How I Made it Through My Son’s 7 Year Heaven Anniversary (And How You Can Too)

Our child’s heaven anniversary, the day they went to heaven, is the hardest day of the year. How can you make it through? I recently had my son’s 7 year heaven anniversary and this is how I made it through the day. I pray it will give you some ideas on how you can make it through your day too.

Making it Through Your Child’s Heaven Anniversary

This year marks 7 years since we lost Sam. 

Looking back on the past 7 years, God has been so faithful. He’s carried me through every hard moment, every hard day. And Sam’s heaven anniversary is no exception. 

Every single year he is with me and I felt that again this year. For the 7th year in a row he has seen me through the hardest 24 hours of the year. 

In this post I’m going to walk you through my day and dissect it a little bit for you. I’m going to give you some ideas of things that you could do, some tips that helped me in hopes that you can find something you can use for your child’s heaven anniversary too.

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I took the day off work

A lot of times work is a really good distraction for me. If I’m having a hard day or a hard moment, work actually helps me get through the day. 

But over the years I have learned that trying to work on this specific day is impossible. I just can’t do it. My mind just can’t focus on my work. 

So the past few years I’ve taken the day off. I knew there was no point in me trying to work. I’m just taking the day off and I will distract myself in other ways. 

If this is you, if you have a really hard time focusing on this particular day, just go ahead and take the day off. Don’t try to power through. Give yourself that day. That way you don’t have to worry about work and how you’re going to make it through. 

A lot of times in this grief journey, waves of grief will hit us suddenly, out of nowhere. But sometimes there are days that come up where we know it’s going to be hard. So we can plan and prepare for it ahead of time. This is one of those days. So go ahead and take this day off. I’m always so thankful that I did.

I allowed myself to fully feel EVERY emotion

Allowing yourself to fully feel every emotion that comes is not only helpful for the day of the anniversary, but also the days leading up to it as well (and if needed, the days after). 

Whatever emotion it is that comes with that day, I want you to allow yourself to feel it. Don’t try and push it down. Don’t try to bottle it up. Don’t ignore it. Because that emotion will come out eventually. 

Pushing down your emotion doesn’t make it go away, it just kind of postpones it. But it will build up so much inside out of you, that one day it will overflow and come out – and it’ll usually be on something completely random. 

So when that emotion comes, if it’s crying, if it’s anger, whatever that emotion is, give yourself permission to feel it. 

For me it was crying, and actually it was more the day before Sam’s heaven anniversary that I felt this emotion. The day of was hard and I did cry that morning, but for me this year it was the day before. 

When that emotion came I was actually at church, so it would have been easy for me to try and push that down – but I didn’t. I let myself feel that emotion which led to me crying. 

But here’s the key: Don’t stop there. Don’t camp out in that emotion. 

You need to feel it, but then work your way through it. Allow the Holy Spirit to pour His peace on your heart, in your mind and help you to kind of move through that emotion so you can keep going. 

What we don’t want to happen is to stop and just camp out in that sadness. If I were to just sit and let that sadness, that emotion take over, then that would lead me into depression. And I don’t want to live there. 

So yes, give yourself permission to fully feel those emotions, but then keep going. Keep working your way through it. Keep walking and taking those steps out of that emotion and through your day.

Plan something to do outside of the house

When I took off work I knew I didn’t want to just sit at my house all day long. To just sit and not do anything all day would not be good for me mentally or emotionally. So we made plans.

We planned to do something fun in celebration of Sam. This particular day we planned to go to the pool with the other kids. This gave my kids something fun to do on that day. 

Bonus tip: Allow yourself to feel both sadness and happiness all at the same time. 

Yes, I was sad while we were at the pool. But I was also happy, watching my other kids play and laugh and have fun. Both emotions were present. And that’s okay. I believe this is key in being able to live again after such a deep loss. Let yourself feel both.

After the pool, we ate lunch at Zaxby’s. In the town we lived in when we lost Sam, they were building a Zaxby’s right before we lost him. He was so excited to go eat there and he never got a chance. So we went there to eat in honor of him, in memory of him. 

Then we released some balloons for him – which I’ll talk more about below, so be sure to read my closing tips all about this part of our day. 

Is there something that your child loved to do while they were here? Do that! Plan it and do it in honor of your child, in memory of them. 

If you don’t get through all the plans you make, that’s okay. I believe simply having a plan in place of things you would like to do will get you out of the house and help distract you. 

Which leads me to the next point…

Utilize distractions

This is so important. I believe distractions are key in making it through this grief journey. It’s how we can make it through the hard days that come.

For this particular heaven anniversary, I distracted myself not only by leaving and going to the pool and doing all the other things, but I also distracted myself when we got home. Because eventually, you do have to come home. 

What we don’t want to happen is for you to just sit there with nothing to distract your mind. Because when it’s silent, your mind is going to go to that that moment in time. Sometimes it’s okay to think about that moment. There could be some healing that needs to happen. 

But for me personally, I really just needed to keep my mind from going to that night. It was a traumatic night for me and so I didn’t want to just sit and think about it. 

If that’s you and you don’t want to sit and think about that moment either, then have some distractions you can do when you get back home. 

For me it was sitting on the couch and watching YouTube. Were there more productive things I could have been doing? Sure. 

But you know what? I honestly didn’t care.

This is an awful, horrible, no good day and I just want to get through it. And so I gave myself that permission to just sit on the couch and watch YouTube for the rest of the night. 

My little girls played around me and we made it through. 

So in your planning, make sure you have a plan to distract yourself when you come home too. If, like me, you’re going to watch some TV to help you get through the rest of the day, make sure you’re watching things that are happy and upbeat. No sad movies, mmmkay? 

Actually I’ll just go ahead and tell you that you don’t need to ever watch sad movies again. We already have to live with so much sadness. We don’t want to add more to it. Only uplifting, happy and good endings!

Closing Tips

Have your lifesaver verse ready

A lifesaver verse is a Bible verse that you can cling to when those waves of grief start to hit and you feel like you’re drowning. This verse will literally be like the buoys the lifeguards throw out to someone who’s drowning. This Bible verse will be something you can hold on to when you feel like you’re drowning in your grief. Just repeat this verse over and over and over again and it will keep you from drowning. 

I have a free download for you full of verses that you could use for your lifesaver verse. Read through these and pick one that sticks out to you to be your verse to cling to.

Click here to download this free printable.

Your child’s heaven anniversary is the perfect day to have this Bible verse ready. If you feel like you’re starting to drown, pull out this verse and repeat it over and over in your mind. Let the truth of that verse pull you up out of the waves of grief that are pushing you down. 

To have this lifesaver verse ready for the next wave of grief that will hit, click here to download the free printable.

Honor your feelings

It’s so important to honor your feelings, to honor what you’re feeling in that moment. You might have made all these plans to do all these things and then on the day of you realize, nope, I can’t do this. Or no, I want to do this instead. 

Honor those feelings. Go with what you’re feeling. 

The only thing I wouldn’t suggest doing is just sitting in your house all day, again because that will make it really hard to get through the day. So I do encourage you to get out of the house, but as you’re out, if you feel like you want to do something different, honor those feelings. 

Another thing you might have to face is feeling different than you thought you were going to feel. 

I mentioned above that we released balloons for Sam on his heaven anniversary this year. We’ve done this in the past. So I thought this year we would do it again. As I was making the plans for the day, I was expecting to feel something when we released the balloons. To feel the way it made me feel the last time we did it. 

And you know what? It didn’t. 

There were no emotions tied to it. We just released them in the air and then that was it. 

I was like, okay. That didn’t do anything for me and for my heart. And that’s okay. 

Now I know that releasing balloons doesn’t have the same effect for my heart that it did earlier in my grief journey, so I probably won’t plan this again. And that’s okay. 

This grief journey we’re on is not linear. It has so many ups and downs with it. That’s why it’s so important to honor your feelings and really listen to your heart, listen to the Holy Spirit. He knows what your heart needs. 

And if you find that the things you planned didn’t feel like you thought it was going to, that’s okay! Now you know what not to do next year. 

More Ideas for Healing from Grief

If you have a heaven anniversary coming up soon, I pray peace upon you. I pray peace upon your mind and your heart. I pray that you would feel Jesus so close to you every moment of that day, the hardest day of the year. I pray you would be able to feel your child so close to you that whole day. I pray that Jesus will carry you through every moment of that day. 

One last thing that I want to remind you is that every year that passes, we’re one year closer to seeing them again. 

So when your child’s heaven anniversary hits, you’re one year closer to seeing your child again. And oh what a day that will be.

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