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Losing a Child: Always Andy's Mom

As a pediatrician, married mom of three biological children and one foster son, my life was busy, rushing off to my office four days a week, seeing patients for three and working as a medical director of a local physician organization for one. I balanced this with rushing off to shuttle my kids to after sports and other after school activities. All of this changed one day in August of 2018 when my 14 year old son, Andy, was killed in a car accident. I felt like my life was over, and in some ways it was over, and a new life was forced to begin in its place. 

Grief is seldom discussed openly in our culture, and the death of a child makes people feel even more uncomfortable. On this blog and podcast, ‘Losing a Child: Always Andy’s Mom’, the topic is approached openly and honestly, speaking to people who have lost loved ones and experts who help care for them. Whether you are a parent experiencing loss or someone who wants to support another going through this tragedy, this blog and podcast strives to offer hope and help.

May 14, 2026

Say my child's name.

It sounds like such a simple thing. And yet for so many grieving parents, it is the thing people around them are least willing to do. They look at you with that familiar expression, the one you can see right through, and they stay quiet, thinking their silence is a kindness.

Cindy knows that look...


May 7, 2026

Parent. Sister. Friend.

That was the order Andrea established with her little sister Adrienne when Adrienne was just nine years old, fresh into a new life in Los Angeles after their mother signed over custody on the day after Christmas. Andrea was twenty-two. She had not planned any of this. But she looked at her...


Apr 30, 2026

Grief is permanent. But it doesn't have to be all-consuming.

That is the quiet, hard-won truth at the heart of this conversation with Wesley, Graham's mom. And it is the kind of truth that only comes from ten years of living with loss.

Graham was adopted at five months old, a boy who struggled from early on with...


Apr 23, 2026

Some dates just carry weight.

April 23rd. The anniversary of Taylor's death. Two days after what would have been Andy's 22nd birthday.

When Jam reached out and asked to come back on, I looked at the calendar and knew immediately. There was no one else I wanted in this space this week.

If you haven't yet listened to


Apr 16, 2026

Abnormalities.

That is the word that changed Matthew and his wife Hannah's lives forever. They went in for a routine ultrasound, their almost two-year-old son Walker playing happily beside them in the waiting room, and left knowing that their lives would never be the same, and that their son Noah was unlikely to...