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.

I am the indoctrinated child of two lapsed Irish Catholics. Which is to say: I am not religious.

Loss doesn't feel redeemable. But for me one consoling aspect is the recognition that, in this at least, none of us is different from anyone else: We all lose loved ones; we all face our own death.

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.

I'm not much like my mother; that role falls to my brothers, who have more of her blithe and freewheeling spirit.

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.