Lauren Singer
Bereaved Parent / Stillbirth and Early Infant Loss Support Group Facilitator
1) Describe briefly how you got involved with Empty Arms.
Empty Arms came into my life in June of 2021 after the loss of my son Ziggy who was born still after a healthy, full term pregnancy. It took me a little while to gather the spoons I needed to attend group, as I was basically a catatonic puddle for the first three months after my loss. Once I became a regular attendee of the infant and stillbirth loss group, I realized that I was finally gathering with people who understood the language of this very specific kind of loss and grief, and it opened my world up to connections I could not get in any other part of my life. People who understood what no one should have to: how to make sense of life after your child dies.
2) What makes you most proud of the work we do/What do you like most about Empty Arms?
Empty Arms provides so much resource and support to our loss community, but what I am most proud of is how it connects people back to themselves during a time we often feel unrecognizable. I didn’t know who I was after my son died, but once I was established with Empty Arms, it allowed me to see that there was another side to grief that not only looked like survival, but looked like building myself back into a person who was familiar. For a long time I thought my whole identity would be bound by the worst thing that has ever happened to me. And while my loss has definitely shaped the person I’ve become since then, it’s connected me to strengths I didn’t know I had. All of this self-knowledge became possible with a community that fostered my identity as a mother, my identity as a loss parent, and allowed me to continue my relationship with my son, by recognizing that he was and is very real, and that I wasn’t alone in my grief.
3) Share a passion in your life and/or work outside of EABS.
Outside of Empty Arms, I work as a psychotherapist, specializing in trauma as we process and encounter it in our daily lives and within our relationships. Since my loss, I have incorporated the skills I already had developed in my practice with my own experience of losing my son, to incorporate grief and its immersive impact on our lives, as something all of us will encounter in some form in our lifespans. My work as a therapist is also what drew me into developing my relationship with Empty Arms. I also love to write fiction and poetry, am obsessed with my menagerie of pets, and am honing my skills as a novice gardener.
Lauren is located in South Hadley, MA.