loss

There’s a phrase my family has used often over the years when it comes to healthy grief. We’ve often expressed a desire to “grieve well” — to give our hearts, minds, and bodies adequate time and space to recognize, honor, and process the loss we’ve experienced. Sometimes that feels like too much pressure. How do…

Several weeks ago I was talking with a friend about what I learned from grief. I’m not sure what people expect to hear when the topic comes up, but it’s never going to be a platitude. I’m never going to say something that might appear on a Hallmark card 1) because I don’t believe in…

When someone we love has experienced loss, it feels overwhelming to know how to help. We don’t want to say the wrong thing. We want to be helpful. We want them to know we love them dearly. We know different people grieve differently and have different needs, but how do we know? We don’t want…

After my husband died, I really struggled with not being able to compensate for his absence. I couldn’t do all the child care and house projects and household duties and cooking — overwhelmed was an understatement. Survival mode with two young kids had to include other people to help. I felt like crawling under a…

Nothing triggers my grief quite so much as when my friends have more babies. To be clear: I don’t resent them. I wouldn’t even say I’m jealous, really. It’s just a reminder that I had hoped to raise a whole gaggle of children with my husband and that the option of having more kids was…

After my dad died, I really struggled. Yes, I was sad and angry and grieving his loss. He had died on the East Coast 8 hours after my son was born on the West Coast. There was a big emotional burden to carry and I assumed if I could just live “normally,” the grief would…

Whether or not you’ve experienced loss, you can imagine the pain of grief. You can understand the sadness and disorienting feeling of someone you love being gone. And if you’ve watched someone have to let go of hopes for their life or letting a dream die, you know the feelings that come with grief are…

My dad died 10 years ago, now. A decade is too long of a time to not have one of your greatest cheerleaders or get one of his hugs. But 10 years out and my grief has changed. I don’t feel quite so hollowed out by it now. I don’t mistakenly call or text him….

I get so mad when people use the phrase “moving on” when it comes to healing from grief. You don’t move on from your person (as if you could). They played a role in your life and you’ll carry them with you forever. Besides…a loss of any kind, whether a person, a job, a home,…

I woke up January 1, 2016 – almost exactly one year after my husband died – thinking about the word ‘hope.’ What did it mean to hope when everything about life had already gone topsy turvy? I had already seen how hopes could get smashed, ground to a pulp, and dumped off a cliff –…