The Smith Family share their grief and loss journey

The Smith Family Story

The Smith Family’s grief journey started very suddenly on 24 February 2018 when they received a call at 2.00am in the morning.

Clayton was 34 years old when he passed away in a single vehicle car accident in a rural town called Merriwa, in the upper Hunter Valley of NSW. From that instant so many lives changed, but most of all, that of his two children.

After the family heard about Feel the Magic during an interview on Sunrise, Indianna attended Camp.

“The day I dropped Indianna off, she was a heartbroken, angry and confused little girl, but on the day I picked her up, although that grief was still there, it wasn’t so all consuming anymore.

Indianna was more at peace and more accepting of her grief. She was able to put words together to describe her feelings and was able to use strategies she had learnt at Camp to deal with her often unpredictable and overwhelming emotions. But most of all, she found that she was not alone and that there were other girls just like her, who had experienced overwhelming loss too.

Feel the Magic is a great charity not just for kids, but also for their parents. Being a parent of two grieving children is totally overwhelming and emotionally draining, and the parents groups and the online support you receive from Feel the Magic is invaluable.”

“If we have learnt anything from our grief journey and Feel the Magic, it is that everyone grieves differently and there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Grief also does not have a timeline but stays with you always – in some ways you just learn to live with the grief better.”

We thank and acknowledge the Smith family for their courage for sharing their personal story of grief and loss.