My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death, because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing.

The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.

Many researchers say the dominant emotion experienced after loss is yearning or searching. And while you might feel more anger early on, it's accompanied by a whole host of other feelings.

For sure, the funeral industry seems intensely cynical to me and I don't think it is HELPING people mourn.

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

If the condition of grief is nearly universal, its transactions are exquisitely personal.

Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me.