Greg Adams

Greg Adams is a social worker at Arkansas Children's Hospital (ACH) where he coordinates the Center for Good Mourning, a grief support and outreach program, and works with bereavement support for staff who are exposed to suffering and loss. His past experience at ACH includes ten years in pediatric oncology and 9 years in pediatric palliative care. He has written for and edited The Mourning News, an electronic grief/loss newsletter, since its beginning in 2004. Greg is also an adjunct professor in the University of Arkansas-Little Rock Graduate School of Social Work where he teaches a grief/loss elective and students are told that while the class is elective, grief and loss are not. In 1985, Greg graduated from Baylor University majoring in social work and religion, and he earned a Masters in Social Work from the University of Missouri in 1986. One answer to the question of how he got into the work of grief and death education is that his father was an educator and his mother grew up in the residence part of a funeral home where her father was a funeral director. After growing up in a couple small towns in Missouri south of St. Louis, Greg has lived in Little Rock since 1987. He married a Little Rock native in 1986 and his wife is an early childhood special educator and consultant. Together they have two adult children. Along with his experience in the hospital with death and dying and with working with grieving people of all ages, personal experiences with death and loss have been very impacting and influential. In 1988, Greg’s father-in-law died of an unexpected suicide. In 1996, Greg and his wife lost a child in mid-pregnancy to anencephaly (no brain developed). Greg’s mother died on hospice with cancer in 2008 and his father died after the family decided to stop the ventilator after a devastating episode of sepsis and pneumonia in 2015. Greg has a variety of interests and activities—including slow running, reading, sports, public education, religion, politics, and diversity issues—and is active in his church and community. He is honored to have the opportunity to be a contributor for Open to Hope.

Articles:

Grief is Wild

I recently came across an article with the title “Why You Shouldn’t Trust Your Cat.” The idea presented is that domestic cats are actually only partially domesticated. From a genetic perspective, they are more wild than tame. Not everyone has, or wants, a cat, although millions have and do want at least one. But everyone has losses to grieve, and we grievers know that grief is not domesticated. Grief is wild. Grief is a natural and human response to loss, and it is also wild and untamed. It pays no attention to rules and doesn’t follow directions, a map, […]

Strong Back, Soft Front: Staying Open to Emotion

“Every man is for himself, on that you can rely You’ll have to hide behind a shield to stay alive.” David Roth The Armor Song How do we envision life—what image catches its essential nature? Is life basically a struggle, a constant challenge and confrontation with obstacles? Is life a gift, a blessing to receive with gratitude, care, and nurture? Is it a test or a trial for what comes next? Or perhaps life is like a small boat on a huge ocean riding out the great varieties of weather—storms swells which can capsize, dead calm with no discernible movement […]

Saying ‘No’ to Holiday Traditions is OK After a Loss

For many of us, for much of the time, it is hard to say “no.” Even when we’re busy, even when we’re tired, even when it’s something we really don’t want to do. It’s especially hard when it’s something that we’ve done before, when it’s been our routine, our habit, or our tradition. We get into patterns and they’re hard to change. One of our patterns and traditions can be saying “yes” when asked, especially by friends, family, and those we respect. One of the harder voices to say “no” to is that voice in our head. The one that […]

Let’s Talk About ‘Closure’

Let’s talk about “closure,” that thing we search for but never fully find after someone dies. We really hope to find it, and the need for it is deeply felt. We go to the funeral and put up the grave marker to find it. We clean out the room, give away some of the clothes, perhaps even take off the ring for a while. Reporters ask grieving people about whether or not they’ve found it, and if not, what needs to be done to allow it to be found. How did we learn that “closure” was the goal? It seems […]

The Switch Stays On: Attachment After a Loss

How we start out in life has consequences for the rest of our lives. The connections we make, or don’t make, to whoever parents us, sets the stage for all our future relationships. The more our parents are dependable, nurturing and sensitive to our needs, the more we are set up to be part of dependable, nurturing and sensitive relationships throughout life. If our parenting is erratic, lacking in nurture, or insensitive to our needs, our future relationships can be filled with anxiety, expecting or fearing to be let down again, or we may avoid closeness in relationships as we […]

The Grief of Things: Owning and Letting Go

Let’s acknowledge this obvious fact from the start: people are not things. The house burns down, every item within is lost, but our family survives unhurt. We’ll take that every time. The car is totaled but our loved ones walk away. Eternally grateful as we replace the car. We go into the water and wallet, keys, and phone (!) are lost, but no lives. A near miss and a story with a good ending. People are not things and they matter more than (any) things. But things do matter. I’m reminded how much things matter, and what a challenge that […]

Grief in the Body Politic: Mourning Lost Elections

The way we deal with loss shapes our capacity to be present to life more than anything else. The way we protect ourselves from loss may be the way in which we distance ourselves from life. — Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom Remen says that the way we deal with loss, as much as anything, shapes how we deal with living. We protest our losses to help us learn what is truly lost and can’t be changed. And sometimes we don’t learn and get stuck living life in protest. Don’t give up what you don’t have to […]

The Challenge of Guilt During Grief

Before I made my professional home in the grief world, I had no idea that guilt was such a common emotion after someone died. Looking back, perhaps I should have known. My maternal grandmother died when I was ten years old. Unlike many grandparents I see today, my grandparents rarely got out and about and did not come to the special events in the lives of my brothers and me. My closest brother and I did like spending the night with my grandparents. My grandmother would do little things to make us feel special including making egg custard (a favorite […]

Spring—A Haunted Season

We are all haunted by the dead, and that reality, like so many others, is both challenge and comfort. Autumn with its Halloween, falling leaves, frosty air and increasingly bare branches is usually thought of as the season of haunting, but we grieving people know that spring has ghosts of its own. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and the end of the school year are especially fertile times for visits from our dead, be they grandparents, parents, children or others. It’s a crowded time of year. “Dead and gone” is the common phrase, but we know better. In many ways, it’s […]

Wearing My Father’s Clothes

Many days since my father’s death, I have worn some piece of his clothing. Often it is just a belt, brown or black. Today it was a blue dress shirt (several from which to choose), a navy blazer, an overcoat, and a wool cap…and the brown belt. I also have pullover sweaters, turtlenecks, mock turtlenecks, a plaid blazer, a brown hat with a brim, and more dress shirts. Lots of blue, red and white which fit the school district in which he worked and also his personal preferences. I’m more of a black, brown and green kind of guy—closer to […]

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