Yet the story of Orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. So we follow them into the Underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back.

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

But there is a discomfort that surrounds grief. It makes even the most well-intentioned people unsure of what to say. And so many of the freshly bereaved end up feeling even more alone.

One of the difficulties with grief research is that it risks making certain kinds of grief seem normal and others abnormal - and of course having a sense of the contours of grief is, I think, truly useful, one has to remember it's not a science, it's an individual reckoning, which science is just trying to help us describe.

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

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

There is no single way of grieving. But research suggests that there are some broad similarities among grievers.