"When I get to Flinders Island, I will begin my own memorial days. I am taking something that our culture has stopped freely giving: the right to grieve. To shut out the world and its demands. To remember my love and to feel the immensity of his loss." www.amazon.com/Memorial-Day...

"So here I am. Still here more than a decade after Jimmy’s death, celebrating the age he should have lived to see. Wondering what he would be doing, who he would have become. Remembering how he lived and the way we who love him carry him with us still." findyourharbor.com/age-old/

"Start with loss. Lose everything. Then lose it all again. Lose a good woman on a bad day. Find a better woman, then lose five friends chasing her. Learn to lose as if your life depended on it. Learn that your life depends on it." www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/155104...

"Grief changes the air around it. It thickens it, slows it down ... I looked at your second backpack then and saw it for what it was: not just extra weight, but the embodiment of something much heavier. Memory, carried not out of obligation, but love." www.offassignment.com/articles/mag...

"But that day in August, Robert walked by my house and sang to me (“sail on, silver girl, sail on by”) as I was missing a person I loved, one I had never expected to meet, much less turn out to be a woman who loved me ferociously and gave me so much." ~ Jan Haag findyourharbor.com/moonstruck/

"Observing the tree's acceptance of her loss, the release that makes way for growth and rebirth. The strength to stand tall when stripped of everything and only her essence remains. Like the cherry tree, I am built to birth my own joy ..." findyourharbor.com/the-cherry-t...

"I will never know how Buster hears the unseen, but I think it begins with his willingness to sit motionless and peer into the darkness. To listen intently, patiently, until he can decipher what he's hearing, the need to know greater than the fear of what he might uncover." findyourharbor.com/still/

"I started to wonder if I was just in denial or actually losing my grip on reality and which one was worse. Part of me didn't care. There were so many days when it felt as if my very survival hinged on Jimmy not be fully gone, so I'd lean into the feeling." findyourharbor.com/dark-surprise/

It found a reason to keep going ...

"I am the product of a childhood with a sibling and an adulthood without one ... My life was shaped as much by my brother’s absence as by his presence—and that, too, is a kind of relationship." www.yahoo.com/news/article...

"I sometimes overlook how his interactions with us are shaped by regret over things he wishes he had done differently, and his sorrow over things he wishes he still could do. But they are also shaped by the realization that today he has another chance." www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/s...

Losing a parent is like driving through a plate glass window ...

"For the nights can be long and filled with shadows, and sometimes terrible unexpected waters will rise. Somewhere someone needs help. Send love. It matters." Carrie Newcomer grateful.org/resource/sen...

"My first teachers in the aftermath of Jimmy’s death were the parents whose children took their own lives. They helped me understand the way circumstances & context influence everything from other people’s reactions to whether the casseroles showed up." findyourharbor.com/context-is-e...

"The❓of 'why' punches me in the gut every time. Because there is an accusation hidden in the 3 letter word. If there is a reason why, then there is something a friend, a mother, a father, a sister could have done to prevent Julia from ending her life.” www.wow-womenonwriting.com/downloads/pr...

"There is a beautiful flow when you let go of caring about what he remembers or arguing about what’s real. When someone is traveling to a different land, why not join him? I also love ... knowing he’ll forget most of what you say. There are endless second chances." www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/o...

You are not the darkness you endured ...

"I recently lost my closest childhood friend. She was an important part of my life for 50 years, and her death left me reeling. I feel as if I’ve lost much more than a good friend. I’ve lost a large chunk of my past, and my future, as well ..." www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...

"If you have drowned in sorrow and still have somehow found a way to breathe, please, lead us. You are the one with the crumbs we need, the ones we will use to find our way back to the home of our hearts." ~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer ahundredfallingveils.com/2025/06/13/p...

"I see heartbreak as the most proportional response to the state of the world–to say I love you is to say my heart breaks for you & this sentiment resonates within all things, bringing a clarity to both the world before us and the world beyond the veil." www.theredhandfiles.com/its-been-ten...

"My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined ...

"I think of the times I sat watching Jimmy and Dan have these conversations, the way both of my children soaked up these moments with their father, how much Jimmy would have loved to be part of this one." findyourharbor.com/here/

"Grief is suffering, tailored ..."

"With a heavy heart & yet a joyful spirit, Carolyn Glickstein – 80 yrs young – teaches pickleball as often as possible at a Brickell-area high-rise condominium. It was at that same condo where her son Michael was found dead ... just over four years ago." www.miamiherald.com/sports/artic...

"The more I sat, the more of Jimmy's energy returned, expelling some of my grief and helping me to see how sacred the space is. I discovered that his presence is here, if only I am willing to remain quiet long enough to feel it." findyourharbor.com/in-his-room/

"After he died, his absence became too heavy to carry. A haunting drought of noise. No more splashing in the shower, no more clatter in the hall. Never again would "I love you mom ... so much" come flowing down the stairs." findyourharbor.com/alone/

"My father used to say, This too shall pass to anyone who would listen." ~ Laura Garfinkel oneartpoetry.com/2025/06/15/t...

"I still peer into lighted windows ... but my questions are different now. I wonder what the inhabitants struggle with, what keeps them up late at night. I ponder who they have loved and lost and whether they, too, have ever found themselves unable to get out of bed ..." findyourharbor.com/sonder/

"Sometimes I crawl inside “What a Wonderful World” where I am cradled not only by the lyrics & the velvet of Armstrong’s growlsome voice, but also by my father who loved the song so much that now, almost 3 yrs after his death the tune has become his arms ..." ahundredfallingveils.com/2024/06/16/o...

"Buried in the piles of dirty, disintegrating papers were lists of the concerts he worked security for. Songs I should check out. Movies I should watch. I could imagine him .. holding on to those scraps of himself, running his finger down the list, telling his son." www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

"It took years for my grief over the destruction to surface, buried as it was under the weight of Jimmy's death, followed in rapid succession by my mom's the following year." findyourharbor.com/the-home-tha...

26 writers examine sibling loss from multiple perspectives including the death of an estranged sibling, unpacking delayed grief and the impossibility of getting over the loss. It is a life-shattering, life-altering loss & the grief can last a lifetime. www.amazon.com/Loss-Lifetim...

"The memory of walking is imprinted in my body, beckoning me outside the way the siren call of the ocean lures sailors out to sea. It cannot be ignored. It cannot be denied. This place I most keenly feel my son." findyourharbor.com/embodied/

A life always ends too soon ...

"What happens after someone you love dies? It's really hard for those who remain behind. And it can be hard for a long, long time. That's all right. It takes as long as it takes." www.amazon.com/What-Happens...

"Nothing is how it’s supposed to happen. Isn’t it lucky? I didn’t get everything. So I could have this instead." ~ "How It's Supposed To Happen," Kelly Grace Thomas www.kellygracethomas.com/publications

"Those who lose a sister or brother to death are often referred to as “forgotten” or “invisible” mourners. But the impact of outliving a sibling is complex and long-lasting, stretching and morphing over the years.

"The decade following Jimmy’s death has been one long continuing education class in learning to live the questions. Finding ways to embrace uncertainty & get comfortable with my own ignorance. Accepting ambiguity & waiting patiently for the way to be shown." findyourharbor.com/the-wisdom-w...

I used to think healing meant forgetting ...

When a sibling dies, it’s a loss that reshapes your entire life. On May 29th at 7 pm EST, join Lynn Shattuck, Alyson Shelton & Molly Fowkes for a workshop on the impact of sibling loss & how to find connection & healing in the aftermath. Register today! give.copefoundation.org/event/loss-o...

"Dear Michael, I know I know You’re dead It’s just that sometimes I think you’re in bed. In my head, then I could go and talk with you ...” ~ Carolyn Glickstein findyourharbor.com/reverie/

"Heart is sea, language is shore ..."

"Every time I think I have grief figured out, I discover how much more I have to learn. Seeing time or milestones as signs that everything is permanently better is like thinking the horizon is the end of the ocean." findyourharbor.com/the-long-pat...

“I stood where I could not be so many yrs ago & cried out like a child whose hope had died.” It was in these moments ... Kelsey Grammar could feel his sister urging him to write her story & move on from his grief about her death to the beauty of her life. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE8M...

"'Maria always talked about ‘doing the inner work’. For years, I didn’t know what she was talking about ..' Talking wouldn’t have helped, he says. 'I was just alone. It’s the loneliness of the last speaker of a dead language. That’s how I felt.'” www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ap...

"Love is a windbreaker ..."

"Our "angels of the get through" as poet Andrea Gibson says. The ones who run toward the flame and can tell when "I'm fine" is just a lie. They stick and stay, don't wait for us to ask. And when the world goes dark, they do not leave our side." findyourharbor.com/the-ones-who...

"They each found a partner not only whom they loved, but who could also understand the deep feelings they would never lose for their late spouses. 'It fills our heart with joy to celebrate them every day...to say a prayer, to let the girls know that there is no us without them..." wapo.st/4icRIzN

"What if I had said nothing at all, and simply offered her my awkward but honest attention? How often do I let my fear make choices for me? How much is lost in these moments of cowardice?" ~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer ahundredfallingveils.com/2025/03/13/m...