Grief Digest Articles

“I think we should leave,” I whispered to my husband through clenched teeth as my 2-year-old daughter, Hailey, wailed in my arms.We were at my cousin Ryan’s house for his daughter’s birthday party and Hailey was having a typical overtired toddler meltdown. Tears started to well up in my eyes, but not because of my daughter’s less than ideal behavior. As I surveyed the room, I could see my aunt smiling and laughing with her granddaughter and Ryan’s wife’s mom was right beside them, doting on the …

It’s been too long since my last visit with you, my son. I’m coming to visit you.It’s been on my mind most of the time, this is true.I so look forward to seeing your sneaky smile and light hair.I never know what to expect, I can’t help but stare.I’m so proud of you! When you were younger, you were such a spitfire.You were adventurous, always trudging in muck and mire.But you’ve grown up to be a wonderful young man.You were always strong in your actions and stuck to your plan.You became so indep …

Pushing Through Loss in the KitchenMy late husband Mark was ever-patient, flexible with my whims and most generous. These virtues were tested when he had to deal with my thoughts about designing our kitchen. We moved into our home in November of 2001. While adapting the floor plans from a builder’s model, I asked the kitchen designer if he had ever put a bookshelf in a kitchen. He looked perplexed; it really wasn’t done much at that time. In the model there was a kitchen desk, which I knew, with …

My son’s death was the worst thing that ever happened in my life. I fell apart, couldn’t think straight, barely talked, and rarely left my house. During that first year of grieving, taking care of my daughter was one of the few things I could still think about and care enough to do. The first time I took her to a grief support group, I sat at a table in the back of the room making eye contact with no one while Sylvia made bracelets out of multi-colored rubber bands and talked with the other chil …

CHAPTER SIX “I Still Exist”“Get yourself some girlfriends,” Max said. “That’s all I got to say. We did everything, I mean everything together, and now he’s gone.” I was at my first College Board Advanced Placement reading—scoring thousands of student essays from that year’s AP Literature Exam. Sitting by herself, smoking and writing, was this beautiful petite woman who looked so sad. I sat next to her and lit my own cigarette. We traded stories and I found out that her husband had died suddenly. …