Where grief and fear meet
Grief contains a tumble of emotional and psychological effects. Ask anyone what they are and they will list off Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s favorite five: denial, depression, anger, attempts to bargain away the unwanted change, and acceptance. There is little argument about them, although they certainly do not seem to visit all grievers universally or equally. I see a glaring omission from that list. In my experience, there is no part of grieving as powerful as fear. Becoming abl
Grief improving: I thought I forgot how to laugh
At our first session, Nancy (not her real name of course) told me that at first, right after her dad died, she was speechless. “I don’t know if there was nothing to say, or if it just would have taken too much energy to try,” she said. “I wasn’t interested in a world where he wasn’t, I know that.” Since she was now talking to me, that had changed. I asked her when her ability to talk came back. “For six weeks or so, I had nothing to contribute. I could form words, I just didn
