Grief Digest Articles

Today I cleaned my patio garden as I usually do each Sunday. An enthusiastic gardener, I love spending time with my hands in cool earth, cleaning up fallen leaves and trimming away old growth to make way for new. This patio garden is small, a 16 x 6-foot rectangle that is heavily shaded by the sentinels that stand guard above it: decades-old fig, plum, and cape honeysuckle that toss their leaves and blossoms like a careless four-year old at a wedding, haphazardly covering my plants with random b …

Washington Irving once said, “There is sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and unspeakable love.” When I was eight, my mother passed away from a rare form of leukemia. She was diagnosed with the disease just after I was born and that was the start of a roller coaster filled life for our family. It was constantly up and down for us. There were …

Guidelines on how to talk to grieving children about deathThrough the years I have learned a great deal from many grieving children and their families. They have taught me which words work best when talking to children about death. Here are some general concepts I suggest companions use when talking with children about death, dying, grief, and mourning.Talk openly about deathThe child’s journey through grief depends on you being honest and open about the death he has experienced. You may feel th …

In memory of Bill, my beloved husband and soul mate, who died in 2010.It’s a twenty-four-year habit. Every morning when I awaken, I look across the bed to see if you are there. If you aren’t, I look out at your chair, knowing you will be there. That you have gotten up before me and are quietly sitting in your chair meditating, being still, reading your Bible, waiting for me to waken.Oh, you would have made the coffee silently, so as not to disturb my sleep. I never knew how you did that so quiet …

The scourge of losing my twenty-six-year-old son, Paul Philip Grammatico, and his best friend, Michael, to a drunk driver leaves scars, and each day I chew on my thorns in the stunning reality of Paul’s death. The title, “MADD Mother” was impaled on me, and it breaks my heart.Paul was my past, my present and my future; he was my only son. A natural leader, he was an extremely generous young man, the epitome of loyalty, passion, motivation for life, and a true goal setter. Our hopes as a family w …