Dealing with birthdays and anniversaries after child loss can feel incredibly heavy in ways that are hard to explain to anyone who has never lived through it.

When people hear the phrase healing after losing a child, it can almost sound impossible. For a long time, I felt that way too. How do you heal from a loss so deep, so life-changing, and so tied to your heart? How do you continue living after losing a child you loved with every part of yourself?

Research actually supports what that woman already knew intuitively. A practice called “forest bathing,” known in Japanese as Shinrin-yoku, has been shown to lower cortisol levels, reduce anxiety, and restore emotional balance. Trees, it turns out, are remarkably good listeners.

There is something about getting the words out of your body and onto a page that releases even just a little bit of pressure. You don’t need grammar. You don’t need full sentences. You don’t need to explain yourself to anyone.

In the village where I grew up, death lived only in distant stories. It never entered our small circle of mud-brick houses and mango trees.