Grief Digest Articles

In a previous Grief Digest article, a new concept specific to child loss was discussed (Grief’s Ladder). This concept evolved from decades-long journaling about the loss of our 17-year-old son, Andy, in a car accident in 1997. Although this model is fully explored in my Amazon memoir, Grief’s Ladder: A Son’s Death and a Father’s Healing Promise, this follow-up article will provide greater detail about the top two rungs of Grief’s Ladder, shown below.To provide some context I must first backtrack …

Ambushed by the news, I dropped the receiver from the pay phone. My knees buckled and I was on the ground. I might have screamed. I don’t remember.Susie is dead.My 8-week-old grand daughter is dead.Over the next week I experienced an exponential dimension to grief. I grieved for our baby. I grieved for my son’s loss and for my daughter-in-law. I grieved for the baby’s uncle, my younger son, who was tasked with letting the family know what happened. I grieved for my mom, just diagnosed with demen …

The tree that stands tallest in my rear garden is THE TREE that everyone advised me to cut down. It could not be saved, said the tree experts, nature experts and state experts in SW gardening.It is The Tree towards which robins, bluebirds, doves and the little green finches migrating on their way to elsewhere flock and whose tall branches are sought for safe harbor. It is a tree that bears many wounds. Its’ bark is gray and decayed - dead and hollow in places. Indeed, its trunk is flaked and ash …

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 …