Beauty From Heartbreak

Grieving parents offer hope to others, one weekend at a time | Photos courtesy P23 Retreat

by

Sunday Story

Cindy and Scott Shufflebarger couldn’t wait to welcome another child into their family. With two daughters already, they thought they knew exactly what to expect. But midway through Cindy’s third pregnancy, doctors delivered devastating news: Their baby girl had a rare chromosomal abnormality. “They told us it was incompatible with life,” Cindy recalls.

She carried Ashlynn to term and gave birth on a Friday morning. Ashlynn died three days later. “I got to do all the things moms do,” Cindy says. “I bathed her. I fed her. I rocked her. I loved her. And then I had to say goodbye.”

Grief seeped into every corner of Cindy and Scott’s life. “It impacts you emotionally, spiritually, financially, relationally and physically,” Cindy says. “There’s fatigue and brain fog that make it difficult just to function.”

Two weeks after Ashlynn died, the Shufflebargers’ oldest daughter started kindergarten, and their youngest daughter, a busy toddler, was getting into everything. The world kept turning, but Cindy felt stuck. “Everything I understood and knew about life was ripped out from under me,” she recalls. “There was this tension between taking care of my children who needed me while not wanting to leave the child I lost behind.”

Later that fall, Scott’s parents offered their beach house on North Carolina’s Outer Banks so the couple could get away alone. “We didn’t know how valuable that weekend was at the time,” Cindy recalls. “We only had to take care of the two of us. Being able to rest and cry and talk about it away from everybody else allowed us to get our feet back under us.”

Years later, the couple was reflecting on their grief and how far they’d come. With their daughters and a son now teenagers, they decided to start an organization to give other couples the space to grieve and the opportunity to press pause.

Their nonprofit, P23 Retreat, is named for Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd,” a passage that had given the Shufflebargers comfort during their darkest hours. “The Bible is filled with lament,” Cindy says. “Many of the psalms cry out for help in desperation. That process helped me find a deeper faith.”

P23 Retreat welcomes couples and single parents of all faiths who have lost a child, from stillbirth through young adulthood. The organization arranges free weekend retreats at private homes and Airbnbs, typically within a two-hour drive of Richmond, from the beaches to the mountains and peaceful places in between. Some properties are donated by owners, while other trips are funded through donations and sponsorships.

Each family receives a care package with suggested activities, prayers, a grief journal and conversation starters including questions such as “What can I do for you right now?” and “What has surprised you about your grief?”

“They’re a nonthreatening way to talk to each other,” Cindy says. “Men and women — and people in general — grieve differently. There were seasons I thought my husband wasn’t doing it right just because he wasn’t grieving like me. Looking back, he was just trying to navigate his own way. Grief is messy and complicated.”

In the last three years, P23 Retreat has provided trips for over 100 families and has expanded beyond Richmond. “We’ve evolved into something much bigger than we ever imagined,” Cindy says. “We are just one touchpoint on a couple’s grief journey; their journey will last a lifetime.”

P23 Retreat clients have suffered every loss imaginable, including those due to cancer, complex medical conditions, tragic accidents and suicide. “It’s so heartbreaking,” Cindy says.

While statistically rare, the loss of a child touches more families than people may realize. Each year in the United States, approximately 60,000 children and young adults from birth to age 24 lose their lives. In Virginia, firearms and car accidents are the leading causes of death among children and adolescents, according to a 2023 report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationally, infant deaths are most often caused by prematurity, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and congenital conditions, including chromosomal abnormalities like Ashlynn’s.

Twenty years later, the Shufflebargers still think of their daughter every day. Her loss has permanently marked them. “People look at us differently,” Cindy says. “We’re walking billboards for a parent’s worst nightmare.”

And yet, alongside sorrow, they’ve found purpose. “Helping others serves as a tangible and powerful reminder that our daughter’s life had meaning,” Cindy says. “Other people are being blessed and finding hope. There’s a real healing in that.”

Free Services for Grieving Parents

Never miss a Sunday Story: Sign up for the newsletter, and we’ll drop a fresh read into your inbox at the start of each week. To keep up with the latest posts, search for the hashtag #SundayStory on Facebook and Instagram.