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

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.

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.

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

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

I envy my Jewish friends the ritual of saying kaddish - a ritual that seems perfectly conceived, with its built-in support group and its ceremonious designation of time each day devoted to remembering the lost person.

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