Jamie Lynn Bates - Author, Omaha, AR (2026)

08/22/2026

I’ve been a little quiet about this.

For most of my life, when I needed to understand something, remember something, or make sense of something, I wrote. Words have always been where I went.

And then I lost my grandmother.

Grief took me somewhere my writing could only follow so far. There were pieces of love and loss buried so deeply inside me that I could feel them, but I couldn’t seem to reach them with words alone.

Grief gave me keys.

And one of those keys opened the door to an entirely new language.

Song.

Music became the heartbeat to what I was writing. It gave movement to the words, sound to the memories, and a voice to the things buried too deeply for words alone.

And little by little, it became more than a language for grief.
It became a language for my life.

For motherhood and faith. For the people I love and the places I’ve been. For memories I want to keep. For ordinary days that have always meant far more to me than they probably looked like from the outside.

And today, I’m sharing the first little piece of that with you.

Sugar in the Air is out now.

This one is joy.

Windows down. Music playing. Kids in the backseat. Going somewhere—or nowhere in particular. The kind of happiness that doesn’t need an occasion.

And perhaps the sweetest part of today happened before I ever announced any of this.

My girls found the song themselves on their tablets. They came running to show me that their mom’s song was there.

They were proud of me.

And really, that’s enough.

There are more songs coming. Some are joyful. Some hurt. All of them come from somewhere real.

I don’t know exactly where this new language will take me, and I don’t need to.

For today, I’m simply grateful grief handed me the keys.

Sugar in the Air — out now. 🤍

Listen here:
jamielynnbates.com/sugar-in-the-air

06/21/2026

The river has become the place where mercy and grace converge for me.

At the beginning of my caregiving journey, I asked, Who takes care of the caregivers? I know my answer now.

The river does.

The place where I go to lay down the weight of being the one who stays. The one who carries. The one who buries the ones she loves all the way through and then keeps tending to the living. The place where I lay down the weight of grief, the sacred duty of staying present, and the exhaustion of carrying love all the way through loss.

And today, the Lord gave me something more.

This same river that has held my weariness held my eight-year-old daughter as she was baptized and publicly declared that she belongs to Jesus.

The place where I have brought my sorrow became the place where I witnessed her faith.

The place that has cared for the caregiver became holy ground for my child.

And I cannot miss the mercy of that.

The river has held my grief.
Today it held my daughter’s testimony too.

Mercy and grace, sorrow and hope, all in the same water. 🤍

06/16/2026

Grandma’s Love Lives Here Sometimes, the holiest work of motherhood is teaching our children how to carry love after loss.

Lately, our kitchen table has been covered in thousands of tiny photographs and four empty photo albums waiting to be filled by little hands carrying tender grief. The same table where we eat dinner and do homework has become a landscape of memory.

Together, we’ve sorted through Grandma’s life—photograph by photograph, story by story.

This is what it looks like to shepherd a child’s soul through the valley of the shadow of death so that they do not fear evil, but instead learn to cherish the people we love and the time we have been given with them.

I’ve realized that I cannot spare my daughters the ache of missing someone they deeply loved. If I could take their pain away, I would.

But to remove all sorrow would also rob them of something deeply human: the ability to love so fully that loss leaves an imprint.

So I am teaching them that memory is not something to fear.

Photographs are not ghosts.

Love remains safe to touch.

Grandma still lives in stories, recipes, laughter, and remembrance.

I am not teaching them how to avoid grief.

I am teaching them how to carry love forward without being consumed by loss.

This is sacred motherhood.

06/16/2026

Monday nights have become sacred.

Every week, my daughters and I pack our overnight bags and return to the house that raised me. The same house where I once hid beneath the bed as a frightened little girl. The same room where I cared for my grandmother in her final days. The same porch where my grandfather and I now sit with cups of coffee, watching the birds greet the morning and grieving the woman we both miss.

Some people heal by leaving the places that hurt them.

I have found healing by returning.

We cook. We laugh. We cry. We tell old stories while little girls run through rooms that have held generations before them. And somewhere between the tears and the birdsong, healing quietly begins.

Perhaps healing doesn’t always come through escape. Perhaps it comes through return—filling old rooms with new laughter, shared meals, sleeping children, and the steadfast presence of those who remain.

We heal as we sleep.

Held by memory.
Covered by love.
Carried, ordinary Monday night after ordinary Monday night, toward wholeness together. SacredOrdinary LoveAfterLoss

06/16/2026

We Heal as We Sleep
(Moving Through Monday Night Sleepovers)

Nothing has changed.

This is the very room. The very bed that held me as a child. The one she held me in.

It is the very bed I hid beneath when they tried to take me away.

I have not slept in this room for more than thirty years, and yet somehow, it has come to hold me again.

First, it held me as I cared for her in her final days. It became the place where medications were measured, blankets were adjusted, whispered prayers were spoken, and breaths were counted. The room that had once witnessed my childhood quietly bore witness to her leaving it.

And now that she is gone, my youngest daughter, Chloe, and I sleep here, in her bed every Monday night, with her older sisters in my childhood room next-door.

Monday nights have become my sacred duty of caring for my grandfather.

The girls and I arrive carrying groceries and overnight bags. We cook. We eat around familiar tables. We play games and visit. We laugh at old stories. We listen to new ones. Life unfolds in ordinary ways within walls that have held generations before us.

And sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, my grandfather and I sit on the porch with cups of coffee warming our hands. We watch the birds greet the dawn.

And we cry.

We cry for the woman who should still be here to see the sun rise through those trees.

We cry because love leaves an ache when it has nowhere left to go.

We cry because grief demands witnesses.

Yet somewhere between the coffee and the birdsong, between the tears and the laughter of little girls running through the house, healing quietly begins.

We are all healing together.

Some people have to run from the memories.

They run from the environments that shaped them.
They run from the rooms where hard things happened.
They run from the pain because every familiar corner threatens to reopen old wounds.

I understand that instinct.

But I find myself doing the opposite.

I run toward it.

Toward the bedroom that held both my beginning and one of my deepest endings.

Toward the porch where grief sits beside gratitude.

Toward the house that taught me what it means to belong.

I do not fear her bedroom.

I find peace there.

I find evidence that love endures longer than death. That the places where we have suffered can also become the places where we mend. That God, in His mercy, can redeem the very spaces we once associated only with fear or loss.

Monday nights are not an obligation. They are sacred.

They have become healing grounds.

A grandfather learning how to live without the love of his life.

A granddaughter discovering that grief and gratitude can occupy the same sacred space.

A little girl curled beneath the same quilts her mother once knew, finding safety without even realizing the history wrapped around her.

Perhaps this is how healing often comes—not through escape, but through return.

Not by forgetting what happened in the rooms that shaped us, but by filling those rooms with new laughter, fresh tears, shared meals, sleeping children, and the steadfast presence of those who remain.

We heal as we sleep.

Held by memory.

Covered by love.

And carried, night after ordinary Monday night, toward wholeness together.

05/19/2026

Healing happens in the rain.

During days when it should be sunny and bright,
thunderclouds roll in
like it’s the dead of night.

Warm humid air.
Wind blowing strong.
Thunder crashing in the distance—

and somehow,
I know I belong.

Because grief sounds more like thunder
than it does a sermon.

It rolls in quietly at first.
Then all at once.

A chair left empty.
A side of the bed untouched.
One coffee cup instead of two.

Fifty-six years
of loving the same soul
does not leave the body gently.

And no crowd can drown out
that kind of silence.

Not the lights.
Not the music.
Not the noise of people
trying to turn sorrow into spectacle.

Some hearts were never meant
for all that noise.

Some hearts find God
in quiet kitchens,
soft prayers before bed,
hands held in silence,
and love that asks for nothing in return.

And when grandfather cries,
he does not cry because he is weak.

He cries because great love
leaves a great echo.

Because a life shared that long
becomes stitched into the soul
until breathing itself
feels different without her here.

The storm grew heavier today.

The trees bent low in the wind
while thunder shook the windows,
and somewhere beneath the sound of rain
I thought about the ones left behind.

The ones sitting alone at night,
trying to survive the echo
of a life once shared.

The ones who do not need fixing.
Do not need distracting.
Do not need performance.

Only gentleness.
Only presence.
Only someone willing
to sit quietly beside them
while the rain falls.

Maybe healing happens there.

Not in escaping the storm—
but in finally being loved
through it.

05/10/2026

Flowers For Mother’s Day

There is a place where the earth still looks disturbed,
where the ground rises uneven,
as if even the soil itself has not yet accepted
that she is gone.

These are not the flowers
I thought I would give her for Mother’s Day.

The flowers laid beside her rest
are still somewhat fresh,
yet already beginning to wilt beneath the heat of May.

Still, these are the flowers
we lay for Mother’s Day.

Petals curling inward like grieving hands
trying to hold onto one more moment.

No stone has been placed yet.
No dates carved into granite.
Just a field of quiet dreams
and a heart still aching.

These are not the flowers
I wanted to give her for Mother’s Day.

So I sit beneath the shade of an ancient oak tree,
giving time and space to the Ancient of Days.

Where tears turn into wine
and sorrow into sacred remembering.

The life she lived
and the love she sowed
flower through the cracks of grief.

Blooming right here
where her feet once stood
and her heart once beat.

Carrying on inside of me
like a whispered prayer

Memories blooming beside fresh earth…
Love still lingering where goodbye was laid to rest…
Wildflowers growing from broken ground…

These are the flowers
I am giving her for Mother’s Day.

05/08/2026

Made New Through It

There is a difference between carrying grief and becoming buried beneath it.

This summer, I do not want to become hardened by sorrow. I do not want to calcify into the shape of my pain. I do not want to look backward so long that I become unable to move forward. I think of Lot’s wife — not condemned for loving what she lost, but transformed into a pillar of salt because she remained fixed there, preserved in a moment that could no longer live.

I do not want grief to preserve me.
I want it to transform me.
So I will move.
Not frantically.
Not to escape.
Not to numb myself.
But slowly. Consciously. Honestly.

I will wake early and reclaim the quiet hours of the morning. I will write. I will sweat. I will walk. I will paddle across water and feel my body move forward even when my heart feels heavy. I will sit in the sun while my daughters laugh in the pool. I will plant gardens with dirty hands and remember that all living things move through seasons of death and rebirth.

I will nourish my body gently.
I will not punish it for grieving.

The bloating, the exhaustion, the heaviness — perhaps not all of it is physical. Perhaps some of it is sorrow carried silently through months of caregiving, loss, and love. Perhaps my body has been holding what my heart could barely speak aloud.

So this season is not about becoming smaller.
It is about becoming clear again.

I want to feel every part of this grief while it is still warm and alive inside me. I do not want to rush past it and discover years later that I buried pieces of myself alongside her. I want to remember her fully. I want to remember the way she loved me, carried me, stood beside me when my world was dark. I want to remember the sacredness of holding her at the end of her life, just as she once held me at the beginning of mine.

This is not a season of forgetting.
It is a season of carrying forward.

I believe grief can either harden a person or deepen them. And I want to be deepened. Softer. Wiser. More awake to beauty. More aware of how fragile and holy life really is.

So I will not rush this summer.
I will let the sun touch my skin.
I will let the water calm my nervous system.
I will let movement carry sorrow through my body instead of trapping it there.
I will let writing uncover what still needs to be spoken.
I will let laughter with my daughters coexist beside tears.
I will let joy return without guilt.

And somewhere between the gardens, the paddle board, the morning workouts, the writing sessions, the camping trips, the pool days, and the quiet evenings with my family, I believe God will begin teaching me how to live in this new landscape of love and loss.

Not the woman I was before grief.
But not destroyed by it either.

Made new through it.

05/08/2026

Jeanette Marie Rogers
October 17,1949 – April 28, 2026
77 years 06 months 11 days

💜—————————————————🕊️

There are two parts of me standing here today.

The woman in me rejoices.
She knows my grandmother is no longer in pain.
She is healed, whole, and finally at peace.
The body that once struggled now rests, and the heart that carried so much has been made new.

There is comfort in that.
There is even joy in that.

But the little girl in me…
still reaches for her grandma.

Because when I was little,
she held me so carefully… so intentionally.
She didn’t just care for me—she watched over me.

I remember how she would hold me close
and count my heartbeats,
as if every single one mattered.
As if every breath I took was something to be protected.

That was her love—
diligent, quiet, and unwavering.

She made me feel safe in a way that is hard to put into words.
Like as long as I was in her arms, nothing in the world could reach me.

And in her final days…
I had the honor of holding her.

As she once held me,
I held her.

And in the quiet moments,
I found myself doing the same thing she once did for me—
listening closely,
feeling each breath,
aware of every heartbeat.

The same care.
The same attention.
The same love… returned.

And it struck me in a way I will never forget—
that love had come full circle.

The hands that once protected my life
were now being held as hers gently came to an end.

There is something sacred in that.
Something that feels like both an ending… and a completion.

And then, last night, I saw that love continue.

After we told the girls that she had passed,
we also shared her final words—how much she loved them.

They cried… deeply, honestly.
The kind of tears that only come from real love.

But later, after dinner, we stepped outside together.
It was drizzling.
The ground was wet, little puddles forming on the concrete,
the grass soft beneath our feet.

And Brealynn—
the one Grandma always said was most like her—
my wild, barefoot, outside-loving girl…

She stepped into a puddle.
Gently. Thoughtfully.

And she looked at me and asked,
“Is this being wild like Grandma?”

And I said,
“Yes, honey… this is just like what Grandma would do.”

And without hesitation,
the girls began jumping in the puddles—
tears still on their faces—
calling out, “Grandma… Grandma… Grandma…”

And then Chloe took off running across the wet grass,
and they all chased after her—
laughing and crying all at once,
running freely in the rain.

And I just stood there… watching.

Watching my children hold grief and joy in the same moment.
Not taught. Not coached. Not filtered.

Just… true.

And in that moment, I saw something so clear—
that love doesn’t disappear.

It moves.
It lives on.
It shows up in the most unexpected, beautiful ways.

In laughter mixed with tears.
In puddles and bare feet.
In the wild, free hearts of children.

So today, I don’t stand here only in sorrow.
I stand here in gratitude.

Grateful for the way she loved me.
Grateful for the way she cared for me so intentionally.
Grateful that I was given the chance to care for her in return.

Grateful that I was hers…
and she was mine.

And maybe this is what love looks like now—
not choosing between grief and peace,
but holding both.

Rejoicing that she is free…
while still missing her deeply.

Because love doesn’t end when a life does.
It simply changes form.

And I know…
that if she could see us—
her girls, her great-granddaughters,
laughing and crying and calling her name in the rain…

her heart would have been full.

I will ALWAYS love you…

Jamie Lynn Bates - Author

08/22/2026

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