Grief Digest Articles

I recently finished Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air. The memoir is wrenching, elegant, and unforgettable. For those who haven’t read it, Paul Kalanithi was a brilliant neurosurgeon at Stanford who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He and his wife Lucy, also a physician, became parents just weeks before Paul’s death. This is a book of extraordinary courage, and while it’s been on my radar since early 2016, I put off reading it until a writing client asked me to do so to help inform her …

There is a price we must pay. It’s called grief.When we are born, we quickly begin attaching our hearts to people, places, things, ways of life and much more. This is part of the human experience. Love is very satisfying - until it is lost. If you are currently experiencing the full effects of grief, you may be wondering if this thing called love is really worth the price you are paying.I refer to grief as “love’s shadow.” Our love grows like a giant balloon in a darkened room. The brightened si …

A long time is too long to be missing the one who knew you the best. Beware of people that tell you that your pain will pass as it shall not. Cherish the great memories that you have. Discard not the ones that include resentment because they still carry a lesson that needs to be learned. Evenings and nighttime will bring back feelings of agony and aching.Forgetting how she held you is the worst. Grant me one more hug and it would warm my heart for years to come. Hearing her voice would be divine …

I have a strong character. I’m not sure about my Higher Power these days, but I do have a Light inside of me that urges me on to healing, even during those days when my eyelids are too swollen to lift them up to Heaven.I vacillate between great days and very low days, but mostly, I function well, and there will always be a vein of sorrow that runs through everything I do. Maybe there was a time when I thought it would hurt less if my life came to an end, but I never thought about taking my own l …

Flailing about for answers after my son’s sudden death a few years ago, I leaned on some of those crutches that become familiar to many dads.I dove back into work, changing careers to become a high school teacher. I put extra elbow grease into buffing the topsides of our boat, venting, churning, then finally ready to unwind a bit on the water for another season. I tried to anticipate the needs of our two younger children, noting when they were sad or vacant.Taking long solo runs, I called on Mik …