I have seen that grief can be very different for different people. While the range of emotions experienced is similar, the way we deal with those emotions isn't, necessarily.

Writing has always been the primary way I make sense of the world.

My whole life, I had been taught to read and study, to seek understanding in knowledge of history, of cultures.

This is part of the complexity of grief: A piece of you recognizes it is an extreme state, an altered state, yet a large part of you is entirely subject to its demands.

'Hamlet' is a play about a man whose grief is deemed unseemly.

When my mother was sick, I found myself needing to put down in my journals all sorts of things - to try to understand them, and, I think, to try to remember them.

Many grievers experience intense yearning or longing after a death - more than they experience, say, denial.