One of the hardest parts of grief is realizing that life keeps moving forward. The seasons change. Children grow up. Milestones arrive. New memories are made. And somehow, we are expected to keep walking into those new seasons without the person we love beside us. There are moments when their absence feels especially heavy. A graduation they should have attended. A wedding where their seat sits empty. The birth of a grandchild they never got to hold. A family vacation that fe

When someone we love dies, we expect to grieve their absence. What we don’t expect are the many other losses that quietly follow. Grief rarely arrives alone. It has a ripple effect, touching areas of our lives we never anticipated. If you’ve ever thrown a pebble into a pond, you’ve seen how the ripples move outward in widening circles. Loss works much the same way. The first ripple is the loss of the person we love. But the ripples don’t stop there. Sometimes friend

Mother’s Day can be beautiful for some and painfully complicated for others. For some, it is a day of celebration. For others, it is a reminder of who is missing. Some are grieving mothers now in Heaven. Some are carrying the heartbreak of a child they can no longer hold. Some are longing to become mothers. Some are mothering children while quietly grieving another. And some are simply trying to make it through the day without their hearts unraveling. If this day feels heavy

In the early days of grief, it feels impossible to imagine a life that holds anything other than the loss. The sorrow is so heavy, so all-consuming, that it fills every space of your life and learning to live around grief seems impossible. Every thought. Every memory. Every moment of the day seems to circle back to the one you love and miss. In those early days, it can feel as though grief has taken over everything. Breathing feels harder. Sleeping feels impossible. Even the

One of the hardest parts of grief is realizing that life has started moving forward for everyone else, while you’re still carrying the loss every single day. People go back to work. Conversations shift. Life slowly returns to normal. But for those who are grieving, nothing feels normal anymore. Even when you are surrounded by people who care about you, grief can create a quiet kind of isolation that few truly understand. In the early days after a loss, support often comes in

One of the quiet heartbreaks of grief is the moment you realize something has changed. People have stopped saying their name. In the early days after a loss, our loved one is often spoken about freely. Friends bring up memories. Stories are shared. Their name is spoken with tenderness and care. But as time passes, sadly, something shifts. The world moves forward. Conversations change. People grow quiet. Not because they have forgotten, but often because they are afraid of say

As we approach Thanksgiving many of us will look upon the empty chair at the table. The hole deep within our heart will now be staring openly at us. Holidays are hard. If you are early on in your grief journey you may wonder how you’re going to get through the day. The empty chairContinue reading “The Empty Chair”