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Each person within the family may very well have a different way of healing themselves. Some persons may have a great need to talk, others may need to connect their grief with action, while another might be quietly healing in his or her own private manner. This diversity can often lead to trouble in the family, with barbs being thrown or held in consciousness about some other family member not grieving in the "right" way.

Grieving takes a toll on you mentally and physically when you're too overcome with sadness to take care of yourself properly. However, for your health and well-being, you need to care for yourself in the best way possible.

Each person within the family may very well have a different way of healing themselves. Some persons may have a great need to talk, others may need to connect their grief with action, while another might be quietly healing in his or her own private manner. This diversity can often lead to trouble in the family, with barbs being thrown or held in consciousness about some other family member not grieving in the "right" way.

As a cancer doctor, I see death, and I see how the loss of a loved one is a part of each person's life forever. There are few among us who have not experienced the loss of a friend or loved one. Often it comes without warning, like in an accident. The experience of loss after a lingering illness like cancer, though more expected, is just as deeply felt. 

There is an unwritten code in our culture—one that is an explicit prescription in many world cultures—that presumes that we honor the dead when we wear our grief like a dark shroud, visibly signaling to others our pain and longing and separating us from the world of the living, especially on more joyful occasions. And of course this can correspond to our own felt need to maintain our bond with our loved ones

In our culture, when a woman dies young, we dress her as a bride before cremating her. I remember walking into the backroom of the chapel, my mom’s friends huddled and whispering their concerns that I’d have to see her corpse again. I felt no less fine than I had since her diagnosis four months prior.

Sadly, school shootings, such as the one in Uvalde, Texas, are not a rarity here in the United States. Neither are mass shootings in other public places, such as entertainment venues and grocery stores. When they occur, news about them blankets news media and social media, and often features in conversations among friends and family. Children hear about these tragedies.

We wrote the article below more than 15 years ago about how we dealt with the loss of our son Mitchell. The article is being shared again because it remains a very accurate reflection of our grief process for the first ten years. Since that time, we have continued to progress, and we are doing well. Wayne has joined Anne in co-facilitating child loss groups for griefHaven. It is a meaningful way for both of us to help grieving parents and honor Mitchell’s legacy

After years of research, Dr. O'Conner wrote and recently launched her groundbraking book, The Grieving Brain. The Surprising Science Of How We Learn From Love And Loss. I believe what goes on in our brains after a loved one dies is such a profund significance that I am dedicating both April and May griefHeaven newsletters to this interview.