Grief Digest Articles

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 …

What is grief? The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) defines it as “the normal response of sorrow, emotion, and confusion that comes from losing someone or something important to you. It is a natural part of life. Grief is a typical reaction to death, divorce, job loss a move away from family and friends, or loss of good health due to illness.” Some other causes of grief can be the loss of a pet, the loss of a sense of security and safety – due to an abusive situation, an …

In 2007 four family members died: my elder daughter, father-in-law, brother, and former son-in-law. My daughter Helen was the mother of my twin grandchildren (one boy, one girl) and died from the injuries she received in a car crash. The twins’ father died from the injuries he received in another crash. His death made our grandkids orphans and my husband and me guardians. Suddenly, we were GRGs, grandparents raising grandchildren.The twins were 15 years old when they moved in with us. We couldn’ …

My husband Eric was intensely fond of quail. His tattered copy of Margaret Stanger’s book That Quail, Robert sits on my shelf. Having spent many summers on Cape Cod, he was familiar with the northern bobwhite, the subject of the book. The male has a bright white and black head pattern which differs from its cousin the Gambel’s quail—a slightly smaller bird with a flurry of black feathers atop its gray, chestnut, and cream colored body. Eric’s delight at seeing a Gambel’s quail for the first time …