The Forgotten Grievers

When a child dies, people tend to ask, “How’s the mother?”
They mean well. They picture the pain of carrying a child, raising them, and then having to say goodbye far too soon.
And yes — that pain is like nothing else.

But often, the father is overlooked.

Dads grieve too.

I’ve watched Andrew carry this heartbreak in a way that’s hard to describe. Quietly. Silently. He broke right in front of me, but in a way most people never saw.
He held our kids when I couldn’t.
He answered calls, spoke to police, sorted details I couldn’t even begin to process.

And still, the questions came in: How’s Libby holding up?
Almost never, How’s Andrew?

But Sean was his boy too. His little mate. His shadow.

Andrew still has moments — hearing a song, seeing a photo, sitting in the quiet — when it all floods back. He doesn't show it often, but I know it's always there.

Please, if you know a grieving dad, ask him how he's doing.
Even if he shrugs it off. Even if he says he's fine.

Because that pain — it doesn't disappear. It just gets quieter.

Our other kids — Sean’s brother and two sisters — carried their own kind of grief. Each so different. Each so deep.

Some went inward, some acted out, some tried to hold the rest of us together. And there were times I saw the pain in their eyes and realised… I hadn’t truly seen them in days. I was lost in my own world of grief.

But they’d lost their brother. A piece of their world. Their teammate, their comedian, their sparring partner, their biggest fan.

I really tried to give them the grace and safe space they needed to grieve. I wanted to. I meant to. But maybe not as much as I should have — because truthfully, I was barely hanging on.

Sometimes I carry guilt for that. For not being the mum they needed while we all tried to make sense of the unthinkable.

Grief doesn’t just take a child. It ripples out. It takes normalcy, laughter, sleep. It shifts the shape of a whole family.

And it wasn’t just us.

Sean’s friends were devastated. Some were only 17 or 18 — barely adults — and suddenly facing death head-on. Some messaged me, some came to visit, some stayed quiet, maybe unsure what to say or how to say it. But their hearts were broken too.

Our parents — Sean’s grandparents — had to watch their own children go through the unimaginable. We each had to call our parents and tell them that their beloved grandchild had died. I didn’t stop to think then what it meant for them too — to watch our hearts shatter.

Sean’s aunties and uncles… they lost their nephew, their cheeky boy with the twinkle in his eye. Seanyramus was my sister Rachel's nickname for him. She was there for us in the beginning of his life and she was there for me in the end of his life and, in a lot of ways, she saved my life. Her support never flinching. Just being there and listening.

This loss didn’t just belong to our immediate family. It spread far and wide. There is always someone somewhere, besides us, that thinks of Sean every day.

Because when someone so young, as full of life, love, and mischief as Sean is taken too soon — the absence isn’t quiet. It’s thunderous. And it lingers.