Waves of Grief

Grief descends on anyone who is facing loss. We most often think first of a person who has lost a loved one to death, but grief does not restrict its reach. Before the loved ones are visited by grief, It first has affected the person who is ill with a life-threatening condition, who is facing both the disease and possibly a shortened time on earth. In fact, the five stages of grief that are so often called up to explain grieving started out almost 50 years ago as the result o

Humans in every culture, in every time have found their ways to grieve. On a trip to New Zealand, I discovered one that was brought forward to current times I think the one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention. ~ Diane Sawyer The Auckland Hop On Hop Off bus was transporting us through our last full day in New Zealand. We had already seen the grass-covered cone of an extinct volcano that sits above the city. I snapped a photo of my daughter

Father’s Day does not mean the same thing to everyone. The first time I ever paid attention to it was in 4th grade. Before that, lacking a father, I overlooked it. That year however, suddenly there was an art project that everyone had to do. (Note to younger readers: this was back in the day when every family in the neighborhood was a two-parent family. Actually, I knew one other family who had no dad and we became fast friends. Unfortunately, none of those kids was in my 4th

Little-known fact: The Five Stages of grief are the source of almost-fifty years worth of conventional wisdom about grief. But they were meant to describe the end-of-life experience of people with life-threatening illness, not the experience of mourners who have lost a loved one. Not until a later, curious, and convenient but not scientifically vetted melding of the two experiences took place, that is. The stages idea came from a series of interviews performed by the now-icon