When Summer Hurts: Practical Help for Grieving Moms
For the mother who feels the season coming before it even arrives
Summer grief after child loss is real — and it deserves to be named.
If you are already feeling the dread of summer before it even gets here, you are not alone.
You are a mother whose entire life was built around a rhythm. And that rhythm changed in ways you never asked for and never saw coming.
This is for you.
The Rhythm You Built Your Life Around
Every mother’s life has a rhythm.
And for most of us, that rhythm is built around our children.
If you have school age children, your whole calendar revolves around the school year. Summer was the exhale — the anticipation, the plans, the freedom of having your child home. You look forward to it together. It means something.
If your child was an athlete, summer looked different.
It meant travel. Tournaments. Long weekends in gym bleachers and on soccer fields. It meant a circle of people — other parents, other families — who became your people because your children were building something together.
That world had its own rhythm. Its own calendar. Its own community.
And if your child played college athletics, summer meant showcases and training and watching your child step into who they were becoming.
Maybe your children are grown and summer means family vacations. The one trip everybody looked forward to all year. Everyone together.
And now that one person is missing it changes the entire dynamic of every experience that follows.
Whatever your rhythm was — it was yours.
It was real.
It was woven into the fabric of who you are as a mother.
Death not only leaves your heart aching for your child, but the rhythms that made you who you are.
Why Summer Hits Differently
There is something about summer that exposes grief in a way that other seasons do not.
Winter has its own grief landmarks — the holidays, the empty chair at the table.
But summer is loud in a different way.
The world does not get quiet in summer. It gets louder. More visible. More insistent on celebration.
Graduation parties show up in your feed. Signs go up in neighbors’ yards. Balloons. Celebrations you can hear from inside your house.
And your child should be there too.
Families load up minivans for vacation. Athletes head to summer camps and college visits. College students come home.
And the world keeps moving in a rhythm that used to include you.
Now you are standing on the outside of it wondering how you are going to get through the next three months.
This is what happens when an entire season of your life was built around your child — and now that season arrives and everything that used to give it meaning has changed.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says —
“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.”
When you are grieving, that verse can feel almost cruel.
Everything has a season. Yes.
But what happens when your season changed without your permission?
That is not a faithless question. That is an honest heart trying to make sense of something that does not make sense.
Here is what I believe that verse is telling us —
God is not surprised by your season.
He is not caught off guard by the rhythm that changed.
He knew this season was coming before you did.
And that does not make it hurt less.
But it does mean you are not navigating it alone.
Your season changed. But He did not.
How I Learned to Take My Son With Me
I want to tell you something about how I do summer now.
It took me a while to get here. And it did not happen all at once.
But somewhere along the way I made a decision — I was not going to leave my Andrew behind just because my life no longer looked the way it used to.
I was going to take him with me.
And I want to tell you what that actually looks like. Because! It is specific. It is intentional.
Sometimes it is his blanket.
Sometimes it is a picture.
And other times, it is the backpack — the one he helped me find, the one we picked out together. I still remember going through all the options, him weighing in on every detail.
That backpack goes with me now.
And sometimes it is a memory. Something he said. Somewhere he went. Something he showed me that I have never forgotten.
He hiked Yellowstone National Park on a work trip.
And he sent me videos — walking those trails, wanting me to see every single step of it. He was so alive in those videos. So present. So him.
And one day — I am going to hike those same trails.
I am going to walk exactly where he walked. I am going to feel the ground under my feet that he felt under his.
And he is going to be with me every step of the way.
That is what taking your child with you looks like.
It is not the same for every mother. But the practice is the same — you bring something of them into the new experience.
You don’t leave them behind just because life no longer looks the way it used to.
And that one decision — that one small shift — changed something for me about summer.
About what it means to move forward without moving away from him.
Seven Tools to Help You Face Summer Grief
I want to give you something practical.
Some tools that have helped me and the mothers I walk alongside — things that can support you through this season.
1. Don’t Force the Old Rhythms
Give yourself permission to let this summer look different.
You do not have to do it the way you always did. The old rhythm belonged to a different season of your life.
You are in a new one now. And that is allowed.
2. Know Your Triggers Before They Find You
Graduation parties. Family reunions. The vacation spot you always went to together.
Name them ahead of time.
When you know what is coming, it cannot ambush you the same way. Preparation is not pessimism — it is wisdom.
3. Have an Exit Plan
Before you walk into hard spaces, know how you will leave if you need to.
You do not owe anyone your staying.
Give yourself permission to go when you need to go — without guilt, without explanation.
4. Do Something That Feels Good for You
Not what summer used to look like.
What does rest look like for you right now? What does gentleness look like? Or what does joy — even a small, quiet version of it — look like in this phase of your life?
Start there.
5. Create Something to Look Forward To
Grief keeps your eyes fixed on what is missing.
Creating something to look forward to is how you practice lifting them.
It does not have to be big. A bucket list trip you always wanted to take. Something new. Something that is entirely yours.
Give yourself something on the horizon.
6. Take Your Child With You
Whatever that looks like for you.
A photo. Something that belonged to them. A memory you carry in your heart of a place they loved or something they said.
They go where you go.
You do not have to leave them behind to move forward.
7. Practice Gratitude Alongside Your Grief
This is the hardest one. And the most holy.
Grief will always pull your eyes toward what is missing. That is real. And we are not going to dismiss it.
But healing — real healing — happens when we learn to hold both at the same time.
Acknowledge what makes your heart ache.
And acknowledge what you still have in your life.
Both are true. Both deserve to be named.
Learning to live in that tension — without it leading to despair — is some of the hardest and most sacred work a grieving mother can do.
You Are Not Facing This Alone
After you have named the grief, prepared for the triggers,
taken your child with you into something new and practiced gratitude alongside the ache—
There will still be days when none of it feels possible.
Days when you see the graduation party next door or the family loading up the minivan and it just stops you completely.
On those days — go back to Isaiah 40:31.
“But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.”
That is not a promise that summer will be easy.
It is a promise that you will not face it alone.
That the God who created every season — including this one — is walking through it with you.
Giving you strength that is not your own.
Supporting you when your own rhythm has been knocked completely off its feet.
You are going to make it through this summer.
Small steps. One at a time.
🎧 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 285: When Summer Hurts
In this episode Teresa walks through why summer grief is its own specific kind of loss, how to create new rhythms that still include your child, and the practical tools to help you face this season with intention instead of just surviving it.
Next Steps
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With care and prayer, Teresa Davis
