Travelling After Loss: Learning to Live Again

Introduction

Two years ago, on November 25, 2023, our son, Poppy, was born. He was perfect in every way — except that he never took a breath. That day changed our lives forever.

Since then, the world has looked different. Grief has become a quiet companion, one we never asked for but learned to live with. We’ve discovered that love doesn’t disappear when life ends, it just transforms — and somehow, travel helped us understand that.

We were supposed to show Poppy the world. Instead, he’s the one who showed us how to see it differently. This article will be really deep and personal for us, and we will focus on travelling after loss.

The Shock — Losing Poppy

Nothing prepares you for that kind of silence.

On the morning of November 23rd, 2023, everything still felt normal. We were three days away from our due date, excited, nervous, and so ready to meet our baby boy. Then, in the span of a few hours, everything changed.

At the hospital, we heard the words no parent should ever hear — “There’s no heartbeat.” For a moment, time stopped. The world kept moving around us, but we were frozen, trapped between disbelief and despair. It didn’t make sense. He had been moving just hours before. He was healthy. We had plans, dreams, a life waiting for him.

The days that followed were unbearable. We had to do something that no parent should ever do — deliver our baby knowing he wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t open his eyes, wouldn’t come home with us. Yet when Poppy arrived, he was everything we imagined. Beautiful, peaceful, and perfect.

We spent six hours with him in the delivery room. Those hours felt like a lifetime and a second at once. We held him, sang to him, whispered everything we had dreamed of saying. We wished time would stop right there. It was love in its purest, most painful form.

When we left the hospital, we didn’t leave with empty arms — we left with an invisible weight that would stay with us forever. The world outside was the same, but we weren’t.

Finding Air Again

The weeks after losing Poppy were heavy, slow, and unreal. Everything felt distant — like watching life from behind a window. The world kept moving, but we couldn’t. There were mornings when getting out of bed felt impossible, and nights when sleep just wouldn’t come.

At some point, we realized we needed to move — not to escape, but to breathe again. Staying still felt like drowning. So, step by step, we started doing small things that used to make us feel alive. Walks outside, coffee in the sun, short walks with no real destination.

Travel came naturally after that. It wasn’t about ticking places off a list anymore. It was about changing the air around us, finding silence somewhere else, maybe even hope. In February, we went on a family vacation skiing, May, we went to the south of France — a place we had dreamed of visiting with Poppy. Then later, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. We didn’t go looking for happiness; we just needed movement, light, something to hold onto. Maybe even something that used to be normal for us.

Travel didn’t erase the pain. It still hasn’t. But it gave us space to breathe, to cry without walls closing in, to see the horizon and remember that life still had colors in it. Every sunset, every wave, every mountain felt like a quiet reminder that we were still here — and somehow, that was enough.

Traveling with Grief

Grief doesn’t stay at home when you leave. It follows you quietly, fits into your backpack, sits beside you on the plane. At first, we thought traveling would give us a break from it, but we quickly understood that grief always comes along for the ride.

So, instead of trying to escape it, we learned to travel with it. In a strange way, Poppy was everywhere with us — in the light that hit the water, in a flower we’d notice by chance, in moments that felt too peaceful to be random. Sometimes it was a poppy growing in an unexpected place, or a song playing out of nowhere, and it felt like he was gently reminding us he was still here.

We began to include him in little rituals, small ways of keeping him close. Watching birds and thinking about him. Taking a quiet moment on hikes to tell him where we were. Carrying his little keepsake when we travelled, so he was part of every adventure. These moments became sacred — our way of being a family of three, even if the world only saw two.

Over time, we stopped seeing travel as running away from grief. It became a way to walk beside it. Each journey carried pieces of Poppy with us — love that had nowhere to go, finding its place in the world instead.

The Healing Journey

When we first started traveling again, we weren’t searching for healing. We just needed air — a change of scenery, a reason to get up, a reminder that life could still move. But when you keep showing up to the world, even with a broken heart, something begins to shift.

In the Maldives, we spent hours watching the ocean. That endless blue gave us space to breathe, to cry, to talk about Poppy without feeling rushed. It wasn’t about forgetting, it was about remembering him somewhere peaceful — somewhere that matched the softness we felt for him.

Then came Sri Lanka — wild, green, and full of life. We remember being on a safari, watching a baby elephant passing by and going after his mama. There was something about that moment that felt deeply connected to him. Maybe it was the innocence, maybe the calm joy of the movement. We like to believe that that little elephant was Poppy— free, gentle, curious, somewhere in that same light.

Those moments didn’t erase the pain, but they made space for something else to exist beside it. The world felt kinder, almost like it was holding us for a while. Traveling became a way to find traces of him in unexpected places — in the ocean breeze, in a poppy on the side of the road, in the laughter of a child passing by.

Grief never leaves, but it softens when you start to live again. And through every place we visit, we find a new way to keep Poppy close.

Now and Always

Life didn’t suddenly become easier. There wasn’t a single day when we woke up and felt “better.” Grief doesn’t work like that — it settles somewhere inside you, and you learn to live around it. But over time, light began to find its way back in.

In July 2024, that light became Milo. His arrival didn’t replace anything — it simply added another layer to our story. The months leading to his birth were filled with anxiety, hope, and moments of quiet fear. We had already learned how fragile life could be. But we also knew how precious it was, and that made every heartbeat, every ultrasound, every little kick feel like a miracle.

When Milo was born, our hearts opened again — not because the pain disappeared, but because love did what it always does: it grew. He brought laughter back into our home, but also tears. Joy and sadness live side by side now. Sometimes, while holding him, we think that he is here because of Poppy. That in death, there is life. It’s a feeling that’s impossible to explain — full and empty, happy and aching, all at once.

Milo will always have a big brother. And we’ll always be parents of two boys — one we carry in our arms, and one we carry in our hearts. They both make us who we are today, and both travel with us, each in their own way.

Closing

If you’ve ever lost someone you love, you know there’s no real end to grief. It changes shape, it softens, but it never truly leaves. You simply learn how to live with it — how to carry it while still making space for life, love, and small joys again.

Travel has been our way of doing that. It helped us move when everything inside us felt still. It showed us that beauty and pain can coexist, that laughter can return even when your heart is still aching. It reminded us that we’re still alive — and that’s something we don’t take for granted anymore.

To other parents walking this same path: be gentle with yourselves. There’s no right way to grieve, no map to follow. Take your time. Do what feels right for you. And if you can, when you’re ready, step outside again. Feel the air, watch the sunrise, see the world. Your child will be there — in every color, every breeze, every moment that takes your breath away.

And to Poppy — our little boy who changed everything — thank you for showing us what love really means. You are part of every journey we take, every story we write, every place we see. You are with us, always.