Don't Forget To Breathe: A Podcast for Living after Child Loss.

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Xavier Thompson was 13 years old, loved sports, made friends everywhere he went, and had a special way of making everyone feel like they were his favorite person. He was funny, thoughtful, and loved playing little jokes on his mom, Brittany.

In November 2024, Xavier died unexpectedly following a medical emergency at basketball practice, just one day after celebrating making his school team.

In this episode of Don't Forget To Breathe, Brittany shares memories of Xavier, the shock of losing him, and the difficult months that followed. She talks openly about her anger, the struggles of early grief, and the unexpected community of bereaved mothers who reached out to her when she needed them most.

Through Breathe for Xavier, Brittany is now sharing her son's story while advocating for greater medical emergency preparedness and asthma awareness in schools.

It's a conversation about a boy who loved life, a mother who misses him, and the connections that can help us keep going when life has changed forever.

And sometimes, all we can do is breathe.

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Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:

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In the final episode of this three part series, Stacy Dain reflects on the life that has unfolded since the death of her daughter Cassidy, and the ways grief has shaped how she shows up for other people.

After Cassidy died, Stacy created Cassidy’s Club, providing practical items to help families spending difficult days in the hospital. Years later, after being diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer at 45, that same instinct to give became a way to support people receiving cancer treatment.

Stacy and Bruce also talk about survival, the exhaustion of wondering how much one family can endure, and the empathy that can come from having lived through devastating loss.

Stacy shares a powerful story from her work as a flight attendant, when a critically ill child and his family were aboard her flight. Her own experience as a bereaved mother helped her recognize what that family, and especially the child’s sister, might need in a moment when their lives were changing forever.

The conversation ultimately returns to Caitlin and Cassidy, Samuel and the heart he carries, and the legacy one little girl created in a life that lasted only days.

For Stacy, that legacy has become a way of living, love people while they are here, help when you can, and even when life gives you every reason to stop, don’t give up.

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Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:

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In Part Two of Bruce’s conversation with Stacy Dain, the story turns to the decision Stacy and her husband made during the final days of their daughter Cassidy’s life: organ donation.

Cassidy’s heart was ultimately transplanted into a baby boy named Samuel.

Stacy shares what it was like waiting to learn whether a recipient could be found, the mixture of heartbreak and hope surrounding the transplant, and why she came to think of Samuel as “the rainbow after the storm.”

About a year later, the two families met.

That meeting became the beginning of a relationship that has lasted for decades. Stacy watched Samuel grow up, attended his high school graduation, and eventually welcomed him and his family to Caitlin’s wedding—where she found herself looking across the room and realizing that Cassidy’s heart was there for her twin sister’s wedding.

But this conversation isn’t about organ donation somehow fixing grief. Stacy is clear that it didn’t lessen the loss of her daughter. Instead, Cassidy’s gift became another part of her story—a place where profound grief and extraordinary gratitude have learned to exist together.

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Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:

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In Part One of this three part conversation, Bruce sits down with his friend and fellow bereaved parent, Stacy Dain.

More than 27 years ago, Stacy learned she was expecting twin girls, Caitlin and Cassidy. What began with excitement and dreams of raising three young children together changed suddenly after the twins were born. Caitlin was healthy, but within minutes of Cassidy’s birth, it became clear that something was terribly wrong.

Stacy shares the devastating days that followed, the decision to keep the twins together in the NICU, and the impossible experience of bringing one daughter home while grieving the other.

She also talks about the complicated emotions of parenting a surviving twin, the comments people made without understanding their impact, the anger she carried after Cassidy’s death, and the ways her family made sure Cassidy remained part of their lives.

It’s a conversation about the dreams we have for our children, the grief that follows when those dreams are taken from us, and the enduring truth that a child who dies never stops being part of the family.

Support the show

Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1376761/support

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What happens when the person you're afraid might forget your child is you?

In Part Two of our conversation about remembering our children, Kristin shares something many bereaved parents may quietly carry: the fear and even guilt that comes when memories begin to fade. A birthday you can't completely recall. A story that's lost some of its details. A moment you know happened, but can no longer see as clearly as you once did.

Bruce and Kristin talk about those memories that sometimes seem tucked away until a photograph, a toy, a familiar place, or someone else's story unexpectedly brings them back. They also share what they most want people to remember about Zach and Kristen, and why continuing to talk about our children isn't about being stuck in the past.

For the friends, family members, and others walking beside a bereaved parent, the message is simple: don't be afraid to ask. Share the memory. Tell the story. Say their name.

And perhaps we need to give ourselves some grace, too.

We may forget some of the details, but we never forget the feelings. We remember what it felt like to be their parent. We remember the love, the pride, the laughter, and yes, the heartache of missing them.

Because those feelings aren't simply memories of our children. They're part of the relationship we still carry with them.

Support the show

Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:

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In the beginning, everyone remembers.

People call. They check in. They remember birthdays and anniversaries. They ask how you're doing. But as the years pass, something begins to change. The calls become less frequent. Fewer people mention your child's name. Life continues moving forward for everyone around you, while your child remains just as much a part of your life as ever.

In this episode of Don't Forget To Breathe, Bruce and Kristin talk openly about what remembering looks like many years after the deaths of Kristen and Zach. They share how birthdays and anniversaries have changed, what it's like watching their children's friends reach milestones their own children never had the chance to experience, and those unexpected moments when the body seems to remember even before the mind does.

They also talk about something remarkably simple that can mean so much to a bereaved parent: hearing someone say their child's name.

Because when you say their name, you're not reminding us that they died.

You're reminding us that they lived.

This is Part One of a deeply personal conversation about memory, time, and continuing to carry our children with us.

Support the show

Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1376761/support

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In Part 2 of our conversation with Erin Blechman, we begin with two words familiar to so many bereaved parents, “what if?”

What if I had noticed something? What if I had called? What if I had made a different decision?

Erin shares how guilt and child loss can become deeply intertwined, and offers a powerful reframing, turning “what if” into “even if,” as a way of confronting the painful belief that we somehow could have controlled the outcome.

The conversation expands into how child loss changes us, why every family member must be allowed to grieve differently, the importance of support groups and community, and what Erin calls our “grief illiterate culture.”

Erin also shares how the private journals she began after Max’s death became her book, My Unexpected Journey, and how her own grief eventually led her to become a grief educator and walk alongside other bereaved parents.

And finally, we return to Max, not to how he died, but to how he lived, a creative, compassionate young man with a beautiful heart who cared deeply about others.

Support the show

Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1376761/support

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Erin Blechman describes her son Max as one of the most interesting people she has ever known. He was intelligent, creative, compassionate, funny, and deeply sensitive. He played music, wrote poetry and short stories, performed stand up comedy, and cared deeply about the injustices he saw in the world.

Max also lived with major depressive disorder, and in June of 2020, at age 25, he died by suicide.

In Part 1 of this two part conversation, Erin shares Max’s life beyond the circumstances of his death and speaks openly about the earliest days of child loss, the fog of grief, the yearning to be with your child again, anger, survival, and the isolation bereaved parents can experience.

Bruce and Erin also explore the relationship between grief and trauma, and why understanding both can be an important part of learning to live after the unimaginable.

This episode includes an open conversation about suicide, mental health, and child loss.

Support the show

Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1376761/support

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What happens when a group of mothers who have experienced the death of a child step away from everyday life and into the mountains together?

In this special episode of Don't Forget To Breathe, Kristin reunites with several of the moms who shared a retreat weekend in the Colorado mountains. Together, they reflect on what they carried home with them, the connections they formed, and what it means to spend time with people who understand a grief that so often feels impossible to explain.

Their conversation explores the isolation of child loss, learning to be gentle with yourself around anniversaries and milestones, allowing others to show up for you, and discovering that laughter and joy do not betray the children we love and miss.

They also talk honestly about how different grief can look from one parent to another, and why sometimes the greatest gift isn't advice or the right words, but simply having someone willing to sit beside you and say, "Your tears are safe with me."

There is no retreat that can change the reality that our children died. But finding people who understand can change how we carry that loss.

If you've been feeling alone in your grief, we hope this conversation reminds you that you don't have to carry it alone.

The Don't Forget To Breathe Foundation is planning additional retreat weekends for bereaved parents, including an upcoming Mother's Retreat in November 2026. Visit dontforgettobreathefoundation.org or reach out to us to learn more.

Come as you are. We'll meet you there.

Support the show

Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1376761/support

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Don’t Forget To Breathe

I still talk to you in empty rooms

In the silence and the Sunday afternoons

Some days I laugh

Some days I break

Some days I don’t know

What my heart can take

And everybody says that time moves on

But they don’t know a love this strong

So we carry what we cannot leave

And somehow learn to breathe

So don’t forget to breathe

When the night gets hard to see

When the world keeps moving on

And you’re still holding on

There’s a place for every tear

Every memory still here

You are not alone tonight

We’ll sit with you awhile

And don’t forget to breathe

We speak their names around this fire

Like keeping love alive is our desire

And maybe grief’s just love that stays

Long after someone slips away

So pull your chair a little near

There’s healing in the stories shared right here

No fixing words

No grand relief

Just hearts that still believe

So don’t forget to breathe

When the ache won’t let you sleep

When the quiet feels too loud

And you can’t stand in the crowd

There’s a road we didn’t choose

Still we walk it two by two

You are not alone tonight

We’ll sit with you awhile

And don’t forget to breathe

Ahhhh

Love don’t end

It just changes shape again

Ohhhh

And the ones we miss the most

Still live inside these souls

So don’t forget to breathe

Through the heartbreak and the grief

There’s a light we cannot see

Still shining quietly

And if all you do today

Is simply make it through the pain

That is more than enough tonight

You’re still here and so are we

So don’t forget

Don’t forget to breathe

Don’t forget to breathe

Don’t Forget To Breathe

Support the show

Help keep the Don’t Forget To Breathe podcast going. Become a supporter today and be part of the movement to bring light, connection, and hope to those living with loss. Follow this link to become a Supporter:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1376761/support