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Tasks of Grief

Posted on October 25, 2025 - by lesmccarroll

Some things in life just go together like the dropped ice cream on the ground and a toddler’s cry or a young son’s first goodbye and a mother’s tears. When the first one occurs, it is followed by the second. It is more than an expectation, more than most of the time. It actually “comes with the territory” of dropped ice cream or a son’s good-bye. In a similar fashion, tasks of life are things that are more than expectations. They are things that “come with the territory”: autumn will come each year and leaves will be raked, the dryer […]

The Day I Truly Lost My Father: How Grief Became My Greatest Teacher and Led me Back to Myself.

Posted on October 24, 2025 - by Rachelle Muschamp

The last time that I saw my father, I was 7. He died when I was 28. But I truly lost him at 43 Grief. Such a complex topic—one that we do not speak about enough. Grief shows up in many situations; it is not only about the passing of a loved one. In reality, we are all faced with grief throughout our lives, often on a subconscious level. And we rush through those events without honoring them for what they truly are: rites of passage—moments that mark profound transitions and have the power to transform us completely. Running From […]

Rethinking Sympathy in Times of Loss

Posted on October 23, 2025 - by Hope Reger

Judgment in Grief: A Societal Reflection As a society, we must ask ourselves: have we reached a point where the level of sympathy offered to grieving families depends on the choices made by their loved ones? It is troubling to consider that families may receive varying degrees of compassion based on how their loved one passed away—whether from cancer, overdose, accident, suicide, heart attack, or murder. This raises the question: are we so critical of others that we allow our judgments to influence who is deserving of more or less sympathy? Debating Irrelevant Issues While debates about whether addiction is […]

GRIEF AS A PORTAL TO YOUR LOVED ONE

Posted on October 16, 2025 - by susanbroara

The process of transitioning from this realm into another is an experience that you, as the living counterpart, have the honor to participate in and witness. Transitions take place through energy portals. A portal can be described as a way in. As your loved one crossed over, they entered a portal into the spiritual realm specific to them. Your grief holds the opposite portal. Portals exist as gateways and passageways between dimensions that allow Spirits to maneuver in and out of the alternate worlds. These are parallel universes, which exist side by side, and, because these portals have opened, the […]

Grieving the Self We Lost Along the Way

Posted on October 16, 2025 - by maya-fleischer

When we think of grief, most of us picture the loss of someone we love. Yet there is another kind of grief, quieter and often unnamed: the grief of losing touch with parts of ourselves. For some, early trauma or difficult experiences meant silencing our voice, hiding our needs, or abandoning joy in order to stay safe. These strategies helped us survive. But later in life, we may realize how much of ourselves has been left behind. That realization can feel like grief — because it is. This form of grief doesn’t come with rituals or sympathy cards. It doesn’t […]

A Different Kind of Animal

Posted on October 15, 2025 - by Greg Adams

One is a cat owner, and the other has a dog. Both recently shared how difficult it will be when their pets die. They will need some downtime and space to adjust and grieve. Both thought that it might not be possible to return to work the next day. In another conversation, a man older than me shared how he still misses his dog. They had a routine, and he misses that routine along with his dog’s presence in his life and home. There was a younger woman, younger than me, who talked about how the death of her cat […]

Befriending Our Loneliness in Grief

Posted on October 15, 2025 - by Dr. Audrey Davidheiser

In a New Yorker article, Tad Friend quoted a psychiatrist who had ample experience with those who vaulted to their deaths from the Golden Gate bridge. The doctor singled out a case that especially moved him: “The guy was in his thirties, lived alone, pretty bare apartment. He’d written a note and left it on his bureau. It said, ‘I am going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump’” (Tad Friend, “Jumpers,” The New Yorker, October 5, 2003, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/13/jumpers). Sadly, he jumped, which must mean nobody smiled at […]

The Big Red Purse

Posted on October 1, 2025 - by Linda Henderson

Andrea, I was hoping you could lend me one of your big purses. I opened the closet where they are stored. To my disappointment, the big ones I remember were not there. I’m not sure, perhaps I lent them on your behalf, and my grief brain doesn’t remember. At first, I was disappointed and sad, a minor frustration compared to the grief I carry daily, but it caused me to pause. I know you understand. I started to look in the closet quietly, and my eyes focused on the purse you had that day—the beautiful lilac-colored one with darker purple […]

Why We React Differently to Grief

Posted on September 15, 2025 - by Dr. Audrey Davidheiser

One reason grief is undesirable is the overwhelming soup of feelings it stirs up. Dr. Kenneth Doka, a prolific author and speaker on the subject of grief, explains it this way: “We rarely experience one dominant emotion at a time. We can feel depression, anger, disbelief all at once. We are a hive of emotions” (Kenneth J. Doka, Grief Is a Journey: Finding Your Path Through Loss). If his assessment feels intimidating, take a deep breath. Internal Family Systems (IFS) can help you tease apart one emotion from the next. How? We can identify parts of our soul based […]

Carl’s Magpies-Messages from the Afterlife

Posted on September 15, 2025 - by Veronica Crawford

Before losing my brother Carl after a car accident, I had always believed that when we died, that was it, the end of our journey. And in the early stages of grief, it was a dark time – to think that Carl was gone and I would never see him again. After Carl’s funeral, we were faced with the daunting task of collecting his belongings. Carl’s friends were amazing and provided support beyond what we could ever have expected. They brought their trucks and trailers and helped us pack everything he owned. Words can’t convey the surreal, gut-wrenching feeling of […]