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Sarah Campos

@campos_mama

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Teaching people to stop surviving and start living again without leaving their loved one behind.
Grief/ Healing/ Faith/ Rebuilding life.
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I get a lot of questions asked all the time. What is Staying all about. What is inside it. What is to expect.

Inside Staying is the exact framework that I used every day for my life to function without my son. How I have picked up the pieces from the bottom of the barrel literally. And how I have built a strong foundation that makes sense again.

It did not come easy. It required a lot of work and commitment by me. I was sick of not having choices. I was sick of grief running the show. I was sick of feeling like I was losing everything not just my son. I needed more. I needed a life back.

I have written down all my experiences over the last seven years of how I have survived day by day without my son and how I still continue to do. The ups and downs. Things I have gotten right. Things I have done wrong. Things I wish I did different. Things that help me survive the next five minutes drowning in grief as well as the long term. How I have managed to find joy again. How I got unstuck from the grips of grief. How I can manage survival in an impossible situation.

I am living proof you can too.

If you are ready to take that first step. If you are sick of just surviving grief and you are ready to start carrying your loved one along with you while healing comment STAY.

They are never forgotten. Grief is never gone. However it does not have to rule your life anymore. 💙 by @campos_mama

Seven years after losing our son we sat at a table laughing over the most ridiculous ice cream burger. I never thought I would see home in his eyes again. But here we are.

I never thought the day would come when joy would be so present in our lives. That we would be laughing and rejoicing and just being us again.

I never thought in a million years I would look into his eyes and see home. But here we are. Seven years after losing our son. We found our way back. We choose each other every single day.

And that part is the part nobody talks about.

How do you get from the depths of grief where nothing is left in either of your eyes and find your way back to sitting at a table with your family laughing and rejoicing.

Here is how we did it:

• We stopped waiting to feel ready and just started showing up
• We chose each other even when we felt like strangers
• We let grief be loud without letting it be the last word
• We held onto faith when everything else fell away
• We kept his memory alive and made him part of every moment including this one
• We took it one day at a time and sometimes one minute at a time
• We built a foundation brick by brick until one day we looked up and realized we were still here

Joy does not mean forgetting. It means he is still with us at every table. Every laugh. Every ridiculous ice cream burger.

I remember what it is like to be drowning in grief and trying to come up for air that doesn’t seem to exist.

I created a roadmap for grieving people who need a place to start.

Comment STAY and I will send you the exact framework I use every day to guide a life I can understand again. A way to function after the loss. A life I live with intention that makes sense again. by @campos_mama

He went on a school field trip for school… he was so excited! I walked to school to pick him up, he scootered home, I pushed the dbl stroller. He came home, we ate a snack we drew pictures, we snuggled the new baby. As soon as my husband got home we went outside. I took Jaxon to the green belt where he played with all his friends and neighbors. I took my 20 m old to the near by park, swung her on the swings. I walked back to the green belt and said ok babe, be home at 6 o’clock, we’re having dinner. I walked home with the 20 month old. I went upstairs. I began to pour the spinach in the orange bowl to prepare for my husband and my anniversary. That’s when I heard my friend knock on the door, the urgent knock. I ran downstairs, saw her face and she said come quick, it’s Jaxon.

I ran to the green belt and that’s where I saw him, laying in the street, blood everywhere. People in the neighborhood were working on him. I screamed at the driver. I yelled at her. What the fuck were you thinking, did you not see him. I ran over to him. I looked into him, cried, and I had people pull me off because they needed to continue working on him.

In this moment I didn’t know what to think. I knew it was really fucking bad but I didn’t know it was as bad as it was going to be.

As soon as the ambulance, firetruck and police came my husband at this point was out and went with him in the ambulance. I went home and grabbed all the essentials. I knew we were gonna be at the hospital a while. My neighbor drove me to the hospital. I walked into the ER where I was guided back to a room and in that room was my husband and my son Jaxon laying on a table, no machines, no nothing. My husband’s eyes said it all and I knew he had died.

I lost my shit in that moment. I jumped on him. I kissed him. I loved him. I didn’t wanna let go of him. I didn’t wanna believe that this is my new fucking reality. How is my son dead, how am I going to survive.

I don’t know how long I was up there but I knew after I looked up at the doctor and said take his organs, take what you can.

Continued in comments…… by @campos_mama

Everyone wanted to fix my grief. They wanted to tell me it would get better, that time would heal, that I’d learn to be okay. I didn’t want it fixed, because it couldn’t be. It was mine, and I had to learn how to navigate it.

What I needed was someone to witness it. I found three women on Instagram who had lost their children too, and they knew exactly what I was feeling. They didn’t try to fix me. They showed me how they were living through it, and that was the first time I believed there might be a life after this. Not the therapist, not anyone else. Those women are the reason I’m here.

But witnessing wasn’t the whole thing. I also needed tangible things I could actually do, so I wrote down everything that helped me.

Here’s a question for you. Who has actually witnessed your grief, and what did they do that nobody else did?

“5 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me” is the first chapter inside Staying, my practical guide for finding your footing and learning to live again after loss, with journal prompts throughout, so it isn’t just something you read, it’s something you use.

If you're ready to find your footing again and give yourself permission to live, comment STAY and I will show you exactly how I do it every day. 💙 by @campos_mama

I took our differences personally, like they had anything to do with me. I couldn’t see his pain, I could only see mine, and I wanted him to feel it too. I thought because he was quiet, he didn’t care, or didn’t hurt as much as I did. I couldn’t have been further from the truth. So wrong that it’s one of the things that almost broke us.

My husband internalizes and processes differently than me, and honestly, that’s ok. We’re two diff people grieving two diff ways, even tho it’s the same loss. Learning that difference saved me, saved us. Learning to have acceptance that we were gonna do things differently allowed me to focus on myself and my healing and gave him the space to do the same.

Me wanting to constantly process out loud was too much for him. It made him shut down, then I became resentful, and then our marriage felt impossible.

What started to change it was supporting each other the way THEY needed it, not how one of us thought it should be done. Two people, two ways of grieving. We stopped judging where he should be and how I should be grieving, and we started listening, phones down, eye contact, even when we had nothing left.

Here’s a question for you. How does your spouse grieve differently than you, and what’s one thing they need from you this week that you’ve been assuming they don’t?

“Marriage: We Weren’t Strong. We Were Committed.” is a whole chapter inside Staying, my practical guide for finding your footing and learning to live again after loss, with journal prompts throughout, so it isn’t just something you read, it’s something you use.

If you're ready to find your footing again and give yourself permission to live, comment STAY and I will show you exactly how I do it every day inside my guide, Staying. 💙 by @campos_mama

Grief anxiety is real, and it doesn’t care how many years have passed or how many months. It lives underneath you and in you, and some days it takes over completely.

On those days I can’t form a thought. My insides are spiraling, and then I remember, oh yes, the grief.

Here’s what I know to be true. This will not last forever, I know it will pass. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not the next day, but eventually it won’t feel this heavy.

In the meantime, what helps is small. I get outside of my house and talk to another human being who doesn’t live with me, just to get out of my head, and it frees the anxiety, even if only for a little while. Then I journal. I use a prompt from the grief anxiety chapter in Staying: What’s triggering me? Why? What bothers me most about this trigger? What’s one thing that helps relieve it?

Try it today. Write down the one thing that’s triggering you right now, and one small thing that might take the edge off.

“Grief Anxiety Is Real” is a whole chapter inside Staying, my practical guide for finding your footing and learning to live again after loss, with journal prompts throughout, so it isn’t just something you read, it’s something you use.

If you're ready to find your footing again and give yourself permission to live, comment STAY and I will show you exactly how I do it every day inside my guide, Staying. 💙 by @campos_mama

I used to think there was always more time. I’ll get to it when I can, maybe next time, maybe next week. Then I lost my son, and I learned that the moments you think you’ll get back aren’t guaranteed. That entire loss transformed my perspective on life, people that are important, things that matter.

So, when my dad says he’s in town for four hours, I drop everything. I meet up with him. I get the one-on-one time with him that I never get, and I make every moment count. This was not how I was before and I don’t know if it’s an age thing or a life thing or both, but these moments are gold to me, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to experience them.

I show up for the small things. I say yes to the lake, the dinner, the hug that lasts a little too long, the drop-in visits, the lunch. I don’t do it perfectly, but I do it on purpose.

Here’s a question for you. Who is someone you’ve been meaning to spend time with, and what’s one small thing you could do this week to make that happen?

Reflections like this are all inside Staying.

That kind of reflection is what the journal prompts are for, like the ones in the “Joy Without Betrayal” chapter. They’re in every chapter, so it isn’t just something you read, it’s something you use. I’m offering a guided reading and a personal reflection resource, something customized for you, where you are in your grief. I wish I had this, something that was not telling me what to do, but what was offering me ways to navigate my grief on my timeline with my experiences.

I needed to search deep, I needed to reflect on what was going on with me so I could figure out how I was going to get through this. I didn’t need you telling me what to do. I needed tangible actions and solutions that I could apply to my own life and my own grief. This is not a one size fits all here. Grief is individualized per person.

If you're ready to find your footing again and give yourself permission to live, comment STAY and I will show you exactly how I do it every day inside my guide, Staying. 💙 by @campos_mama

For a long time I tried to grieve the way everyone else needed me to. On their timeline. In a way that made them comfortable. In a way that looked okay enough for them to stop worrying about me.

That almost destroyed me.

Here’s what I finally figured out. Nobody else gets to decide how you heal. Their expectations of where you should be in your grief say everything about their comfort and nothing about your process.

You do not owe anyone a version of your healing that feels easier for them to hold. You do not owe anyone access to your pain.

So I started creating boundaries that aren’t flexible. It was uncomfortable, and some people didn’t like it, but it gave me back what little energy I had left for the people and the life that mattered.

There’s a whole chapter on this in Staying, “Boundaries That Protect,” with a journal prompt that asks you to name the people who have more access to your pain than you’re comfortable giving them. Just write the names down and look at them.

If you're ready to find your footing again and give yourself permission to live, comment STAY and I will show you exactly how I do it every day inside my guide, Staying. 💙 by @campos_mama

I was so deep in my own pain that I didn’t realize how much I was pulling away from the children who were still right in front of me. They were grieving too, and I was just trying to get through the day. Times where I was so distracted by the pain of missing him I couldn’t see what was in front of me. Hearing my baby say mama look at me, and feeling nothing or unwilling. Almost as if I were present but my mind and heart were elsewhere.

Missing those precious moments, the ones I can’t get back. I don’t punish myself for those anymore. I take them as lessons learned. I give myself grace. It’s not perfection here, it’s progress. Grief is hard. Feelings are real. Life demands. Showing up. All the things.

What helped was inviting them into moments of connection instead of withdrawing. Not big moments, just letting them sit next to me and know I was still their mom.

Today it’s different. I lean into the grief. I join them in theirs. We talk about him. I say I’m sad, I hear them when they’re sad. We talk it through by saying his name.

There’s a whole chapter on this in Staying, “Parenting the Children Who Are Still Here,” with journal prompts for figuring out how you want to show up for them while you’re carrying your own grief.

If you’re ready to give yourself permission to live and learn how to function after loss, comment STAY and I will show you exactly how I do it every day. 💙 by @campos_mama

Joy was the hardest thing to let back in. Not because I didn’t want it, but because every time I laughed it felt like I was leaving him behind.

I thought if I was enjoying anything, I must be forgetting him. So I stayed stuck, because stuck felt like loyalty.

But grief and joy can exist in the same house. Me laughing doesn’t mean I miss him less. Or that I’m abandoning him. It means I’m learning how to experience joy in grief. I’m learning to carry both, hand in hand.

I’m learning that I can miss my son not physically being here on nights like this, that more than anything I wish he were. The biggest gift grief has shown me is that I get to have both, miss my boy and celebrate with my babes still here. I get to honor him by living for them and myself.

There’s a whole chapter on this in Staying, “Joy Without Betrayal,” with journal prompts for finding the small things that bring you happiness again, without the guilt. It’s my guide for finding your footing and learning to live again after loss.

If you’re ready to give yourself permission to live and learn how to function after loss, comment STAY and I will show you exactly how I do it every day. 💙 by @campos_mama

Everyone wants to tell you it’s going to get better. Time will help. You’ll learn to be okay. Those things may be true, but they didn’t help me, because I didn’t want to wait. I wanted something I could do.

Waiting for grief to get easier was the wrong goal. Me loving him didn’t equate to the suffering and punishing I was putting myself through. My suffering wasn’t going to bring him back. All it was going to do was keep me stuck.

Stuck in a place where I couldn’t find him or connect to him.
Stuck in the pain that was trying to take me out.
Stuck in a world that didn’t understand me anymore.

I needed a solution. I needed tangible actions. So I wrote down what actually helped me, and that’s Staying, my guide for finding your footing and learning to live again after loss. The chapter “Choosing Forward on Ordinary Hard Days” is where I wrote what to do on the days you can’t do much of anything, and there are journal prompts throughout, so it isn’t just something you read, it’s something you use.

You don’t get over them.
You don’t move forward without them.
You’re learning to carry your grief and their soul with you, while learning to find joy again.

It’s not impossible. It just feels like it.

If you’re ready to give yourself permission to live and learn how to function after loss, comment STAY and I will show you exactly how I do it every day. 💙 by @campos_mama

Where have you been rushing your own grief, pushing for acceptance before you’re actually there?

I’m asking because I did this for a long time. Everyone around me wanted me to be okay, and honestly I wanted to be okay too, so I kept trying to skip ahead to the part where it didn’t hurt this much. It doesn’t work. You can’t rush your way to acceptance, you just end up stuck and exhausted.

So here’s the prompt. Name one thing that feels scary to slow down and sit with. Not the whole thing, just one thing. The room, the birthday, the conversation you keep avoiding, the feeling you keep outrunning.

Now flip it. What would feel less scary about that thing? And what might happen if you actually tried it?

I’m not asking you to feel ready, because nobody is ready. I’m asking for one small, honest step.

This prompt is from Staying, my guide for finding your footing and learning to live again after loss. There are journal prompts like this throughout it, with chapters on boundaries, parenting your surviving children, marriage, and joy behind them, so it isn’t just something you read, it’s something you use on the hard days.

If you’re ready to give yourself permission to live and learn how to function after loss, comment STAY and I will send you Staying, the guide that shows exactly how I do it every day. 💙 by @campos_mama