The Compassionate Friends Queensland

17/01/2025

I don't really feel like talking
I lost someone close to me
There are just some things
Your eyes cannot un see

Excuse me if I am quiet
I don't have much to say
I haven't been the same
Not since that painful day

The world is too loud now
My heart cannot cope
It's broken, I'm afraid
And there is no antidote

So for now,
Home is where I'll stay
Attending to my heart
Safe and tucked away

HER WILD
Sharyn Marsh
Art work unknown

15/01/2025

And this is why TCFQ offers a safe place for parents to share their grief and their journey. Our next support meeting is this Saturday at Shop 4/970 Logan Road from 10am. Afterwards two of our members who have done workshops before will share with us a traditional Aboriginal meditation “ Daddiri” This is a visual journey starting by using the inner spring to cleanse our body. A journey of oneness with the earth, connection and listening. We will have a break between our support meeting and experiencing this journey, to enable us to be a little more relaxed. Bring a plate to share if you wish.

Some say time heals all wounds, but I've found it's not time alone - it's the quiet strength we find in each other's stories. Like stars appearing in the darkness, each shared memory of loss illuminates the path for someone else. We don't overcome grief; we learn to weave it into something meaningful together.

There's a sacred kind of trust in showing our broken pieces to another soul, knowing they too carry similar scars. In this vulnerable space between hearts, we find not just comfort, but a profound reminder that even in our darkest moments, we're never truly alone. This is how we transform our pain - not by diminishing it, but by sharing its weight.

~ Etheric Echoes
Etheric Echoes

~ Art Unknown

15/01/2025

Written by grief writer Liz Newman

I once asked the question on my social media pages:

“What is something you wish other people understood about grief?”

There was an overwhelmingly high number of people who had this tender and honest insight to share:

Grief is lonely.

My heart ached to read this response because I know that so many of us can deeply relate to this statement.

When we experience profound loss, our hearts break until they’re barely recognizable.

Grief shatters the heart at its very foundation making everything that was once so sure and comfortable feel unsafe and unsteady.

We may look the same, but in an instant, we have been changed forever.

Pieces of our identity, our security, and our stability suddenly don’t fit together in the way they used to or in the way that we always thought they would.

And there’s so much happening underneath the surface that others may not readily notice.

So much of our grief is happening internally, and it can leave us wondering:

“Does anyone see this but me? Does anyone feel this but me?”

As months go by, one by one, people return to normal rhythms while the griever still sits in the aftermath of their loss, desperately seeking ways to sort through it all and put the pieces back together.

It can make us feel like our grief is invisible. This sometimes causes us to retreat with our grief into silence and seclusion.

In that space, we feel the additional weight of the isolation of it all. We feel the additional weight of the loneliness of it all.

If loneliness has been a big part of your experience with grief, I want you to know that your pain is seen here.

I want you to know that grief is not something that has any set timeline or stages. Our grief is unique to us. Our pain and path and process will all be unique to us. Every heart will have a different pace, and that is more than okay.

I want you to know that, although so much of grief is personal, it is my hope that these conversations help give us the chance to walk alongside one another on each of our journeys.

I want you to know that your grief matters and that your processing matters.

And while so many of us feel the loneliness of grief, I hope we can also feel the warmth of a hand reaching for ours when we need comfort the most and a pair of eyes meeting ours when we’ve felt the most unseen.

As a society, we tend to get uncomfortable when we talk about feeling grief or feeling lonely.

Because stepping into each other’s loneliness requires bearing witness to some deep pain.

It requires an acknowledgement that grief cannot be rushed or fixed.

It requires setting aside the desire to offer advice, and instead, offer a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on.

Grief is lonely, but maybe together, when the path feels especially hard, we can find comfort in the company of another hurting soul walking alongside us, even if it’s just for a moment.

Grief is lonely, but maybe together, we can hold space for one another’s stories and bear witness to one another’s sorrows.

Grief is lonely, but maybe together, we can find moments of support and connection that help us feel a little less alone.

14/01/2025

Beyond the Expected Substack looks at where men grieve in it's latest post. After losing a child mothers and fathers are forced to deal with their grief in many different ways. Sometimes it is hard for us to undertsand each other.

I was recently reviewing the statistics on a Facebook group site for a charity that supports grieving families.

14/01/2025

The book of my life still has many pages left. As I water it with my tears, who knows what will grow. Perhaps a tree of continuing love with stronger roots than I thought possible.

14/01/2025

“The waves keep rolling in, each different from the last, and you have to ride them, instead of getting pounded to bits.”
― Lisa Althe

13/01/2025

12/01/2025

"I Couldn't Save You"
I'm so sorry I couldn't save you,
Though I tried with all my might.
The darkness came so swiftly,
And I couldn't find the light.
I would have traded all my tomorrows,
To rewrite that fateful day.
But time is a cruel master,
That steals what it won’t replay.
You slipped through my fingers,
Like sand in the crashing tide.
And now I'm left with the silence,
And the ache I cannot hide.
If love alone could save you,
You’d still be here, I know.
But now I carry your memory,
Everywhere I go.

Words n photo from Letters To Heaven (Grief Support Group)

12/01/2025

If I should leave without saying good bye
Please know that it was not by choice
The odds were stacked against me
And it was my time to go .

If I should leave quietly, without notice,
Please be aware that my journey will continue
And that I am free of suffering and pain
I continue to exist, but in a different form.

If you happen to notice my absence
I urge you to search a little deeper for my presence,
and feel assured that I never really left you .
And I continue to be there, right by your side.

And if you ever feel bereft and lonely
I hope you know that love never dies
And no matter how much time passes
There will come a time when we meet again .

Until then, be patient..
And remember
Love is eternal...

~C.E. Coombes

11/01/2025

When I am gone, do not fear my memory.
Do not be afraid to speak my name or look through old photographs.
Do not be scared to play old videos so that you might hear my voice and see me laughing.
Do not be wary of visiting my favourite places or eating my favourite foods or singing along to my favourite songs.
I know it will hurt. Those memories will remind you that I am gone.
They will stab at you like a knife in an open, gaping wound. Raw, excruciating pain.
But after a while the knife will become less sharp, the wound will become less open and the pain will become less raw.
And those memories will remind you that I was here.
That I lived.
Do not reduce my life to my death.
Speak my name, hear my voice, sing my favourite songs and visit my favourite places.
Because that’s how I can stay alive a little.
Right here with you 🧡

Becky Hemsley 2022
Beautiful image by Juli Scalzi

11/01/2025

From Angel's Are Near

10/01/2025

I sat down to try and write what it feels like to lose someone I love. But as I stared at the page, it remained empty.

How do you put into words the weight of a silence that never ends?
How do you describe the ache of missing someone so much that even your memories feel fragile, like whispers in the wind?

The truth is, there are no words for the kind of loss that changes who you are.
It’s a language of tears, a dialogue of heartache, and an understanding shared only by those who have walked this path.

Grief isn’t just sadness—it’s the void left behind, the unanswered questions, the milestones they’ll never see.
It’s carrying their absence in everything you do, while wishing—just for a moment—that you could carry them instead.

So the page stayed blank.
Because sometimes, the only way to express a loss this profound… is to feel it.
And maybe, that’s okay.

Because love, even in its absence, is bigger than words. And grief, as heavy as it is, is proof of just how deeply they mattered.

10/01/2025

I want to apologize if there are days when I seem distant or out of reach.

Sometimes, I don’t feel like myself, and it might seem like I’m shutting you out. But I hope you can understand that I, too, need time to sit with the broken pieces of myself, figuring out how to put them back together. I’m not always strong. I have moments when my emotions get the best of me, and I feel like I might fall apart. I’m not perfect—I’m just trying to find my footing again.

I’m human, and there are days when pain takes over, leaving me feeling weak and fragile. I’m learning to acknowledge those moments, to let them remind me that being strong doesn’t mean being unbreakable.

It’s about embracing the mess, the flaws, and the vulnerability that make me who I am. I’m a work in progress, and while I may falter, I’m still trying to get back up and keep moving forward.

~ Lj Blossoms, Writer’s Blossoms ~ Writer’s Blossoms

~ Art by Lucy Campbell

08/01/2025

Here is the new post from the Beyond the Expected Substack. This post was inspired by several conversations I had with TCFQ members and other grieving parents in which unfortunate comparisons were made.

After witnessing the severe illness and death of a child, you walk around for many years slightly out of phase with the rest of the world.

07/01/2025

❤️‍🩹Please add your loved ones name❤️‍🩹

04/01/2025

Our walk through grief is anything but easy. It's like walking on a tightrope ready at any given moment to fall. It's scary looking down and trying not to slip, because once you fall you have to get back up and start all over again. Grief breaks our worlds in two, and it takes years to accept that your loved one isn't coming back. Dealing with grief doesn't happen over night, it takes months, sometimes years to get through the grieving process. Be kind and patient with yourself, because grief is a long and lonely journey. Please try and reach out to someone that understands your grief, and will help you through it. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is ask for help, but realize it's too lonely to go through grief alone. We are human, and we need each other to guide us through our pain.
Post and Photo © Nancy Tucker
Grief Bursts-Grief Quotes

04/01/2025

It's not a cold month here in sunny Australia ... but January can be another hard month ... be kind to yourself ❤️‍🩹🙏

For many, January is a hard, cold month…

When everyone is setting new goals, laying down righteous ground rules and striving to become a better version of themselves, some of us are fighting to find our feet each day...

You see, December is a month of giving, and some of us, come January, are completely and utterly spent.

A month of remembering everyone, and remembering absolutely everything.

A month of including everyone and of reaching out to each and every person we have ever known.

A month of reaching breaking point every day trying to have fun, to be the ultimate hostess, to be the perfect guest.

A month of stretching ourselves financially, emotionally and of letting our boundaries be breached by many... in the spirit of the season.

And then January hits and bam... before we can even begin the arduous task of clearing away the festivities, we are expected to jump on the ‘new year, new you’ bandwagon and transform ourselves entirely.

For some of us this is just too much.

January is the darkest and most depressing month of the year and for many sensitive souls, the barrage of ‘advice’ on how we ‘should’ be living, is just too much.

So perhaps this is a safe place to say that maybe it’s okay to take a week or two to recover and to just be kind to ourselves before demanding better.

And for those of us who really do fall low in the darkest month of the year. For those of us who have given too much and to whom the future looks bleak - perhaps this is the right place to say - you are absolutely fine the way you are. Just stay.

Take some time to breathe.

Take some time to not think about anything much at all except breathing in and breathing out.

Take some time to build back up, not tear your yourself down.

For many, this month is a mountain that looks unclimbable.

Be kind, my friends. Always.

Donna Ashworth

Art by