiveness has to be renewed.
That is part of being human. That is the process.
And Scripture never asks us to pretend the pain isn’t real. Jesus calls us to forgive, but He never minimizes what it costs.
Think about where He was when He spoke His most famous words of forgiveness. He was hanging on a cross, after unimaginable suffering. And in the middle of that suffering, He prayed:
“Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”
— Luke 23:34 (NLT)
Forgiveness wasn’t born from the absence of pain. It was chosen in the middle of it.
“Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”
— Ephesians 4:32 (NLT)
Hear what this verse is actually asking. It’s asking for a tender heart toward the very person you need to forgive.
And I know what you may be thinking. Tenderhearted? Toward them?
But look at how the verse ends. Just as God through Christ has forgiven you. This kind of forgiveness was never something we produce on our own. It flows from what we’ve received.
God isn’t demanding you manufacture tenderness out of thin air. He’s inviting you to draw from His.
So I won’t ask you who you need to forgive. I’ll ask you this instead.
Is there someone whose name still immediately fills you with anger or guilt?
What would it look like to place that person — or even yourself — into God’s hands today, instead of carrying this weight alone?
Forgiveness doesn’t erase what happened. And it doesn’t erase your love.
What gets to leave is the weight. The weight of unforgiveness.
And you don’t have to release it all today. Maybe today, all you do is admit the name is still heavy. That’s enough. That’s a beginning.
God is not rushing you. He is walking with you, at your pace, for as long as it takes.
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode
If these words have met you where you are today — there is more waiting for you in this week’s episode.
🎙 Episode 307: Why Is Forgiveness So Hard After Child Loss? Freedom From the Weight
In this episode, I walk through the kinds of forgiveness grieving mothers carry — the ones we recognize and the ones we’ve never named — along with what forgiveness never asks of you, what to do when the apology never comes, and the moment the weight I carried for three years finally lifted.
Next Steps/Mentoring
✨ Calming the Chaos
Calming the Chaos will meet you exactly where you are. It’s a self-paced program for grieving moms, where I take what God taught me in that valley and walk you through it — step by step, at your pace. No timeline.
Please hear me: naming the weight and learning to walk without it are two different journeys. It took me three years to find my way. It does not have to take you three years.
👉 Begin Calming the Chaos at your own pace here
With care and prayer,
Teresa Davis
