Grief Digest Articles

The new normal. Or so they say. After six months I still don't know what's "new" or "normal" about this life.The word "new" implies excitement. If something is new, you want it, you run towards it, you smile as you reach out to receive it. Put the word "new" in front of anything -- car, puppy, house -- and who would turn it down? We embrace the "new". We love the "new".“Normal” is the stuff that never changes. It's the thing we hardly notice every day, but we expect it to be there. Normal repres …

Dear Casey and Rebecca,Thirteen years have passed since your dad’s death, a lifetime for the two of you since you weren’t even three years old when he died of brain cancer. You were far too young at the time to understand the complexities of death and grief.Among all the questions you asked—and there were so many—this was the one that stopped me cold. “Did we ever meet Daddy?”I couldn't have expressed the giant void you felt in clearer language.Of course you don’t remember Daddy. None of it made …

I am planting a garden in anticipationof spring; roses will bloom, and thepeaches will arrive by summer, andhow do you lose a child?Envious of mama mockingbirds teachingtheir babies to fly, I wonder if their empty nestswill bring grief to their hearts, andhow do you lose a child?I hold a tantalizing book, hungryfor the next page, wondering howit will end, knowing it will, andhow do you lose a child?Tomorrow is always on the horizon;it will come as assuredly as dreadedanniversaries, no lilies, pl …

I think it’s safe to say that our society does not prepare us for the death of a loved one, either in how to experience it when it is happening or in how to grieve afterwards. We are taught to shelter the living from death as if it is an unfortunate reality, better ignored than embraced. Grieving individuals, and those that support them, often struggle for a vocabulary to talk about the loss and the resulting feelings. Instead we have a vernacular ripe with cliché that leaves mourners wanting an …

Twenty years ago, a dear friend experienced the most unimaginable loss as her husband and two daughters were killed in a house explosion and she was seriously injured. In addition to losing her family, every material item she had was destroyed except for the wedding ring that she was wearing.She was placed in a medically induced coma for weeks in order to allow her body to begin healing. The funeral for her husband and daughters took place two weeks after the explosion when it became evident tha …