By: Kristen Sohlman, MACP, RP

Are you feeling that the world has changed so much?  Are you feeling helpless?  Are you feeling sad?  You may not be just depressed; you may be grieving. The grief response happens when there are significant changes in life, when things will not go back to the way they used to be, when there is a loss of normalcy, a loss of connection, when there is worry or fear, and all of this is hitting us in a short period of time.  

​Grief does not come with a manual. It is a raw, powerful, and all-consuming emotion and experience.

When we lose somebody significant in our lives, we will always feel that loss, because their significance never goes away. We never get over it. However, taking it day by day, we can slowly start to heal from the shock and trauma of the initial loss. Additionally, grief can result from more than just death.
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We grieve when someone dies. We grieve when a pet passes away. We grieve when a relationship ends. We grieve when we lose our jobs. We grieve when we move. We grieve when our health declines. Essentially, we can experience grief anytime our life changes in a way that is unwelcome and out of our control. 

He’s been gone a long time. So long that you can’t even remember the span of time, the days and weeks that he has been gone. Maybe you don’t want to know because it’s more final to know that number.
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It’s too hard to accept that there have been so many mornings where you have woken up and he hasn’t, so many storms you couldn’t text him about, so much news that he doesn’t get to hear, or so many texts he never got to send that would make you feel better about losing him.