Grief is a journey. It is a series of ups and downs. The path can be like a hilly climb. Sometimes rocky and sometimes smooth. Or the journey can feel more like peaks and valleys. One day you feel up and the next you are laid low. One thing is for certain...when a parent is grieving the loss of his or her child it is devastating. It is my observation that many parents of a single child might suffer an even greater cruelty when their only child dies. My dear friend April had

When my mother died three months after my father had passed away my oldest brother said to me, "now we are the older generation...we are next in-line." That statement hit me like a ton of bricks. My brother was right, we were now the old folks of our family. We were forced to look at our own mortality. Our identities changed instantly too. We were no longer the son or daughter of John and Jesse. We were their adult orphans. So, even though we were grown ups we were parentl

guilt : responsibility for a crime or for doing something bad or wrong : a bad feeling caused by knowing or thinking that you have done something bad or wrong Guilt is a naturally occurring by-product of grief. Sometimes for me, it feels like being alone in a desolate place like a desert or a foggy forest to deal with my sense of shame and the feeling that I didn't do the right thing. It might feel differently for you. Most of us feel as if we have done something bad or w