Love, Loss and New Life

As Love Is Blind alum Lauren Speed-Hamilton prepares for motherhood and the one-year anniversary of her father's passing, she réflects on holding space for both joy and grief during the holiday season

- By Brande Victorian

Love Is Blind success story and soon-to-be parents, Lauren Speed-Hamilton and Cameron Hamilton.

Last Christmas Eve, Lauren Speed-Hamilton and her family were gathered in her Atlanta home watching the Netflix special Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was.

Her father, Bill Speed, began to get emotional. “He turned to me and said, ‘Wow, this is making me think about my life, and you guys, and my legacy, and what I’m leaving. I love you guys,’” Speed-Hamilton recalls of what had been a heartwarming evening. “We went up to his bedroom when it was time for bed, and I said, ‘Goodnight, Dad. I love you. See you tomorrow for Christmas!’”

When the Love Is Blind star came downstairs at around 8:30 the next morning and noticed that her dad, typically an early riser, hadn’t woken yet, she immediately “got a drop in the pit of my stomach,” she says. Speed-Hamilton decided to make a smoothie; she hoped the sound of the blender would rouse her father, known as Papa Speed to fans of the Netflix reality dating show on which the 38-year-old met her husband, Cameron Hamilton, seven years ago. When it didn’t, she went to check on him. He had died overnight.

“Oh my God, Dad will never get a chance to see me pregnant,” Speed-Hamilton recalls telling her mother that day. “I was heartbroken, because he couldn't wait to be a granddad.”

At the time, the Hamiltons, who were in the midst of an in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle, weren’t certain of their future as parents. The couple, who wed on November 16, 2018—day 38 of the