“Silence is golden,” the saying goes, and there are many instances where that proves true.
The quiet of early morning before the world fully stirs can offer a sense of clarity and calm. The hush that follows a shared moment of connection or a simple pause during a heartfelt conversation can speak volumes in the absence of words.
Silence, in its chosen and safe form, can be sacred. It can steady the breath, soothe the heart, and create space for understanding to deepen without pressure.Yet not all silence is chosen, and not all silence heals. There are forms of silence that do not come from peace but from avoidance. They do not console but instead deepen pain. Within the landscape of grief, particularly when that grief is unrecognised, stigmatised, or misunderstood, silence can feel less like comfort and more like abandonment. When pain is met not with witness but with retreat, silence becomes its own kind of injury.T
Throughout June, SANDS Awareness Month challenges precisely this kind of silence.
Established to support families affected by stillbirth or neonatal death, the campaign creates space for recognition where silence too often dominates. It reminds the wider public that behind each statistic is a life mourned, a future rewritten, and a grief that lingers. Yet as this month draws to a close, the invitation it offers need not end. In fact, its deeper relevance reaches far beyond stillbirth alone. It calls us to reflect more broadly on how grief is met in our culture, whose stories are allowed space, and whose pain remains quietly side-lined.
Stillbirth and neonatal death are often considered unmentionable. Not because they are rare, sadly thousands of families are impacted each year, but because they stir discomfort. That discomfort leads many people to say nothing at all, believing silence will protect or preserve, when in fact, it isolates. When someone has lost a baby and their experience is met with avoidance, no questions asked, no name spoken, no memory acknowledged, the silence does not feel respectful. It feels like erasure.
This pattern, though particularly acute around baby loss, repeats itself in many forms of bereavement and ambiguous loss. The same silence follows the woman who miscarries and is told to move on because “it was early.” It follows the man whose friend dies by suicide and who receives nothing more than awkward nods and cautious distance. It shadows those grieving loved ones lost to overdose, violence, estrangement, or stigma. It encircles those grieving the absence of someone still alive: a parent in care who no longer remembers them, a child lost to addiction or institutional systems, a former partner whose departure shattered a shared life. In all these cases, grief is often complicated by the shame of having nowhere to place it. When society does not make room for certain types of loss, the mourner is left not only with their sorrow, but also with the burden of carrying it alone.In my therapeutic work, shame frequently emerges as a secondary wound in grief. It is not born from the loss itself, but from the response to it – or lack thereof.
This kind of shame settles in when the bereaved senses that their pain is too much for others, that their memories are unwelcome, or that their emotions are inconvenient. It creeps in when their grief is not given voice because others would rather avoid it. It becomes especially toxic when internalised, leading individuals to silence themselves, to edit their stories, to wonder if their loss truly “counts.”
The antidote to this kind of shame is not advice or solution. It is not the dismissal that so often accompanies grief; “At least they are no longer suffering,” or “Everything happens for a reason.” Rather, it is authentic honour.
To honour someone’s grief is to meet it with full presence and without condition. It is to acknowledge that something of immense value has been lost and that the person who mourns is not broken, but simply responding to the rupture in their life with human depth. Honour, in this sense, is not performative. It is found in small and consistent gestures: remembering a name, acknowledging a date, making space for a story that may be difficult to hear. It does not require perfect words, in fact, when words fail, presence often speaks loudest. A hand on the shoulder, a message that says “I’ve been thinking of you,” or a moment set aside to listen without interruption: these are not trivial acts. They communicate, without pretence, that the grief is valid and that the person grieving is not alone.
Too often, people fear saying the wrong thing, so they say nothing. They believe it is better not to mention the loss, fearing they might remind the person of their pain. What they often miss is that the pain is already there, the silence does not protect; it isolates. By contrast, naming the loss does not reopen a wound, it signals that the wound is seen and that its existence matters.
As June draws to a close, there may be many individuals who feel a renewed intensity in their grief. Awareness months, anniversaries, and public campaigns can surface complex emotions. For some, this might include sorrow, longing, or a sense of reconnection. For others, it might stir anger or renewed frustration at how invisible their grief has been to the outside world. There is no right way to respond. Some will find comfort in participatingm, through rituals, journalling, planting trees, lighting candles, or joining community events. Others may choose solitude, avoiding public expressions and tending to their sorrow privately. Both are valid, what matters is that the grief is not judged for its form.
Grief, when witnessed with honour, becomes easier to carry. Not lighter, necessarily, but less lonely. This is not to suggest that grief needs to be shared widely or made public. Rather, it is the option of sharing that matters, knowing there is someone who will listen without flinching, someone who will hear the story without trying to fix or explain it away. The kind of witness that says, in essence, “I am not afraid of your pain. You do not need to hide it from me.”
There are many griefs in our society that are still stifled by shame. These include experiences shaped by trauma, complex relationships, and marginalised identities. A person who has lost a parent who was abusive may feel a profound dissonance, grieving not only the person but the relationship that was never what it should have been. The individual grieving the loss of a family who never fully accepted them may carry both sadness and rejection. The person who ends a pregnancy under painful or coercive circumstances may feel isolated within political and cultural narratives that offer little room for nuance.
These are not uncommon experiences,they are simply less spoken of. Where grief intersects with shame, silence is often its most dangerous companion. It leads individuals to question the legitimacy of their own emotions. It teaches them to stay quiet, to minimise, to internalise and yet, grief in all its forms, whether expected or sudden, celebrated or stigmatised, requires recognition. That recognition is the beginning of healing. It does not undo the loss, but it softens the belief that one must grieve alone, or that their grief is somehow unworthy of acknowledgement.
Authentic honour shifts this dynamic. It allows space not only for sadness, but also for the complexity of emotions that often accompany it; relief, confusion, longing, guilt, anger, even moments of peace. There is no template for grief, but there can be consistent invitations to speak, to remember, and to feel without fear of judgement. The responsibility to create these spaces does not lie solely with therapists or support groups. It is a shared human task. In our workplaces, communities, and families, we can learn to respond to grief with courage rather than retreat. We can ask, “Would you like to tell me about them?” or “What would be helpful right now?” We can listen without interrupting. We can stop assuming that silence equals healing.
Even now, as this awareness month comes to a close, there are many ways to honour grief. It might involve checking in with someone who has experienced loss, even if time has passed. It might involve learning how to support a friend who is struggling with a complex bereavement. It might simply involve examining our own relationship to discomfort and silence, and asking what keeps us from speaking when someone we love is hurting. There is no perfect way to navigate grief, but there is a powerful difference between silence that soothes and silence that abandons. The former is chosen, the latter imposed.
When we choose to meet grief with presence, with words where appropriate and silence where needed, we offer something far more valuable than solutions, we offer honour, dignity and the kind of connection that makes grief survivable.
SANDS Awareness Month exists to make sure that grieving parents are not left alone with their sorrow. Its impact, though, extends into a broader truth, one that calls on all of us to remember that grief is not a problem to be solved. It is an experience to be witnessed and when that witnessing is absent, shame takes root. However, when we offer presence, even in the smallest of ways, we begin to rewrite that pattern. We begin to say, through our actions and through our silence when it holds rather than avoids, that no grief is too much, too messy, or too late to be honoured.
If you are carrying grief that has been silenced, dismissed, or misunderstood, you do not have to hold it alone. I offer a compassionate, trauma-informed space to process loss in all its forms. I have trained with CRUSE, SANDS, The Foundation for Infant Loss, and Make Birth Better, and bring both professional expertise and deep honour for your unique story. To begin working together, you can book a an introductory call or send me an email.
If you or someone you know has experienced the loss of a baby, SANDS offers a free national helpline on 0808 164 3332. For other kinds of grief support, organisations such as Cruse Bereavement Support (www.cruse.org.uk) and The Loss Foundation (www.thelossfoundation.org) can provide resources and listening spaces. No matter the nature of the loss, your grief matters. You do not have to carry it alone.
References
SANDS (2024) Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity. Available at: https://www.sands.org.uk [Accessed 29 June 2025].
Cruse Bereavement Support (2024) Grief and Bereavement Resources. Available at: https://www.cruse.org.uk [Accessed 29 June 2025].
The Loss Foundation (2024) Support for Bereavement from Cancer and Covid-19. Available at: https://www.thelossfoundation.org [Accessed 29 June 2025].
