Death of a Parent, Special Topics, Your Grief

Daughter Feels Little Support for Mother-Loss

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Question on Feeling Little Support for Mother-Loss Question: I tearfully happened upon your website by chance this morning.  My dearest friend, my mom, died in my arms this past month.  I had brought her here to live with me after her colon cancer returned. From the moment of diagnosis, I watched her hurt and endure so much treatment, never giving up, always smiling, always gentle, humble.  Since she died, I’ve received very little support from my husband or anyone else.   I joined an online grief group, but I do not feel as if I belong there.  My friends have faded […]

Death of a Sibling, Special Topics, Your Grief

To Lose a Twin

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

To Lose a Twin I was taken captive by life and death at the age of twenty-one. My identical twin sister Paula and I faced life together for twenty-one years. We never imagined life without the other. As twins, we had an unspoken pact to care for one another. When she died suddenly in a small plane crash, I questioned who I was in the world without her. Could I even function in life without my twin? Our losses are as unique and personal as our love. All bereavement experiences are different. For me, grieving for my sister came many […]

Death of a Child, Special Topics

Lucky Hat: Rituals Keep Parents’ Hope Alive

Thursday, February 27, 2025

Rituals Keep Parents’ Hope Alive The double doors are closed to Three North at Stanford Children’s Hospital, where my daughter Madison is supposed to get her chemotherapy. It’s our second session, Maddy is seven months old sitting patiently in her stroller as I come up to the thick double doors. This is a very bad sign, these door being closed. Maybe Maddy shouldn’t get chemo today. These doors haven’t been closed before, something’s wrong. The hair stands up on my arms, a tingling sensation crawls up my back, sits on my head like a hat. My partner Nancy is down […]

Death of a Child

Bereaved Aunt Asks, ‘Where Do I Fit In?’

Question from a Reader: Two months ago, my 21-year-old nephew, my sister’s only child, was killed in a car accident.  I was 19 when he was born.  I have feelings of love for him almost as if he were my own son.  But I can’t find others like me.  I have searched a few online forums, and it seems there isn’t a specific place for me to go.  Where do I fit in?  Also, I feel so guilty — something similar to “survivor’s guilt.”  I wonder how my sister can stand to look at me, at my 20-year-old daughter, at […]

Other Losses

Grieving the Death of One’s First Love

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

On Grieving the Death of One’s First Love Question from Barbara: Is it normal to grieve over someone you have not seen in 30 years? Recently, a guy who was my first boyfriend when I was 15 was murdered. He was 47. I have not seen him since we were 15. I did not expect to feel so much loss. I do not remember how or why we stopped seeing each other, or how long our relationship lasted. I only have 4 or 5 memories. I don’t understand why I feel such a deep loss. He was a great guy then, […]

Death of a Spouse, Special Topics, Your Grief

Ten New Year’s Eves: A Widow Remembers

Monday, December 30, 2024

Ten New Year’s Eves December 31st has come and gone ten times since my husband Bob was murdered. While ringing in the New Year with friends, Bob left our dinner table to check on the home of a vacationing neighbor. It had become apparent no responsible adult was overseeing a party the neighbor’s teenaged son was throwing. Bob walked in on two hundred drunk and out of control youth. Within minutes he was dead, beaten to death by two young men angered by his efforts to shut things down. I was left a widow with four-year-old twins. The first year […]

Death of a Child, Special Topics

Synchronicity in Grief

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

What is Synchronicity in Grief? Have you ever had an experience where you said, “Wow, what a coincidence.”  Maybe it was more.  Maybe it was actually a “synchronicity.” Let me explain through a Jungian perspective. Carl Jung, the prominent Swiss psychiatrist, believed synchronicity meant “more than a coincidence.”  Jung, the thinker and founder of analytical psychology, connected synchronicities to the bigger world: the collective unconscious.  These were not just assumptions on his part. Jung believed the collective unconscious was universal (meaning common to all people) because he listened and researched for decades the overlapping stories and myths that people shared […]

Death of a Spouse

The Emotions of Spouse Loss

Monday, November 25, 2024

The Emotions of Spouse Loss My entry into widowhood began in 2002 when our family was enjoying a long-awaited summer vacation in Hawaii and my husband Steve noticed he was having trouble swallowing.  It wasn’t just that it was hard to swallow, but it actually hurt.  He promised to get it checked out when we returned home.  But neither of us expected the first two words that came out of the doctor’s mouth when he returned for his lab results:  “It’s cancer.” What?  How could this be?  Just a few weeks earlier Steve had been surfing, snorkeling, hiking all over […]

Bereavement, Death of a Sibling

Managing Holiday Grief

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Managing Holiday Grief It was Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, the first Thanksgiving without my brother, just months after a drunk driver had ended his life. I needed to get some shopping done and I found myself at a mall. The instant I stepped inside, I was enveloped in holiday atmosphere. Everything shone and glittered, music rang out, scents of pine and cinnamon candles mingled with the smell of perfumes being sprayed on shoppers in the department stores. Delight hung in the air. But I was feeling holiday grief. It felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I couldn’t […]

Bereavement, Your Grief

Yes, I’m Still Grieving

Friday, November 22, 2024

Yes, I’m Still Grieving If you or someone you care about has ever suffered a painful loss, you’ve likely heard, communicated, or thought something like the following: That earnest wish that a person could “move on” or “get over” the intensity of grief. The well-meaning concern that someone is “dwelling on,” “wallowing in,” or “stuck in” grief. That kind directive to “focus on the positive” or work to get one’s “life back.” We often feel it, deeply, when friends or family members are grieving. Perhaps we experience their hurt empathically, or maybe we sense its weight because we wish for […]