When a child is seriously ill, everyone rallies. Friends visit. Meals arrive. Messages flood in. Parents are surrounded by people. And somewhere in that circle, quiet and steady, doing whatever needs to be done, are the grandparents.
They’re watching their grandchild suffer. They’re watching their own child, the parent, falling apart. And they’re quietly expected to be strong for both.
Zelma knows this. Her grandson Jack loved Julia Donaldson books and Thomas the Tank Engine. They spent most days together, reading, baking, playing with trains, exploring the woods. In September 2023, Jack became poorly. In October, he was diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma. He died in April 2024. Zelma still carries him with her every day.
“I wish people understood that grandparents have to be strong for everyone: the parents, the child, and other affected family members. We often become the givers of information and the main emotional support system, making sure everyone else is coping. Because we are so focused on supporting others, people often forget that we need support too. The layer of grief we carry is unique and significant. We are grieving both the loss of our grandchild and the pain of our own child.”
Zelma, grandmother
In partnership with Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS), Imagine This funds an overnight retreat at Ardoch, a beautiful retreat centre on the shores of Loch Lomond. Time set aside entirely for grandparents. Not as carers. Not as supporters. As people who are themselves in need of care.
Colin and Kirsty lost their granddaughter Layla on 6 February 2023. She was an identical twin, with her sister Sophia.
Colin wrote:
“Life will never be the same when we lost Layla. I have never cried as much. It is not the way it should be. I feel that our baby girl should not have gone first. The pain I see my daughter, son-in-law and wife in remains deeply painful. Over time there is just always something missing, our wee Layla.”
Kirsty wrote a letter to Layla. In it she described what it’s like to be a bereaved grandparent: the grief that arrives suddenly and never fully lifts. “Layla, your papa and I suddenly became part of a group that no one ever wants to join, that of bereaved grandparents.”
That grief has no obvious home. Grandparents may rarely be asked how they are. They aren’t the patient. They aren’t the parent. They live in the space between, loving deeply, grieving silently, carrying more than anyone sees.
Over one overnight stay, grandparents come together with people who understand.
Most of this goes unseen. Grandparents often take on enormous caring responsibilities while suppressing their own grief entirely. They have nowhere to process what they’re going through, and they can feel completely alone in it.
A single retreat doesn’t fix that. But it says something: you matter too. Your grief is real. You don’t have to hold it alone.
And sometimes, that’s everything.
Your support gives grandparents time away. Where the weight they carry can be set down for a little while. Where the grief they’ve been holding quietly finally finds some company.
Because they deserve that. And so do the families they hold together.
