Grief and the Long Haul

Mourning across time, from the sacred in-between through the first year and the years everyone else assumes are easier.

• What a near-death experience taught me about love

  Jeffery Olsen came back from death after losing his wife and son with one message: we are held in unconditional love, a truth that reframes grief as love continuing.

• The man who named post-traumatic growth on what it takes

  Dr. Richard Tedeschi, who named post-traumatic growth, maps the five places healing shows up, and why rebuilding after trauma is like rebuilding after a quake.

• Finding joy in grief is not a betrayal

  Joy and grief can live in the same day, and letting joy back in is how you honor the child you lost instead of abandoning them to an old belief.

• Male suicide is the crisis no one names

  Nearly four times as many males as females die by suicide each year in the US, and naming that gap out loud is the first step toward closing it.

• March 24 was his suicide, May 25 was his passing

  Naming two dates for a suicide and a passing tells the whole story, reduces stigma, and helps survivors hold both truths without letting either erase the other.

• We prayed for healing until the word changed to peace

  There is an exact moment when the prayer changes from healing to peace. That turn does not end hope; it reorders everything a grieving parent carries.

• The nine weeks nobody talks about

  The stretch between the worst phone call and a celebration of life is a sacred, disorienting season no one prepares you for, but understanding it helps you survive.

• Post-traumatic growth is not closure

  Real growth after trauma does not close the wound. It teaches you to carry the loss in a new way, and the data shows that joy and grief can share the same space.

• Finding a Way Forward After Losing a Child to Suicide

  Post-traumatic growth is the research-backed process of rebuilding meaning after devastating loss, and this is how that path actually begins for a grieving parent.