Lesson 13: Clearing the Ground: The Grief of Letting Go to Make Room for Growth

There's a moment every gardener knows well. You stand before a patch of earth—maybe it's overgrown with weeds, or packed down from neglect, or filled with last season's dead growth. Your hands hover over the soil, and you feel it: the weight of what needs to be cleared before anything new can take root.

This is where our family found ourselves last spring, looking at the greenhouses in our backyard. In our home, I'm the one who chooses the seeds—I research, I dream, I plan what we'll grow. Then Adem does the actual planting and tending. It's our rhythm, and it works.

But that garden had become something else entirely. It was full of promise once—vegetables and herbs I'd chosen during my pregnancy, back when I thought I knew what life would look like. But after Charli's unexpected early arrival and NICU stay, that garden became a monument to plans that didn't survive. The seeds I'd chosen with such hope sat in their packets, never planted. Everything that was supposed to bloom never got the chance.

Before Adem could plant anything new, we both knew: the greenhouses needed to be cleared. But first, I had to grieve what we'd lost.

The Dreams We Bury to Make Space

When Charli was born, I didn't just lose my third trimester. I lost the birth plan I'd wanted to create. The immediate skin-to-skin moment. The peaceful first weeks at home. The certainty that my baby was safe inside my body.

In the NICU, surrounded by beeping monitors and hushed conversations between specialists, I had to make space for a different reality. Not the one I'd imagined, but the one that was actually unfolding. And making that space meant clearing out room in my heart—letting go of what I thought motherhood would look like so I could be fully present for what it actually was.

This is the work no one tells you about. The invisible labor of preparation isn't just about getting ready for what's coming. It's about releasing what isn't serving you anymore. It's about clearing the ground.

And clearing the ground always involves grief.

What Needs Clearing in Parenting

As a therapeutic placement specialist, I work with families navigating some of the hardest transitions in parenting. A teen who needs residential treatment. A young adult who can't launch the way their peers are launching. A child whose needs have outgrown what their current school can offer.

Before we even start looking at programs or schools, I ask families the same question: What needs to be cleared before we can plant something new?

Sometimes it's old patterns—the ways of communicating that worked when their child was younger but no longer fit. Sometimes it's expectations—the vision they held of their child's future that doesn't match their child's actual path. Sometimes it's guilt, shame, or the weight of feeling like they've failed.

And always, always, there's grief.

The grief of:

• The child you thought you'd have versus the child you actually have

• The parenting journey you imagined versus the one you're living

• The timeline you expected versus the one that's actually unfolding

• The version of yourself you thought you'd be versus who you're becoming

This isn't failure. This is preparation.

You can't plant new seeds in soil that's still choked with old roots. You have to clear the ground first.

Charli's Lesson: Flexibility Starts with Release

Charli is almost two now, and she's teaching me what it looks like to adapt without carrying the weight of what could have been. She doesn't mourn the fact that she needed a feeding tube for months. She doesn't grieve the surgeries or the therapy appointments or the developmental timeline that looks different from other toddlers'.

She just shows up. Present. Flexible. Ready for whatever comes next.

But here's what I've learned: her flexibility exists because I did the grief work first.

In those early NICU days, I had to release my expectations daily. The doctors would tell me she might come home in a week, and then something would change and it would be two more weeks. Plans shifted constantly. Control was an illusion. And every time I tried to cling to how I thought things should go, I suffered more.

So I learned to clear the ground each morning. To let go of yesterday's plan so I could be present for today's reality. To grieve the loss of certainty so I could hold space for hope.

That's the work of preparing the soil. And it's ongoing.

How to Identify What Needs Clearing

If you're feeling stuck in your parenting—whether you're in the NICU, preparing for a therapeutic placement, navigating a challenging transition, or just sensing that something needs to shift—here are questions that can help you identify what might need clearing:

1. What am I still holding onto that no longer serves this season? Maybe it's the parenting style that worked when your kids were little but doesn't fit now. Maybe it's the vision of family life you had before you understood your child's actual needs. Maybe it's the belief that you should be able to handle everything without help.

2. What expectations am I carrying that create suffering rather than support? Are you expecting your child to develop on a "typical" timeline when their path is beautifully different? Are you expecting yourself to feel joy all the time when grief and joy coexist? Are you expecting life to return to "normal" when a new normal is what's actually needed?

3. What patterns keep replaying that I keep hoping will change on their own? The communication breakdowns. The power struggles. The ways you respond when you're triggered. These patterns are like weeds—they won't disappear just because you want them to. You have to actively clear them out and plant something different.

4. What am I grieving that I haven't given myself permission to grieve? The loss of the "easy" child. The loss of your pre-parent identity. The loss of the timeline you thought your family would follow. The loss of certainty. Give yourself permission to name these losses. You can't clear what you won't acknowledge.

5. What support, belief, or relationship do I need to release to make space for growth? Sometimes clearing the ground means releasing relationships that reinforce old patterns. Sometimes it means letting go of the belief that you have to do this alone. Sometimes it means clearing out commitments that drain you so you have energy for what actually matters.

With warmth and understanding,
Shayna Abraham,
Founder, Prepare To Bloom & Beyond the NICU