Grief Digest Articles

Throughout my career, while serving as both a pastor and bereavement specialist, I have helped support thousands of families who were mourning precious loved ones. Sadly, the grief dynamic for individuals within most of those families was one of isolation and silence.This silence isn’t surprising. It’s just so, so difficult to talk about death and the pain of grief. Most adults don’t feel comfortable talking with another grownup about death or grief. The thought of trying to speak with and comfo …

Here’s the thing about life. It’s not fair. It never claimed to be and it never will be. Suffering isn’t distributed fairly either. It never is. When you experience a loss or hardship, there is no Cosmic Force that checks your name so you aren’t handed any more. My husband Tim died at 48 from gallbladder cancer just five months after his diagnosis. Clearly, that rocked our world. But this article is about some of the other losses my children and I experienced around that time as well.During the …

If you have hair my color—nearly all white now—you’ll remember this from Bob Dylan and the 60s:“Come gather ‘round people wherever you roam,and admit that the waters around you have grown.And accept that soon you’ll be drenched to the boneand if your time to you is worth savin’then you’d better start swimmin’ or sink like a stone,for The Times They are A’Changin’.”During that same time, when Bob Dylan swung a guitar over his shoulder and took to the road, I was standing (get this) with long red …

Today was a very special day for me, for I was both a seventy-eight year old man and a child again. I was in a melancholy mood because one of our best and most loyal friends had died. By our standards she had a low IQ, no formal education, had never been to been to church, but had always demonstrated to us God’s expectations for his children.This dear friend was always there for us, morning or night, Monday or Saturday. Countless times a day, our friend let us know we were loved, asked only for …

As I was reading the local newspaper recently, I wondered how many of the paper’s features reminded me of things I did or encountered on my own grief journey. When my two eldest children, twenty-one-year-old Denis and nineteen-year-old Peggy, were killed in the same car accident years ago, I never realized how much the newspaper could reinforce the grief process.The Front PageThe tops in news makes the newspaper’s front page, complete with pictures and headlines. When we are newly bereaved, our …