The holidays don't feel like a celebration to everyone.

For some women, they begin with dread. 

A familiar song, an empty chair, a family photograph, 

or an ordinary trip through a store can bring back a loss that never stopped mattering.

You might be grieving someone who died. 

You might be living with estrangement, missing your Grand Children, 

facing the season alone, or struggling to find meaning in 

traditions that once gave your days purpose.

You don't have to make your grief more comfortable for anyone else here.

It begins before Halloween.

You can feel it coming. The air changes. The decorations appear. The commercials begin. Families start making plans. And somewhere, a mother is sitting alone, staring at a photograph of a child she can't reach, a child she can't hold, or a child she'll never see again.

And the grief begins to rise.

By Thanksgiving, it's everywhere. By Christmas, it's almost suffocating. 

And by New Year's, so many of us are simply trying 

to survive what the rest of the world calls the most wonderful time of the year.

It is tsunami-sized grief. Unspeakable. Relentless. Sometimes unbearable.

Every single day, another woman comes staggering onto 

these shores with a story that takes the breath right out of us.

"I've lost my Son."

Four words.

And behind those four words is an entire life. A mother. A child. A history. 

A future that may never unfold as she imagined.

Those of us who've walked these shores know what happens next.

We recognize her grief. We feel it in places we thought had finally stopped bleeding. 

We reach for her because we remember what it was like to arrive here ourselves.

But there's something we must understand as this holiday season approaches.

We cannot carry every woman's grief as though it were ours alone.

Because the waves don't stop with one mother. Another arrives. And another. And another.

And the women who've been standing in that water, holding everyone else 

above the surface, begin to disappear beneath it themselves.

We cannot allow that to happen.

We have to recognize when the weight is becoming too much. 

We have to protect one another. 

We have to give ourselves permission to rest without believing we've 

abandoned the women still struggling toward shore.

No woman left in the water. That includes the women holding the others up.

This is why we built a Sanctuary.

This is why we built an island.

And this is why I've made my book, 

THE HOLIDAYS AFTER THE DAUGHTER WOUND, 

available as a permanently FREE digital edition.

It's for the mothers whose children are missing from their lives. 

For the Grand Mothers who can't hold their Grand Children. 

For the women grieving those who've died. 

For those facing an empty chair, an unanswered phone, or a 

holiday gathering where someone's absence fills the entire room.

It's not a book that demands you be cheerful. 

It doesn't tell you to move on, forgive on command, or pretend the holidays don't hurt.

It's a place to be witnessed.

READ THE FREE DIGITAL EDITION:

https://TheDaughterWoundProject.com

No purchase required. No payment. The book will remain free.

And as these next two months unfold, I want every woman standing 

on these shores to remember something.

We aren't being asked to survive this season alone.

We'll witness the grief.

We'll honor it.

But we cannot allow it to drown us.

We've got to stay together.

NO WOMAN LEFT IN THE WATER.

Debra Lee • Archivist
The Daughter Wound Project™
Witnessing Grief. Naming the Lie. Demanding Repair.

READ THE BOOK — PERMANENTLY FREE