When Heaven Called Twice – A Mother’s Journey Through Unthinkable Loss
Adrienne Bender is a trauma survivor, Children'smental health therapist, grief coach, author of"The Almost Miracle Years", podcaster, and mother of 2 angel babies. Her mission is to share her story to help others navigate grief and loss.
The deepest grief carries within it the deepest love. This is my story of losing two children and finding them in ways I never expected. There are no words in the English language for a mother who has lost her children. Widower, widow, orphan, these terms exist because society understands these losses. But for mothers like me, who have lost two babies, there is only silence where a word should be. Perhaps that’s because such grief defies language entirely.
The first goodbye
When Mackenzie was first diagnosed at age 8 with acute myeloid leukemia, I thought I understood fear. I was wrong. Fear is worrying about scraped knees and hurt feelings. Watching her purple and pink tufts of hair fall like flower petals onto the hospital pillowcase was something else entirely, a terror so complete it rewired my brain and heart forever.
For years, we fought. Mackenzie fought with the fierce determination that only children possess, believing wholeheartedly that she could still beat this and make it through junior high and high school, all the milestones that seemed so far away. I fought with the desperate strength of a mother who would have gladly traded places without hesitation. We celebrated small victories, remission, blood counts improving, and the return of her infectious smile that could brighten the darkest hospital room.
But cancer is cruel in its presence. When Mackenzie relapsed at age 12, the fight became harder, the treatments more aggressive, and the hope more fragile. Still, she faced each day with courage that humbled everyone who was lucky enough to know her. At fifteen, she was fighting not just leukemia but complications that came from years of treatment; her body was worn down by the very treatments designed to save her.
On November 1, 2018, I was rubbing her feet, something that always comforted her during the hardest days. Her breaths became few and far between. I told her how much I loved her, how proud I was of her strength, and gave her permission to go. I felt her spirit go through me as she slipped away. She was fifteen years old and left this world knowing she loved her mother’s hands, still caring for her in those final moments.
Learning to breathe again
Grief, I learned, is not an emotion; it’s a country you move to permanently. Everything there speaks a different language. Colors are muted. Food tastes like cardboard. Sleep becomes impossible. Well-meaning friends say things like “She’s no longer suffering” or “She’s in a better place,” not understanding that a mother doesn’t want her child to be an angel; she wants her child to be asking to go to her favorite restaurant for Pasta Frenzy on Monday. Her brother Kyler, five years her senior, turned to substances to cope, not fully being able to process this grief.
The unthinkable happens again
Kyler was twenty-five when fentanyl took him from this world in 2023. This wasn’t the story we thought we were living. After Mackenzie’s death, Kyler struggled; he often said it should’ve been me, not her. He’d been battling addiction since age 12, the pain of losing his sister driving him to seek escape in ways that terrified me. He had fought his way back. He’d been in recovery, doing well, and rebuilding his life with the same determination Mackenzie had shown during her journey through cancer.
He was in college, getting straight A's and planning for his future. I thought the worst was behind me. I had my son back and the promise that our family, though forever changed, could heal.
But fentanyl doesn’t care about recovery or the progress of mothers who have already lost a child. One moment of weakness, one pill he thought was something else, one choice in a split second of pain or temptation. I found out my son had passed via a Facebook post on a Thursday morning. The same son who had texted me the night before, the same son who was coming over for help writing an essay that weekend. Twenty-five years old, with so much life ahead of him, with the battles he’d already won, which made his loss feel impossibly cruel.
The arithmetic of loss
Losing Mackenzie had been learning to live without air. Losing Kyler was like having that airless existence ripped away just as I’d learned to survive it. The mathematics of grief doesn’t work the way people expect. Losing two children isn’t twice the pain of losing one; it’s exponential, infinite, a multiple that breaks calculators.
People stopped knowing what to say to me. How do you comfort someone who has lost two children? The usual platitudes felt hollow, even to those speaking them. Some friends disappeared entirely, unable to bear witness to such profound loss. Others stayed but walked on eggshells, afraid that mentioning my children would cause me to shatter completely.
What they didn’t understand was that I was already shattered. And in my brokenness, talking about Mackenzie and Kyler wasn’t painful; it was oxygen.
Signs in the darkness
My children are gone but not lost. They live through memories for those who were lucky enough to have known them, through my book The Almost Miracle Years, through everyone I’ve helped in my role as a mental health therapist, and for listeners who hear my message on podcasts.
Mackenzie shows up through the smell of roses and dragonflies; Kyler shows up through music and eagles.
Most of all, they live in the expanded capacity of my heart. Losing them broke me open, but in that breakthrough, I discovered I could hold more love than I ever imagined possible, love for other grieving parents, for young people struggling with addiction, for all children fighting cancer, and for the preciousness of every moment.
What I know now
If you are reading this from the fresh hell of losing a child, know this: you will never “get over” the loss, and that’s okay. You don’t need to. You will slowly, gradually, learn to carry it differently. The weight never lessens, but you grow stronger.
Your child’s death is not the end of their story; love is the one force in the universe that always transcends physical existence. I still cry for Kyler and Mackenzie, and I always will. But I also laugh, love, hope, and find meaning in ways I never expected. They taught me that even in the deepest darkness, we are capable of light, and someday, whether in this realm or the other, I believe all mothers will hold their children again.
Written in loving memory of Mackenzie Lewis (2003-2018) and Kyler Bender (1997-2023)
Read more from Adrienne Bender
Adrienne Bender, Grief Coach, Author, Health Therapist
The Almost Miracle Years, Adrienne shares the transformative power of meditation in her journey toward healing and self-discovery. Combining deeply personal anecdotes with practical insights, Meditations on Healing offers readers a guide to finding inner peace amidst grief and adversity.
