Grief Digest Articles

Eileen Vorbach Collins Your death wasn’t real. I knew you’d come back, that it was, all of it, a bad dream. The worst dream ever dreamed. When after the first day of shiva— after I laughed and chatted, served cake and coffee, after the people went home to their lives—it became real, I thought I would never laugh again. I couldn’t hear, the silence was so loud without you. Those tickets to a comedy show bought long before, now felt so wrong. But just months after you …

By Soledad Morillo Belloso  Widowhood is not just the absence of a partner; it is an intricate tapestry woven from silence, memories, and a constant grappling with the strange, shifting contours of life. Experts might call it "a process," a "stage of grief," or a "transition," but these sterile terms fail to capture the raw, unfiltered essence of what it means to navigate the world as a widow.  What they often don’t tell you is the profound loneliness that isn’t solved by c …

Dawn Allen Dawn, I’m so sorry for your loss, call me if you need anything. I heard this phrase more times than I can count when I lost my husband Ash to that vicious unrelentless disease called cancer. In that moment, it was just words, it didn’t mean anything to me. I had just lost my husband of 12 years, the father of my children, who were ages 13 and 8 at the time. I didn’t know what I needed. I was on autopilot I had been on autopilot for months. One day a man who never got …

By Jenny Leavitt I never expected to lose my child. I don’t think any mother does. When my son Jacob died in a car crash—killed instantly by a drunk driver—my world split wide open. Just moments before, I was the mother of two boys. A woman of faith who believed in miracles, purpose, and divine protection. Then, in a single second, I was someone else. People saw me as a “grieving mother.” But grief is more than sorrow. It’s disorientation. It’s forgettin …

Mary Ellen T. Miller PhD, RN, PHNA-BC 4/5/25 Spring is my favorite season. I feel excited seeing the rebirth of tree buds, flowers bursting up from the still semi-frozen ground and the return of robins to my backyard! Spring is also a bittersweet season for me. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are celebrated during this time. These days bring me both joy and sadness. Four decades ago, Marissa, our firstborn died in a NICU when she was 8 days old due to complications of prematurity. …