Those Who Mourn

by Nichole Haugen

June arrives with pressure. Pressure to get outside. Pressure to make memories. Pressure to sign up for camps, attend barbecues, go to the lake, smile for photos, and “enjoy the season.”

But when you are grieving, summer can feel like one more reminder that the world kept moving while your heart did not.

Parenting while grieving

For parents, grief often collides with guilt in the summer months. Your children still need rides, snacks, sunscreen, attention, and memories. Life still asks things from you even when your soul feels exhausted. You may look around and wonder why everyone else seems excited while you are simply trying to survive the day.

Grief changes your capacity. Not your love. And that distinction matters.

You are allowed to let summer look different this year. Maybe this summer looks quieter. Maybe you cannot emotionally handle packed schedules, crowded gatherings, or pretending you are okay around people who do not understand your pain. Maybe your children eat popsicles on the porch instead of going on expensive vacations. Maybe the biggest accomplishment is making it through the week without completely unraveling.

Children often remember safety and connection more than perfection. They remember feeling loved. They remember your presence. A grieving parent who sits beside them during a movie night may offer more security than a parent forcing themselves through activities while emotionally depleted. It is also okay to communicate to your spouse and children that while they watch a movie, you are going to lie in your bed. Knowing your limits is a major part of healing.

You do not need to recreate someone else’s version of summer to be a good parent.  Instead, here are a few ways to reduce pressure while still caring for yourself and your family:

• Create a “minimum capacity” summer list. Pick 2–3 simple things your family can enjoy repeatedly. For example:
  • Library visits
  • Popsicles outside
  • Evening walks
  • Backyard picnics
  • A weekly movie night
  • Swimming once a week instead of every day
• Leave margin in your schedule. Avoid booking every week full. Grief is unpredictable, and emotional exhaustion can appear suddenly. I would specifically clear the week that held the anniversary of my dad’s death. That way if I chose to do something, it was fine, but I never pre-committed myself to anything.
• Let your children see honesty in healthy ways. It is okay to say:
  “Mom is feeling sad today, so we’re going to have a slower day.”
• Accept help without apologizing. If someone offers to take your kids to the park, bring a meal, or help with transportation, receiving support is not weakness.
• Lower expectations around “making memories.” Your children do not need a perfect Pinterest summer. They need love, safety, and connection.

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Others may not understand

One of the hardest parts of grief is realizing your emotional bandwidth has changed. You may want to attend the graduation party, family reunion, church picnic, neighborhood cookout, or weekend trip. But wanting to and being able to are not always the same thing.

You are allowed to say no. Not because you are selfish. Not because you do not care. But because grief is heavy.

Many grieving people feel pressure to explain or defend their boundaries. But “no” does not need a courtroom defense. I often tell my clients “No” is a complete sentence. 

Simple responses are enough:

• “Thank you for inviting us, but we’re keeping things very low-key this summer.”
• “I appreciate the invitation, but I don’t have the emotional capacity right now.”
• “We’re going to sit this one out.”
• “I’m learning to take things one week at a time.”
• “I can’t commit right now, but thank you for thinking of us.”

Young Girl on the Beach, Albert Marquet, 1898

You do not owe people access to your exhaustion. Just because your answer is ‘no for now’, does not mean it will be ‘no forever’. One painful fear in grief is wondering if life will always feel this hard.

Sometimes people interpret your absence as withdrawal, rejection, or disinterest. But protecting your heart during grief is not the same thing as abandoning relationships. This summer may simply not be the season for certain things. Try to pause before saying yes and ask yourself, ‘am I only saying yes because I feel bad saying no, or I feel like I should do it?’ If my answer to these questions are yes, then I say no. Guilt is not a good enough reason to attend anything while grieving. 

It’s okay if you can’t host something this year that you usually do. It’s okay if your traditions look different or you decline invitations to get-togethers that you have attended in the past. It’s okay if you avoid crowded places or you need more rest than usual.

Grief has seasons. Capacity has seasons, too.

One of the strangest parts of grief is that you can be surrounded by family and friends and still feel deeply alone.

You may sit at a picnic table laughing on the outside while internally feeling unseen.

You may also notice that people avoid mentioning your loss. Conversations may feel shallow and others might seem uncomfortable with your sadness. People might expect you to be “better” because some time has passed, or they might bring up your loss, but add cliché phrases or ask intrusive questions.

This can create a second layer of grief: not only mourning your loss, but mourning the feeling of being emotionally abandoned within it.

Even people who love you may not know how to sit with suffering. Many are uncomfortable with pain they cannot fix. Their silence may come from helplessness, not lack of love — but that does not make the loneliness hurt any less.

And sometimes grief changes you so deeply that normal conversations feel disconnected from your reality.

This is a normal feeling.

Jesus knows your pain

It’s okay to allow this feeling and not rush yourself past it. Even if you cannot sit with it while it is happening, it is good practice at the end of the day to reflect and ask Jesus where He was present with you.

Jesus knows your pain. There are moments in Scripture where Jesus was surrounded by people and still carried sorrow others could not fully understand. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples fell asleep while He suffered. On the cross, many walked away. Suffering can feel isolating, even in community.

As Catholics, we are reminded that Christ does not merely observe suffering from a distance — He entered into it.

He is present in the exhausted mother trying to survive the summer. He is present in the widower sitting quietly at a family barbecue. He’s there with the grieving parents watching everyone else have babies and move forward. He’s beside the couple who smile publicly while privately breaking apart.

Your grief is not invisible to God.

Even when others do not fully see your pain, He does.

Maybe this summer is not about creating the perfect memories. Maybe it is about survival with softness.

Maybe it is about learning slower rhythms, honest boundaries, and smaller joys. Maybe it’s about creating deeper dependence on God and giving yourself permission to grieve without shame.

You do not need to force healing. You do not need to perform happiness. And you do not need to carry everyone else’s expectations while carrying grief, too.

This summer may look different, but different is okay.

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