My five year old lost her favorite doll BobaTea on our trip to Korea. When she realized she was gone, in the car she wailed and wailed.

Me being dad + hospital chaplain, I process the grief with her. This is a real loss. A family member tries to say “That’s why you watch your dolls” but I stop them. I ask my daughter her favorite memories with BobaTea and what she would miss most about her. She shares for an hour. I tell her any time she misses her doll, she can tell me about her.

Then I notice my wife in the car, she has tears down her face. Her grandfather had recently passed away.

Our daughter and I had been talking about grief and memories and the frustration and even anger over loss. For my wife, to see how seriously I embraced the grief in the parenting and glimpse of chaplaincy, maybe it was healing for her too.

It’s important that any and every loss, no matter how “big” or “small” or recent or removed, is embraced fully.

Grief is a story that has to be heard.

To BobaTea. 🇰🇷❤️‍🩹