My daughter died It was on a bright Palm Sunday morning three years ago. One phone call and life, as we knew it, was forever changed. For my husband and me, everything was turned inside out and upside down, leaving us completely adrift, just trying to negotiate everyday existence. Instantly we became members of a club that no one ever volunteers to join. We are parents of a child who died, and surviving has become what we do every moment of every day.

Why Beyond Culloden? Our sweet Missy was a student of Scottish history. We have, for years, studied about our family and our Scots-Irish and Scottish roots. She knew much about the Battle of Culloden that occurred in 1746. Details of the battle can be researched, but she went to the battlefield on a trip to Scotland with her sister, Shannon, and it had an enormous effect on her.

I recently found a site called Wilderness Scotland, and on it, these words expressed the name we have chosen so well. 

They say the following:

“The battle of Culloden was over within a single hour, yet it changed the course of Scottish history and Highland culture forever.”

Melissa’s death came suddenly, within a single hour, and it changed the course of our lives and our family forever. Now we struggle to move beyond our Culloden.

My name is Rebecca Byous, and I’d like to invite you to listen to my new podcast: Beyond Culloden, Surviving Child Loss.