December 7, 11am-12:15am Pacific

Bearing the Unbearable is part of our monthly series in 2025 called Grief Conversations.

How do we bear a loss that defies all language?

When profound loss enters our lives, it shatters not only our hearts but the very fabric of what we understand about ourselves and the world. And when that loss is the death of an infant or young child, the devastation can shatter everything. There is the grief of their death, and there is also the grief of all that will never be: first words unspoken, milestones never reached, futures erased before they could unfold. Perhaps there is guilt about what we could or couldn't do. Perhaps there is rage at a universe that allows such devastation. Perhaps there is a body that remembers holding this child, arms that still ache with emptiness.

How do we go on as parents when our children are gone? How do we carry any unbearable loss?

We will not arrive at answers in this gathering. Everyone's experience is so different, and the death of a baby or young child is a rupture that resists easy understanding. But we will meet this sacred sorrow with all the reverence and tenderness it deserves, holding space for the complexity of grief: the unbearable love, the questions that haunt us, and the slow work of learning to carry what cannot be fixed.

In this profound conversation, Death and Bereavement Scholar Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, whose life's work centers on accompanying bereaved parents (especially those who have lost infants and young children) with radical compassion, joins spiritual guide and bereaved mother Mirabai Starr to explore how we continue to love our children and honor our grief in a world that often asks us to do neither.

This Gathering Is For You If You Are:

• Grieving the loss of an infant or young child

•  Grieving the loss of a child at any age

•  Carrying any profound loss that feels unbearable

•  Supporting someone through the death of a baby or child

•  Seeking compassionate, non-pathologizing approaches to grief

•  Looking for community with others who understand devastating loss, especially bereaved parents

•  Searching for ways to honor your child's life without being told to "move on"

•  Wondering how to continue as a parent when your child has died

•  Needing permission to grieve in your own way and time

•  Curious about Dr. Cacciatore's groundbreaking work with bereaved parents

Through Our Time Together, You Will:

• Discover compassionate approaches to bearing unbearable grief, particularly the death of infants and children

•  Learn about accompaniment rather than "treatment" for loss

•  Explore how ritual and remembrance can honor children's brief but profound lives

•  Understand grief as a sacred response to profound love

•  Connect with a community of fellow travelers in grief, especially bereaved parents

•  Find language for what often feels unspeakable

•  Gain perspective on how love and grief continue together

•  Learn about Dr. Cacciatore's Compassionate Bereavement Care model developed for bereaved parents and Mirabai Starr’s approach to grief as a spiritual path

Questions We'll Explore:

• How do we hold space for grief that defies language, especially when a baby or young child dies?

•  What does compassionate accompaniment look like for bereaved parents?

•  How can ritual help us honor our children's lives, no matter how brief?

•  What role does community play in bearing the unbearable?

•  How do we resist the medicalization of parental grief?

•  How do we continue as parents after our children die?

•  What does Dr. Cacciatore's work teach us about all forms of devastating loss?

Suggested Donation $25-35

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