The Orange Glow Project
The Orange Glow Project

Blog

Stories, guidance, and updates.

Honest writing about child loss, practical information for families and the people supporting them, and updates from The Orange Glow Project.

Latest articles

Grief and Life After Loss||4 min read

Press Release: Two Years After Losing Her Son, Baton Rouge Mother Builds Support for Families Facing Child Loss

Baton Rouge, LA – When Kathryn Juneau and James Maddi’s 14-month-old son, Mitchell, drowned on October 16, 2024, their family entered a world no parent expects to navigate. In the days following Mitchell’s death, family, friends, medical professionals and members of the community surrounded the Juneau family with compassion. But as the weeks and months passed, Kathyrn and James began to recognize a gap between the support families receive immediately after a child dies and what they need as grief continues. Mitchell’s age also revealed another gap. The Juneau-Maddi’s found that some existing

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Grief and Life After Loss||3 min read

Grounding When Grief Pulls You Out of the Present

Grief does not always arrive as a thought. Sometimes it arrives in the body, pulling us away from the present and back into a moment that changed everything. Grounding cannot make grief smaller, but it may gently help the body notice: I am here, in this moment.

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Grief and Life After Loss||5 min read

The Doorways Grief Opens

Deep grief can lead us to doorways we never expected to find. Recognizing what grief changes does not make the loss a gift. It simply allows us to decide what we create within a life we did not choose.

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Grief and Life After Loss||3 min read

Grief Was Never Meant to Be Carried Alone

After the loss of a child, families may be surrounded by care in the first days- only to find themselves increasingly alone once the funeral ends and everyone else returns to everyday life. Grief does not disappear when the flowers fade. In this reflection, we explore why grief was never meant to be carried alone and how continued, compassionate presence can help families feel remembered for years to come.

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Grief and Life After Loss||4 min read

The Person Grief Introduced Me To

Grief does not simply break our hearts. It introduces us to versions of ourselves we never expected to meet. This is about missing who we were before loss while learning to meet who we are now slowly, gently, and without judgment.

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Grief and Life After Loss||8 min read

Tools for the Toolbox: Journaling When Grief Has Nowhere to Go

Grief after the loss of a child can leave thoughts, memories, and emotions with nowhere to go. In the first installment of our monthly *Tools for the Toolbox* series, we explore how journaling may help some grieving parents express what feels too heavy to carry internally. It is not a cure or a promise of healing—just one gentle, psychology-informed tool you can choose to use when, and if, it feels right for you.

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Grief and Life After Loss||6 min read

When a Child Dies: The Isolation of a Loss That Defies the Natural Order

Child loss defies the natural order. A parent is supposed to watch their child grow, not learn how to live in a world without them. And because that reality is so painful, people often go quiet. But silence can deepen the isolation. Grieving parents do not need us to fix what cannot be fixed. They need us to keep showing up, keep remembering, and keep saying their child’s name.

Kathryn JuneauRead article
Grief and Life After Loss||3 min read

There Is No Wrong Way to Celebrate a Birthday After Loss

Some families throw birthday parties. Some visit the cemetery. Some bake a cake. Some spend the day volunteering. Some stay in bed. Some laugh. Some cry. Most of us do a little of both. None of those choices are wrong.

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Grief and Life After Loss||6 min read

Grief Changed Me, and That Is Normal

But what happens when the person we were before our loss no longer exists?

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The Orange Glow Project currently provides grief care packages for families after the loss of a child and practical guidance for the people supporting them.

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