The Mourning Session

31/05/2022

"Last week, I received an email notification from LinkedIn letting me know that my friend Kim was celebrating a seven-year work anniversary. At the bottom of the message was a big blue-and-white button with the call to action, “Say Congrats.” Sitting at my desk at work, I stared at the message on the screen for several long minutes, unsure quite what to think or how to feel. There was no one to congratulate because three years ago, after a brief illness, Kim died."

The upside of LinkedIn’s reminder about my dead friend.

29/05/2022

"Last year, my ex-boyfriend died. He wasn’t old or sick or suffering. One day he just died. And I found out because I was Facebook stalking him."

What it means to lose somebody who isn’t your somebody anymore.

27/05/2022

"Now, every day, I visit my mother’s Twitter account — eyes frozen on her last tweet before her unexpected death."

I wish I had more letters from my mother, more time with her, more everything. What I do have, though, is her 16.7K tweets.

25/05/2022

If you're hungry for more grief recipes check out this Mourning with Miso recipe.

People need to be fed when they are soft and open from grieving. I make them miso soup to help replenish the tears they lost.

23/05/2022

This piece was written as a gift guide for the holidays but it can be fun to surprise our friends with something sweet or silly to just let them know we are thinking about them. If you've been looking for a little pick-me-up for yourself or a friend then this is for you.

From ego-boosting apparel to frame-worthy puzzles to an instant community, these gifts say ‘I know the holidays are rough, and I'm here for you.'

21/05/2022

Cooking is amazing way to digest-pun intended-our grief. But don't take our word for it, check out this great piece from Modern Loss.

When my best friend died in a car accident, I felt compelled to take up cooking. Here are three recipes that helped me through.

19/05/2022

17/05/2022

"My mouth cannot contain the horror. The words spill out to everyone I see. “I recently lost my sister..."

Another piece on how we grieve when someone we love dies by su***de.

Depression killed my innately joyful sister. When people ask how she died, this is how I respond.

15/05/2022

"In 2009, when I was 22, my father took his life. It hasn’t been the only devastating loss I’ve suffered, but it has been the worst. I have felt like a black sheep among my peers and a l***r in society... Often when I’ve told people how he died, they’ve responded with scorn or horror. As I struggled to make sense of out his senseless act, I also struggled to defend his honor. I have never experienced such fluctuating, paradoxical emotions as I have in the aftermath of this loss."

A wellness coach offers practical advice for finding your center amid complicated grief.

13/05/2022

"Every grieving person ends up alone in the kitchen at some hour of the night. Here are some delicious and nourishing ways to lift the burden of cooking from their shoulders."

Some delicious and nourishing ways to lift the burden of cooking from a grieving person's shoulders.

09/05/2022

While Mother's Day may have been yesterday, this piece from Shondaland still felt pertinent, after all when we lose a parent everyday can feel difficult without them.

For some, Mother's Day isn't all flowers, gifts, and brunches. It's a painful reminder of the women they've lost.

08/05/2022

A special food and grief Mother's Day post for those who are grieving the loss or perhaps even the impending loss of their mom.

My mom loved fresh vegetables, until she became too sick to eat them. Towards the end, all she — and I — could stomach was french fries.

07/05/2022

Here is a collection of posts written about the grief of surviving another motherless Mother's Day.

We have quite a few posts in our Mother's Day "grief library" that we want to highlight for those of you struggling to cope this holiday.

06/05/2022

"Recently, a New York Times article about New Mom Friends went viral among my friends. It’s about how important it is to avoid isolation during our first few months as parents...

I dutifully forwarded the article to all my pregnant friends, and then thought about how I’ve found a similar kind of kinship with my friends — and even acquaintances — who have also lost a parent. I’m in my mid-30s, so, for now, this group is fairly small, but fairly mighty, too."

I’ve found kinship (but no judgment or pity) among my friends — and even acquaintances — who have also experienced a loss of a parent.

05/05/2022

"When my mother died the day of a massive snow storm, my sister and I decided to postpone her funeral until the Spring. “She’s getting cremated anyway, and it will be so much easier after we’ve had a few months for everything to settle down,” we’d said. “Our grief won’t be as fresh by then,” we’d said.

What sweet unwitting fools we were."

I went in for waterproof mascara but came out with so much more.

03/05/2022

Check out this easy read from Modern Loss providing three artistic outlets for managing grief during a time of springtime renewal.

How to appreciate those gerberas when someone you love may actually be pushing them up

01/05/2022

30/04/2022

Want to read more on Grief Reactions versus Grief Responses? Check out the source material from the last post here!

Though the word reaction and response are often used interchangeably, there is an important difference that can be useful in understand grief and coping.

28/04/2022

Do you know the difference between a grief reaction and a response?

A grief reaction is when something happens to us and we act unconsciously. In grief, they are the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that feel almost instinctive, uncontrollable, and sometimes totally crushing. They are normal and natural and expected

A response is a more conscious, deliberate, and measured process that comes after a reaction. They ideally come from a place of curiosity, after observing our reactions and considering how they are helping or harming us. Our response may be to continue to affirm our initial reaction or to change course in a way that is more consistent with our values or more helpful to our mental well-being.

26/04/2022

Ever wonder why we cry? Or, why we don't? Check out this great article from What's Your Grief on the importance of shedding our tears.

We receive a lot of questions about crying--or rather--not crying after a loss. People want to know, why don't I cry when someone dies?

22/04/2022

"Lucy esparza-casarez thinks she caught the coronavirus while working the polls during California’s 2020 primary election, before bringing it home to her husband, David, her sister-in-law Yolanda, and her mother-in-law, Balvina. Though Lucy herself developed what she calls “the worst flu times 100,” David fared worse. Lucy took him to the hospital on March 20, the last time she saw him in the flesh. He died on April 3, nine days before their wedding anniversary, at the age of 69. "

Millions of people are still mourning loved ones lost to COVID, their grief intensified, prolonged, and even denied by the politics of the pandemic.

20/04/2022

“Wow, I just can’t imagine.” That’s what people emailed, texted, and uttered after my parents died. They couldn’t imagine losing a mother to a violent car accident or a father, a mere four years later, to a heart attack in the middle of the night while he was traveling abroad. I was 34 and felt truly alone, and while talking to someone about my grief would have helped immeasurably, “I can’t imagine” felt like the opposite of an invitation—it felt like a warning. Don’t even try to share, I won’t get it. But if my grief was too hard for me, and it was too hard for others, what was I supposed to do with it?

Roughly 1 million people have died of COVID-19 in the U.S., and their family and friends have stories to share

18/04/2022

We hear it said often, but it doesn't make it any less true. Our words and actions live on in others long after we are gone.

17/04/2022

"In this Easter season, I’ve been deeply moved by Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Lament for a Son, an expression of his profound grief in the aftermath of his 25-year-old son Eric’s death in a mountain-climbing accident. The book, published in 1987, is anguished and honest; “a cry of grief,” Wolterstorff called it, written “in the hope that it will be of help to some of those who find themselves with us in the company of mourners.”

What Christianity has to offer in response to shattering events isn’t a philosophical or formulaic answer, but a wounded savior.

16/04/2022

is love's souvenir.

14/04/2022

Even if you're not a funeral director or deathcare provider you may find these tips helpful when talking with friends or family members experiencing grief.

People experience disenfranchised grief when they experience a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned or publicly mourned.

12/04/2022

"Grief-friends – this is a simple article about comparing grief and why you shouldn’t do it. The grief-comparison game is common among people who’ve experienced loss, and unfortunately, it’s a competition everyone loses."

This is a simple article about comparing grief and why you shouldn't do it. The grief-comparison game is a competition that everyone loses.

10/04/2022

"I worry because I have a low tolerance for not knowing everything will be okay. It’s as simple as that. I am uneasy about a margin of error, an unlikely event, the single-digit percentage of times things go wrong. Not in all situations, but in many and, particularly, in those that involve life and death."

Intolerance of uncertainty, which is highly correlated with many forms of anxiety disorders, may be exacerbated by loss and grief.