The Northwest Arkansas-based organization Parents Left Behind will again this summer host "Joined on the Journey," a half-day gathering for bereaved parents who have lost a child. Organizers emphasize the day, to be held at Central United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, is not a seminar, not a conference, but a space for understanding, whether the loss is recent or years old. Susan Averitt founded the group.
Averitt: We are not a faith-based group. We are not trying to get anything from anyone. We are basically creating a support network of bereaved parents who can be there for one another. Our event is called Joined on the Journey because we believe that after you lose a child, you become someone who is on a journey of grief that is lifelong. There's no destination. It's not something you get over. It's not something you can fix. It's just a new way of living that you have to forge through, and we want to be able to be there for one another on that journey.
Kellams: And none of those journeys are exactly the same, right?
Averitt: That's correct, yes. And we try really hard not to compare. I think that's one thing about having been through such a loss — when we talk to people who haven't experienced it, sometimes they'll say, "well, at least you didn't lose two children," or "at least you got five years." There's no "at least," and there's no way to kind of make it OK. So I think we all just understand that this is the most horrific loss that anyone could suffer, and there's no comparison.
Kellams: You're going to have a gathering — you call them gatherings — in mid-August. What takes place?
Averitt: Our gathering is an annual event in which we bring bereaved parents together. It is free. There's no cost for participants. We come together for a little bit of food and some fellowship. We have a keynote speaker who is usually either a bereaved parent or someone who works with bereaved parents, an expert in that field, to talk to us about whatever piece of advice or shared stories we want to discuss together. That's our keynote address. Then we break out into small groups and discuss our shared, different experiences that can be similar in a way. Some people have marital or relationship problems as a result of it. Some people are not able to return to their jobs, or are not able to stay in their same friend groups. Some people have a faith crisis. Some people are struggling with how do I remember my child in a way that's meaningful. So we have different groups to get together and talk through our shared, different types of problems that we are suffering from, and that we feel is a different experience, but there's a certain shared pathway that sometimes we end up on.
Kellams: I would imagine if you've suffered this unimaginable loss, it can be difficult to talk to people who haven't, or who might not know how to best talk or best comfort or what to say. So I imagine being in a room with people who have had, even if varied, an essentially similar loss can help to some degree.
Averitt: I think one thing it does is, when you've lost a child, it sounds so horrible to other people that we sometimes find ourselves either not talking about it or trying not to throw it out there for other people. But in this environment, everyone's been through such a catastrophic loss that we feel comfortable saying our child's name to one another, telling our stories to one another. We feel like we're not making the other person uncomfortable, because they are also in our same shoes with that regard.
Kellams: What helped you create Parents Left Behind — what spurred you into action to actually begin the gatherings?
Averitt: When I moved to Fayetteville, it was only a few months after my daughter died, and I was just searching for support, searching for a group, and really couldn't find one. There was a group for kind of infant loss that I had found, but it didn't match my experience. There was this grieving parent support group that had formed over at Rolling Hills Baptist Church in Fayetteville, and also, Steve Sheely, the preacher there, was doing an annual candlelighting service the second Sunday in December. So there were a few things I had found, but as a pediatrician, what really sparked me to start the group was when I was helping a family that had a child with a fatal diagnosis. I knew the death of their child was imminent, and you feel a bit helpless being part of the health care team, knowing a child won't survive, but then also projecting to what's going to happen after that child dies. How can that mom, how can those parents find help?
I started turning it over in my mind — what could be helpful, how could I use my experiences as a bereaved mom to help bring someone else into the fold and give them a little bit of support on their journey. I didn't really know exactly how I wanted to do that, but I was serving on the chaplain board for my hospital system at the time, and our head chaplain did chaplain training, so he had a lot of chaplains in training working with him. I went and met with him, and he said, why don't you get together with some of the chaplain team and just brainstorm and talk it through and see what you might come up with and see how we might help. So we did our first event back in 2014, and I felt like it was kind of like a wedding — it was such a big undertaking. Then as soon as it was over, it was like, OK, now we need to start planning for next year. I was like, oh, I thought we were just doing this one time. It was a big labor of love for me and for the other people who were part of it, but it just helped so many people, and the people it helped are not the same every year. There are new parents who become bereaved, and there are parents who hear about us who need us. So it became more of a ministry and a mission to help support these people, and we just kept it going after that.
Kellams: And it's open to bereaved parents of any experience?
Averitt: We want it to be open to anyone who's lost a child, at any time, at any age. One of my favorite people we helped had been a bereaved mom who had had infant loss 28 years earlier and had not done any sort of grief work, because she was in a relationship where her husband felt like they needed to just push it down and go on and didn't want it to interfere with what they were trying to accomplish in their lives. That didn't work for her. They didn't grieve the same way, and he really wouldn't let her talk about it. She didn't have support and resources, so she was really in a bad place. She heard about our group and decided to come, and now she's on our board and very involved and helps other bereaved moms. But she didn't know that's what she needed. She couldn't even name it. But by hearing about our group and learning that there were other people working together and networking with other bereaved parents, she had the courage to try it out, and it's made a huge impact in her life.
Kellams: Finally, what if someone hearing our conversation thinks they could benefit, or maybe benefit, but they think, "well, it was a long time ago," or "but this," or "but that," so they're not sure they'd fit in?
Averitt: Whenever someone tells me they've lost a child and they put a "but" in there, I just stop them and say, there's no "but." You've lost a child. You're there. You're us. We're here for you. I went and gave a talk a few months ago to a group of teachers, a teaching sorority, and many of the women in the room were retired. I could just tell, as I was telling about it, that there were two or three women in there who had suffered. You could just see these looks on their faces, and this true grief came out in their eyes during the talk. Afterward, when I spoke to a couple of them, they said, "well, I lost my son, but" — and I don't even remember what the "but" was, because there's no "but" that makes it OK. So I just try to put my hand on their shoulder and say, that's just the worst thing I've ever heard, and you are grieving, and you are a part of our group, and if you need us, we're here. There's nothing that excludes you from our group if you've lost a child.
Kellams: Thank you so much for your time.
Averitt: Thank you. I appreciate your interest and your featuring us, and hopefully that'll bring some people to our gathering.
Susan Averitt is the founder of Parents Left Behind. Joined on the Journey 2026 is at Central United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, Aug. 15 from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. Child care will be available, with a certified counselor available to lead children in grief-sensitive crafts and story time centered around sibling loss. The event is free. More information by searching for Joined on the Journey 2026 at Eventbrite, or more about Parents Left Behind at their Facebook page or at parentsleftbehind.org.
Our conversation took place over Zoom last week.
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