Grief Digest Articles

The title of this article by Paula Stephens “What I Wish More People Understood About Losing a Child” quickly caught my attention on my friend, Lisa Payne’s Facebook page the other day. With the article, Lisa posted “I haven’t lost a child. I know people who have…While I felt the article was well-written and insightful, I do not know if it accurately depicts the feelings of those who have suffered this type of loss…” in preparation for her Pastoral Care final.Unfortunately, I know this type of l …

Life is something that is very precious, because longevity is not granted to everyone. The only thing in life that is promised to us is death. It is reasonable to say that most people tend to believe that tomorrow is a promised day, but in reality it really isn’t true. We all experience different phases in life such as pain, sorrow, joy, passion, and prosperity. But these phases in our lives changes as our situations change.I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine before she passed …

Introduction:A year ago in January of 2016, grief came knocking at my front door and let itself in without invitation, want, or welcome. My brother, only one year older than myself and my only sibling, died on January 18, 2016 from a blood clot that broke off into his blood stream and went to his brain. His death was instantaneous, and my life was instantly changed in that moment.2016 was a year of trying to navigate the dark, murky, often directionless land of grief. As a Psychologist, intuitiv …

There is a haunting graceIn one grief painted face.Pools of eyes adrift with unshed pain.Belie a hope they’ll see their dead again.There is a haunting graceIn one grief painted face.Tracks of tears make streams of sorrow,Rivulets running,Into an endless sea of tomorrow.There is a haunting graceIn one grief painted face.Seeking solace from all those others,Sorrow’s companions,Grief’s sisters and brothers.There is a haunting graceIn one grief painted face.I’ve seen it many times, and can it be,Tha …

It gets better in ways but not exactly. Nine months after we sat by her bedside just two days after she entered the hospital and watched her last breath, I can now flip through photographs and see fragments of her being and a glimpse of the fire that raged in her five foot body without falling apart. In a way, images are less painful. Moments of a shared past but only shadows of all the senses correlated to the photo. Emotions. Smells. Sounds. Only a part of the past remains on a 4 X 6 heavy sto …