Grief is at once a public and a private experience. One's inner, inexpressible disruption cannot be fully realized in one's public persona.

After all dying is one of the most profound and difficult experiences we have.

Suddenly it was fall, the season of death, the anniversary of things-going-to-hell.

Grief is a bad moon, a sleeper wave. It's like having an inner combatant, a saboteur who, at the slightest change in the sunlight, or at the first notes of a jingle for a dog food commercial, will flick the memory switch, bringing tears to your eyes.

I believe in the importance of individuality, but in the midst of grief I also find myself wanting connection - wanting to be reminded that the sadness I feel is not just mine but ours.

Faith does help mourners survive their loss, some studies suggest; but I imagine one still struggles.

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.