David Roberts

David J. Roberts, LMSW, became a parent who experienced the death of a child, when his daughter Jeannine died of cancer on 3/1/03 at the age of 18. He is a retired addiction professional and an adjunct professor in the psychology and psychology child-life departments at Utica University in Utica, New York. Dave is a featured speaker, workshop facilitator and coach for Aspire Place, LLC. Dave has also been a past national workshop facilitator for The Compassionate Friends and a past national workshop facilitator and keynote speaker for The Bereaved Parents of the USA. Dave also co-presented a workshop titled “Helping Faculty After Traumatic Loss” for the Parkland, Florida community in May of 2018,in the aftermath of the mass shootings at Stoneman Douglas High School. Dave was also a keynote speaker at The Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Remembrance Weekend during in June of 2019 in Ponte Vedra, Florida .Dave has also done numerous workshops at the local and regional levels related to transformation from grief and loss. He is the co-author with Reverend Patty Furino of the recently published book "When The Psychology Professor Met The Minister" which is available for purchase on Amazon. For more information about their book,please go to: https://psychologyprofessorandminister.com/ Dave has been a past HuffPost contributor and has also published articles with the Open to Hope Foundation, The Grief Toolbox, Recovering the Self Journal, Mindfulness and Grief, and Thrive Global. He is currently a regular contributor to Medium. One of Dave's articles, My Daughter is Never Far Away, can also be found in Open to Hope: Inspirational Stories of Healing and Loss. Excerpts from Dave's article for The Open to Hope Foundation, called The Broken Places were featured in the Paraclete Press DVD video, Grieving the Sudden Death of a Loved One. He has appeared on numerous radio and internet broadcasts and Open to Hope Television. Dave was also part of a panel in 2016 for the BBC Podcast, World Have Your Say, with other grief experts, discussing the death of Carrie Fisher. Dave’s website: www.bootsyandangel.com is devoted to providing support and resources for individuals experiencing loss.

Articles:

Pieces of Me: Incorporating the Deceased into Ourselves

My perceptions about grief and the way we deal with loss has radically changed since the death of my daughter Jeannine more than seven years ago. Prior to Jeannine’s death, I grieved the deaths of other people in my life for a specific period of time and eventually returned to life, as I knew it. Ongoing connection to our loved ones as a way to negotiate grief was not a part of my grief vocabulary. I never viewed grief as a lifelong process that permanently changed the way we related to the world and transformed us as human beings. Finding […]

The Importance of Adequate Support for the Bereaved

In his book, The Spiritual Lives of Bereaved Parents, Dennis Klass, Ph.D., discusses the importance of bereaved parents maintaining connection with their deceased children in communities that support that connection. Our ability as bereaved parents to access and receive support from other parents who understand our pain is critical to us feeling less isolated in our grief. Adequate support also is crucial in helping us adjust to a world without the physical presence of our children. Soon after my daughter Jeannine died in March of 2003, it was suggested that my wife Cheri (Jeannine’s mom) and I go to a […]

Grief Lessons from the Wal-Mart Truck

I have used many analogies and metaphors to describe my grief journey in the seven years since my daughter Jeannine died. During my early grief, I frequently described feeling, on a good day, like I had been consistently pummeled with a baseball bat. On an excruciating day, it felt like two baseball bats were simultaneously pummeling me. As my journey has progressed, my analogies are not so much related to the pain of Jeannine’s death, but rather on what her death has taught me. Late last week, I was driving to a baseball game. As soon as I pulled onto […]

Five Years After Child-Loss: Evolution of Grief

I am presenting a workshop at The Compassionate Friends national conference next month entilted: “The Bereaved Parent- Five Years Later.” Linda Findlay of Mourning Discoveries and I originally developed the idea for this workshop to discuss the needs of the later grief experiences of bereaved parents. We chose five years, because for many of us, it takes that long to adjust to a world without the physical presence of our children. Linda and I first presented this workshop at the Bereaved Parents of the USA national conference in New York in 2009, and it appeared to be very well received. […]

The Musical Journey of Grief

Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember; music has always helped me navigate major transitions in my life. After the death of my daughter Jeannine in 2003 due to cancer, music helped me put words to her illness and the aftermath of her death. Later in my grief journey, music assisted me (and continues to assist me) in redefining myself due to my struggle with her physical absence. The lyrics and music of The Wallflowers, The Counting Crows, Jackson Browne and Tom Petty were very instrumental in my grief Journey. Figuratively, these […]

Pets, Grief and the ‘Bootsy and Angel Effect’

Many in our society do not recognize the impact that pet loss has on an individual. For many people, the loss of a beloved pet may be the first significant loss that is experienced in life. Pets see us through many significant milestones in life such as marriages, divorces, death and the birth of our children. They are and always will be sources of true unconditional love. Many times pets may be predeceased by other significant family members. When that pet eventually dies, we not only grieve the loss of him/her but revisit our pain of loss from those deceased […]

Do I Ever Stop Being a Bereaved Parent?

I was asked by a friend of mine if we ever stop being bereaved parents. My friend is also a bereaved parent. It was an interesting question, because approximately two years after my daughter Jeannine died, I decided that I didn’t want to be a bereaved parent anymore. The daily pain and suffering became too much for me. I wanted my life to be the way it was before Jeannine died. I stopped going to my parental bereavement support group and tried to not think about the pain of losing my precious daughter. I became more miserable as a result […]

Connections to Daughter Abound Even After her Death

I still have a powerful relationship with my daughter Jeannine six-and-one-half years after her death. I believe that my relationship with her extends to other people in my life. I have been an adjunct professor at Utica College since January of 2003. I love my students deeply. They gave me energy when I had none, and purpose in a world that became foreign to me after Jeannine died. During the fall 2008 semester, I taught a Death, Dying and Bereavement class, and one of my students, “Jody,” shared an experience that she had during the semester. This is her story: […]

Ghosts of Memory: Integrating Our Loss Through Remembering

I recently read a book called: Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road, by Neil Peart. Peart is the lyricist and world renowned drummer for the Canadian rock band, Rush. His daughter Selena, age 19, died on August 10, 1997, as a result of a car accident and his common-law wife, Jackie died on June 20, 1998, of cancer. Peart became a bereaved parent and a young widower in the space of ten months. One year after the death of his daughter, he embarked on a 55,000-mile, fourteen-month journey on his motorcycle across Canada, the United States and Mexico. He […]

Deceased Daughter is Never Far Away

Before my daughter Jeannine died in 2003, I was never one to believe in things that I could not see. My version of reality was defined by hard evidence, not by intuition or feel. Jeannine has given me signs of her presence in a variety of different ways since her death. As a result, my new reality has been defined more by what I feel and experience, then hard facts. With that in mind, I would like to describe one of my more memorable experiences following Jeannine’s death. During college spring break in March 2006, my wife Cheri and I […]

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