Grief Digest Articles

By Nancy Harrison  Henry, the noble mutt who never knew a day of luxury but lived a lifetime of love, has been summoned to the great dog park in the sky. After sixteen years of unwavering loyalty, countless walks, and far too many stolen socks, he’s finally hanging up his leash. His human dad, Jesse—determined to be by Henry’s side for the grand farewell—is flying up from Fort Myers to Atlanta today. Tonight, they’ll share one last evening together, tho …

By Desiree Woodland Survivors of suicide loss become survivors against their will. For each person who dies by suicide there are 25 or more people left in grief’s wake. I tell my story to offer encouragement to those left behind who have found themselves on the hard road ahead towards becoming a survivor.  Screams I did not recognize pierced the air and sounded like an animal in pain, but they were mine. This could not be happening. Emergency vehicles with flashing lights surrounded m …

By Amaal Zaki​ Grief is that silent pain you feel in your heart when you think of a loved one who is no longer here. It arrives in the moments when you miss them but cannot reach them. They are not there, and you have questions that no one can answer. There is the guilt for the apology you did not get a chance to offer, or the words of love you wanted to share but kept inside. Grief is deep and complex. It is painful, and it does not always get easier with time. Sometimes, it gets worse.​ What h …

Photo: Kevin's HS Band Shoes, 2008 By Paula Neidorf My world changed forever seven and a half years ago when my only child died. Kevin was 28 years old—bright, compassionate, gifted, funny, and always eager to help those in need. To say that life changed would be an understatement. As so many bereaved parents have written, there is the BEFORE and the AFTER. Many parents choose to have one child; for others, nature makes that decision. For us, it was by choice. We loved bei …

By Dr. Therese Laux  Caregiving is not what I thought it would be. I assumed that loving the person you care for would make it easier. In some ways, it does. In others, it makes everything harder.  When my wife, Laura, was diagnosed with breast cancer, I had no real understanding of what lay ahead. I had known people who had gone through cancer, but I had never lived it beside someone whose pain I would feel as my own. I preferred to think of cancer as something that happened else …