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Lizzie Kieffer is opening up about the difficulties of celebrating the holidays after the death of her 12-month-old daughter.
On Saturday, Dec. 27, the Missouri-based content creator reflected on celebrating Christmas, eight months after her daughter Lilian “Lily” suddenly died due to a large mass on her brain.
“I knew the holidays would be tough, but they have been so much harder than I thought,” Lizzie wrote alongside several photos of her family’s holiday celebrations, including a few touching tributes to her late daughter. “When everyone is around, we see so much of the beauty that we have, but also so much of what is missing.”
“The holidays have a way of magnifying absence,” she continued. “The lights feel brighter, the rooms feel louder… and the quiet moments feel heavier.”
Lizzie also shares older daughter Mia with her husband, Matt, and announced that they welcomed their third baby, daughter Isla, on Sept. 14. In one photo shared in the post, three stockings could be seen leaning against the wall with one stuffed with yellow flowers as a “remembrance” to Lily.
“Mia is convinced Jesus and Lily shared an Elsa birthday cake … and Lily had frosting all over her face,” Lizzie continued in the caption. “Some moments I’m laughing, present, soaking in joy — and the next my chest tightens because she should be here too.”
The influencer went on to express that her family misses Lily “so deeply” for both who she was and the “traditions she would’ve been part of.” She also emphasized that anyone else “walking through the holidays with grief beside you” is not alone.
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“This season isn’t about pretending it doesn’t hurt,” Lizzie noted. “It’s about holding both: The ache of missing her AND the hope we have in heaven. The joy of watching Mia and Isla experience the magic AND the quiet, persistent pain of Lily’s absence. The sorrow of now AND the promise that this isn’t the end of her story — or ours.”
Lizzie Kieffer/Instagram
“Love makes space for joy and sorrow to sit at the same table,” she concluded. “You are on our minds every moment of every day, Lilybug.”
Before welcoming her youngest daughter, Lizzie also reflected on the “drastic dichotomy” of mourning the loss of a child while preparing to welcome another.
“The two ebb and flow, and sometimes show up massively at the same time,” she wrote on Instagram of her conflicting emotions on Aug. 27. “A feeling, or rather a state of being so hard to describe in and of itself, but even more complex with pregnancy.”
“Experiencing my babies in three vastly different places has undoubtedly changed me, changed our family…but it also has shown me that heaven really isn’t that far away,” Lizzie continued. “It’s around us more than we think if we just pay attention. From the miracle of growing new life, to raising babies, to cherishing how precious and short life really is…heaven is near.”
