Grief Digest Articles

A New Year.Another year without those we love beside us.How can this be? How is it that time has the audacity to move on in spite of our sorrow?No new memories created. Frozen in time. They live in our hearts, and in our minds, forever the same. Our memories a placeholder. Those last moments, days, months, years relived, recycled, so that we remain connected to what was as we venture forward one moment, one step, one day at a time. Trying to wrap our minds around the insufferable truth that what …

My son and I were playing a friendly game of catch. As I tossed him the ball, I noticed the mitt he was wearing. It had been my father’s baseball glove that he had used when I was in Little League. I remembered the many times my father had gone to Little League practice and coached or hit fly balls to us. Sports were not really his forte, but being part of my life was important to him. A scientist and researcher with NASA, he was a dedicated father who enjoyed spending time with his three c …

Put Your Anger to WorkAnger.It’s the hidden emotion that I must poke around to unveil in my grief counseling. The only other emotion more concealed is relief. But that’s a topic for another day.The objects of anger range from the deceased to doctors, to God, to self. Maybe you feel like you should have seen signs of the disease yourself. Maybe you’re mad at God for letting your person suffer, or for making parents watch their child die, or children watch their parents die. Maybe the doctors …

Reece’s friend Jeremy was murdered when he was out of state visiting a relative. The circumstances surrounding his death are still somewhat unclear; there are no suspects. She wasn’t even informed about his death until a few days after the funeral. You might imagine that Reece’s grief fluctuated between shock, rage and profound sadness for quite some time. She tried to find out more information about his death but could find little more than the details printed in the newspaper. Jeremy’s f …

The dull pain in my heart still comes and goes,Much the way that a tide ebbs and flows.Alone, I endure this anguish and despair;There is no one who comprehends with whom I can share.In my guilt and my grief I’m completely aloneThe light of my life—my son—now is gone.Your brilliance extinguished by your own hand,An effectively lethal act—spontaneous, unplanned.In one brief moment, the decision you madeTo end your life—the ultimate price paidFor a life so full, yet somehow beyond sad,Su …