Has someone in your life recently become a grieving mother? As a family member or friend, it can be hard to know what to do in that situation. What would be helpful for this mother in your life? In this post I bring you what people did for us right after we lost our son that was so helpful.
What to Do for a Grieving Mother
It can be hard to know what to do for someone who has just lost their child. That’s a wound that’s so deep and I know it can feel like anything you think of could pale in comparison to what they’re having to go through.
So what’s helpful? What does this mama actually need?
As a fellow grieving mama, I’m here to help you with that answer!.
I actually went back in my mind to those days and weeks and months after we lost Sam and I thought about what people did for us that was so helpful. And I wanted to bring those things to you here!
Here are six things that other people did for us in our journey that were so helpful in those early days after losing our child.
Bring Them Dinner
I can tell you, the last thing I wanted to do after we lost Sam was to cook dinner, but we had to eat. But I just did not have the brain power to even come up with an idea of what to feed us. In those early days all your brain can literally do is focus on surviving. Anything that required making a decision, I just couldn’t do it.
So this is something that is so simple but will be so helpful. Here are some ideas on how this could look:
- Bring a homemade meal: If one of your giftings is cooking, then use your gift to bless this family! Cook a dinner and a dessert and bring it during dinner time. Also remember to bring it to the family in throw away containers so they don’t have to worry about getting it back to you. Disposable foil pans with lids can make cleanup easier for the family!
- Give gift cards: Bringing a family a meal doesn’t have to be a homemade meal. It can be in the form of a gift card that they can use on a night they need it the most. You could do a pizza place that can be delivered or just pick their favorite place to eat!
- DoorDash gift card: If they have DoorDash (or something similar) in their area, get a gift card for that delivery service and then they can pick the restaurant they want to use it on and have it delivered to their door.
- Start a meal train: Get a group together and schedule days to bring meals to this family. You could involve your church, your small group, your homeschool group, a group of friends. For us personally, our homeschool group is who helped us out with this. Each day for about a week a different family brought us food. This was a mix between homemade meals, takeout meals, and gift cards – and all of that was so appreciated!
Offer to Help With the Funeral
If it’s in the very early days and the funeral hasn’t happened yet, then you can offer to help in some way with the funeral. I was very blessed to have some close friends that took over so many parts of the funeral so I didn’t have to worry about planning anything huge.
My pastor’s wife took over the major planning and would just text me very simple yes or no questions that I could answer easily.
Here are some things that you could help with:
- A day or two before the funeral, offer to take their car and wash it, clean the inside, and fill it up with gas
- If your mama has other kids, offer to come over and help get them ready the day of the funeral
- Put together a memorial video
- Bring some food for the meal that will happen either before or after the service
- Help decorate the inside of the church or wherever the service is going to be held
- Put together some way for people to write down their favorite memories of the child (like this memory book)
- Find a beautiful guest book that helps preserve loving messages
- Help design and print the brochures or offer to pick them up
You can also find out who is in charge of the funeral planning and reach out to that person and let them know that you would like to help in some way. Anything that you can do to help relieve some of the pressure off the mama to make decisions would be very helpful.
Clean Their House
Cleaning my house was the last thing that I was thinking about after losing Sam. I didn’t care if my house was clean at that time, but we had so many visitors coming in and out of our house in that first week, a clean house would be a great thing to gift this mama.
You could either personally go and clean their house or pay someone to go clean it, whichever works better for you and your time and budget, and the mom’s preference.
Another option if you aren’t able to clean yourself, is putting together a cleaning supplies basket full of gentle, fresh-scent products. This can be a thoughtful gift to leave for them to use when they’re ready.
When I lost Sam I had a sweet mama and her daughter come and clean my house. And I have to tell you – what they did for me during that time left such an impact on me. I actually still message this mama every now and then when I think about her doing that and thank her for it – even now over seven years later.
So I know that this would be a great thing to do for your mama friend and will leave a huge impact on her as well.
Gift Them Money
Not only does this family have to worry about paying for the funeral and all the costs that come with it, they also will more than likely be taking time off of work. This could cause a huge financial burden on this family.
Thinking about going back to work after walking through something as hard as losing your child seems impossible. I know that’s how I felt after losing Sam.
However, because of the gifts that were given to us after we lost Sam, we were able to take an entire month off of work. This allowed us to be able to fully focus on healing that first month together as a family – and I will be forever grateful to everyone who was so kind in gifting money to us during that time.
So any amount of money that you can gift this mama in your life will help her be able to just focus on processing and healing from her grief. And I know that gift will make such a huge impact in her life.
Offer to Watch Their Other Children
It can be hard enough to survive those early days, but if this mama also has other kids that she has to take care of, especially if they’re younger kids, it can be a lot. So if you’re close with this mama and you feel comfortable, offer to watch her kids for her.
- Take them out for the day: You can just take the kids out for the day and give this mama a break to be able to just focus on grieving. And then this will give the other kids something fun to do. Take them to a park or out to eat or to get some ice cream. Bringing along a small comfort item (like a weighted stuffed animal or activity set) can help their kids feel cared for during a hard time.
- Take them overnight: If you’re able to take them for the night, that would be helpful too. My mom actually took my other young children to her house the first few nights. This helped me because I was able to really let all of my emotions flow freely. If my other young children were around, I would be afraid that I would scare them with how big my emotions were at that time. So if you can take them and let them spend the night, that would be helpful.
- Bring them to a friend’s house: If your mama has older children, then they can go stay with a friend for a day or two. I also had a 15-year-old at the time we lost Sam and he fully understood what was going on. So what he was experiencing and feeling during this time was a little bit different than what my six-year-old was experiencing and feeling. So picking them up and taking them to a friend’s house would be helpful to not just the mama, but also the child as well.
Gift Them Something That’s Tied to Their Child
After we lost Sam, we had some very thoughtful friends and family who gifted us with things that were tied to Sam and our story.
When I think back to all the kindness that was shown to us in that time, it brings a smile to my face. All the things that were given to me I still cherish to this day.
Gifts don’t have to be elaborate to make a deep impact. In fact, small, thoughtful items can often bring the most comfort. You can find many meaningful ideas like this here: Best Sympathy Gifts to Offer Comfort and Support
Jewelry
I received several pieces of jewelry that were so special to me. And jewelry is a special gift since it’s something that can be worn for years to come. I’ve worn my jewelry several times on days that I knew would be hard and it helped bring me a peace.
So here are some ideas of jewelry gifts:
- Necklaces that have the child’s picture in them
- Necklaces and bracelets that had Bible verses or special sayings on them
- Necklace that has the dried flowers from the funeral inside of it
Using the Child’s Drawings or Handwriting
If the child was younger like our Sam, you can take their drawings and make something out of it.
- Coffee Cup: Sam had drawn a triangle man and my friend took that drawing and made a vinyl decal that they placed on a coffee cup.
- Framed Art: My husband made a frame for one of Sam’s drawings that we display proudly to this day.
- Signature Tattoo: This one is a little different, but if you know the mama would appreciate a tattoo of their child’s signature, you could gift them money to go get a tattoo in memory of their precious child.
Gifts Using Their Clothing
These gifts will be something you’ll need to coordinate with the mama ahead of time because you’ll have to get the shirts from her and she will have to be okay with having their shirts cut up. But the result of what I received using Sam’s shirts are things I cherish to this day!
- T-Shirt Quilt: We received a beautiful quilt made out of Sam’s t-shirts. This would be a great gift because it’s something that this mama can wrap up in when she’s missing her child, almost like being able to hug them. It brings so much comfort to my heart.
- T-Shirt Pillow: Another thing that was made with one of Sam’s collared t-shirts was a little pillow made out of that shirt. This is another thing that this mama will be able to hold and hug that was their childs.
- Bandana Blanket: This is a great idea to gift the siblings of the child that is now in heaven. A kind lady took one of Sam’s blankets and made bandanas out of it. She then bought stuffed bears and tied the bandana on the bear and gifted them to my other children so they could have something that was their brothers.
For more ideas on practical and meaningful ways to support a grieving mother, take a look at my list of thoughtful, comforting gifts for grieving moms.
Photo Collage
This is something that is so special and we still have up to this day. A friend of ours went on our Facebook page and download pictures of Sam, printed them out and made a collage with all of these pictures.
You could either go to their Facebook page or reach out to friends and family and have them send the pictures to you.
You could either have them printed on a canvas like this one. Or you could buy a collage frame and print the pictures out to put them in yourself.
I know this will bring a smile to this mama’s face to see so many pictures of her sweet baby’s face all in one frame.
There were so many people who did so many kind things for us during that time, including people we didn’t even know.
So if you’re feeling like the world is such a negative place and there is no kindness in the world anymore, I’m here to tell you that there are kind people out there. Losing Sam brought out that kindness towards our family.
And now you have some ideas that you can use to be that kindness in someone’s life as well.
More Ideas for Healing From Grief
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