Children aren’t supposed to die before their parents. I never imagined I would lose my son, Kieran, at thirty-two. I thought he would marry, have his own children, that I would be a grandmother one day.
I remember writing for the Idaho Catholic Register in the early nineties. The editor had allowed me to bring three-month-old Kieran to the office where I wrote. He laid on a blanket, tiny hands and feet stretching for the Sesame Street mobile I’d brought along.
After Kieran’s death, I survived the first year in a daze, alternating between numb avoidance and active mourning. I spoke to a grief counselor, painted, journaled, and talked to a friend who’d lost a son, trying to come to terms with the loss. Social gatherings elicited anxiety, the inevitable, “How many children do you have?” or “How are the kids?” a trigger. Prayer led me to confession for the first time in many years. Father said, “Your son is alive,” and I longed for his certainty and faith.
In the decades away from church, I’d often turned to monasteries in times of trouble. I sought out solitude and silence, spending a month at St. Gertrude’s Monastery in Cottonwood, Idaho, where I yelled at God, prayed with the nuns, and walked the way of the cross. The serene surroundings and spiritual routine consoled me, but upon departing the Monastery, intense, unpredictable grief overwhelmed me again.
Kim Steinberg and her husband, Si, live in the small high desert city of Boise, Idaho. Kim enjoys tromping through the foothills, walking by the river, and traveling to places unknown. Kim lost her oldest son, Kieran, January 20, 2023 – and attended her first Sacred Sorrows retreat in February 2025.
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