I envy my Jewish friends the ritual of saying kaddish - a ritual that seems perfectly conceived, with its built-in support group and its ceremonious designation of time each day devoted to remembering the lost person.

Many Americans don't mourn in public anymore - we don't wear black, we don't beat our chests and wail.

The truth is, I need to experience my mother's presence in the world around me and not just in my head.

Grief is characterized much more by waves of feeling that lessen and reoccur, it's less like stages and more like different states of feeling.

A mother is a story with no beginning. That is what defines her.

Be patient with yourself. Don't make the loss harder by thinking you should be a certain way, or have bounced back, etc.

I was not raised with religion, and I had no faith before my mother died. On the other hand, when she died, I did not immediately feel she was "gone." I don't believe she is in something like heaven, but I also feel that we don't understand much about the nature of the universe. So I hold on to that uncertainty, at times.