There are no words for a grief so massive. I remember when my mother was dying of cancer at 44 and I was a junior in HS, I begged my teacher for a sign she had in her classroom of a kitten hanging from a limb. It said “hang in there.” She gave it to me happily, generously. No one knew how to help me so I think she was happy to have something. We put it in my mother’s hospital room.
That phrase.
To hear you say it again. Yes. That’s it. Hanging in there. What else can you say?
I am grateful you share the truth of what it feels like and I send you all the love and healing thoughts. It’s unfair and wrong and life does keep moving.
Thank you also for sharing such a beautiful and personal memory. I know grief, but not this specific type, so I can only give my condolences and thanks for such honesty
The iceberg can be even more massive for men with our shields, personas, and inability to cry with each other. My good friend lost one of his three sons a few weeks ago, at 25 years old. Spent the day with him and one of his sons yesterday and caught a glimpse of it. His iceberg is real; I see it, feel it, and want to access it.
I immediately thought of this poster and how I begged for it at the scholastic book fairs after my Dad died and I could almost see the tendons in my mom's hands gripping for dear life.
I'm sorry. Grief is so consuming. When my son died, people kept asking me how I was. Really? How did they think I was? The most polite, pat answer I could come up with was "I am here. I am breathing." And I said that many, many times.
There was a woman whose son had died at a very young age, and she said when we didn't know what to say to her we could just say, "tethered" because her heart was always tethered to her son, and will always be. This was at least 10 years ago, maybe even 20 and I think of it often...so now I say to you, "tethered."💞
Sending you love. We, your readers, are grateful for your ability to turn your feelings into words. As hard and lonely as those feelings might feel. Your loss is profound. Hopefully you can feel our love from afar. It’s not the same as the love of a husband. But it is love nonetheless. ❤️
I don’t pretend to be a writer, but this is my take on grief. I think I wrote this two or three years after my husband passed suddenly.
Grief
Grief is like a circular journey up a steep mountain trail. I think I have already walked a particularly tough stretch just to find myself looking at the same view again. An anniversary, a milestone, a glimpse of someone who reminds me of my loss. It appears at times that I have made no progress. But if I look down the mountain, I can see the portion of the trail I previously hiked. If I dare to look up, I see with a sigh that I will pass this way again, maybe more than once. But there is a top to the mountain.
The view from the top is likely to be similar as it is on the climb. It is the same and different. It is not the view that changes, it is me. My perspective, what God has changed in me on this trek, and my place in life. That is the difference each time that particularly tough stretch comes into view. The grief will always be there, like a backdrop to life. But one day, I will be able to look down from the top and remember, and be thankful for the journey. For without it, I wouldn’t be who I am now.
You ARE a writer.Please keep writing.Thank you for your unique voice of empathy from life's coal face.Love is as universal as pain and sharing is caring. Sadly you can't make someone care.But when they do and when those with empathy in their bones ,share their message ,we all grow a little stronger and a little less crushed by life's greatest human hurdle. To brighter times 🌸🌺🌸🌺
I'm floored. As I read this I just kept thinking "holy shit...HOLY shit." I didn't even know Brian and I don't truly know you but your work and therefore your stories have been such an enormous part of my life for so many years at this point. So it feels like your stories about learning how to be married to Brian after your first marriage have taught me so much about love and partnership. What a loss. It's unfathomable that you should have to endure another untimely and devastating grief. It's nonsensical. I'm angry at the universe on your behalf and in awe of your hanging in there. Sending so much love to you and your family. I am so sorry for your loss.
Grief creeps into your bedroom, and folds itself over you, making it hard to breathe. It sits at the edge of your bed and emits loud sorrow-filled sighs. It knows no bounds, has no manners and finally settles down in the center of your chest. Grief is stubborn like an ink stain on a white dress shirt. It’s an unwelcome guest who stays too long and nibbles at your dinner. You can’t outrun it and it and shows no sign of leaving. You may be lucky enough to get back to sleep, but it’s sure to strike again at the crack of dawn. You wear it like an ugly jacket that doesn’t quite fit. The wool collar scratches at your neck; you embrace the pain hoping to avoid the ugly facts.
How can trains run and planes fly, how can humans eat, dance, whistle and rush around when nothing really matters now? Your heart has been clawed at and stomped upon. Trust lies wrinkled in a ball, hiding it’s swollen face and weeping silently with no place to go. The world is a muddy, foggy, damp, swampy puddle of pain and sorrow. Muddled voices and sharp chattering sentences without meaning stick in your ears. Words float
and then collapse in a heap at your feet. You want to stomp on the silly nouns and verbs, but your strength has been sapped and so you step over them.
Hope is like an ocean, black and deep with secret passages that lead to dark rooms in your soul. Well-meaning friends will gather around and make pointless plans to calm and comfort you. Eventually they’ll wander away because your sorrow is contagious; a virus, a cloud of depression that nobody wants to catch.
You will live in this place of sorrow for a while and one day, without warning, a ray of sunlight will land on your windowpane. You’ll walk towards the window, stand in the light and feel a warm memory drape it’s arms around you. You’ll push it away and shun the light. But there’s a certain persistence to this light. Nurse your sorrow and then send it to an empty corner in your heart. You must allow your grief to settle down and nap for a while. You’ll aways feel its presence, like the neighbor’s cat who stays just out of reach. One day you’ll notice that the screams have subsided. Not to say that you won’t be startled by the occasional howl. It will be like an old acquaintance or a nosy neighbor who you’d recognize, but cross the street to avoid. You won’t be the same person, but nobody is the same person from moment to moment. We are always shedding skin cells, old ideas and memories. Heraclitus said it best, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
Occasionally, when you least expect it, a sound or a scent will waft by and your eyes might fill, but you’ll learn to deal with tears. Like a surly stranger, grief might force its way into your house during the holidays. It might show up Christmas morning, sit at your table, holding a knife and fork, with a napkin on its lap and demand breakfast. A thick slice of your heart is on the menu. You’ll find a seat across the room and yawn, too tired to protest. You might long to crawl back under the covers and die in your sleep. You know that no amount of coaxing or pointing to the door can force grief to leave. And so you wait until a tiny voice from far away will call you back. It might be the memory of a child’s smile or the wag of a dog’s tail that will pull you up. You have to trust that you will get up and you might just dance again … anything is possible.
Dear Cheryl- Grief has got to be the most complex human emotion. It feels so brutal, but is sown from the deepest love. We never get over it. We learn to put it in a box that lives close to our heart, and manage it. The edges soften over time, like sea glass. And we take it out and feel it, and put it away again. There is nothing anyone can say or do to take the grief away. You can be surrounded by so many people who love you and yet this journey is walked alone. When I lost my brother, my kitchen was full of bouquets of flowers. It made me feel anger that anyone could think that a bouquet would somehow touch the depth of the grief I was feeling.
Your iceberg analogy is so true with what we feel and what we show.
I am sending you so much love and support. I know a day will come when you will reflect back on your beautiful life with Brian and you will feel some of that joy again. 🩷
My wife died recently. Everything you said about grief feels true. I’m absolutely flattened. I feel like my entire being is being forced to download a new operating system, but the install just spins. I’m exhausted, anxious, depressed and incompetent. People ask me if I’m ok. I say no. Because I’m not ok. But like you, I keep going. I have faith in myself. I want to live.
I too am a widow and writing about it. I thought finding my birth mother 15 years ago was the hardest thing. This the hardest thing. Holding witness to your loss and in solidarity. Sorry for your loss. Glad you are writing!
I have thought of you every day—you’ve been in my heart. The Love of My Life was one of the most profoundly important essays I’ve ever read; I carry it with me. And I carry you and the kids with me as well. Sending love to you. 🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻
"How are you?" should be banned, right? I am so sorry. I can feel the expletives inside I'd like to say right now. I was a middle school teacher in my own excruciating grief and I do not know how I got in front of students and sometimes I cried and sometimes I just went on, I guess, I don't remember how. One time I do remember standing outside in the hall, with my therapist on the phone, sobbing, before I went in to teach. Thank you for sharing some of the unseen in your iceberg. It's the realest real. It made me immediately sign up for your course online, to be in the presence of real, and write about it. xo
Oh, Cheryl, I'm so sorry to read this. I had the great privilege of working with Brian on the Horrible Terrible Life of David Atkins many years ago, and he was just a delight. I appreciate your willingness to grieve in public, and I truly hope that the pain becomes less acute soon.
I believe it may be a good thing that the language for grief is so limited -- if we were able to say, and thus really feel what we were truly feeling in that moment, we might cause ourselves and the listener to pass out -- and I kid, but not kid simultaneously. My husband died unexpectedly from, what the surgeon termed, "galloping pancreatic cancer" back in the days before there were any imagery diagnostics, so surgery was the only way to diagnose, which, I believe, further complicated the situation. I was 26, and our daughter, 3, and as I reflect on those memories of a young me, I am amazed we came through the worst of that alive. And I miss him still. Sending you blessings of consolation, Cheryl.
Gorgeous, painful truth. You lose them every time, over and over. Hateful horrible truth. A trap. A drowning. Little lifeboats to grasp, but not to rely on for long. The morning memory is the worst 😔
Oh Cheryl. Seven years ago I too had this shock when my husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Six months, gone right before covid. Was happy to wear mask to hide all the crying in public. It is an iceberg. We talk all the time. 🕊
I'm so sorry. My husband, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer in December 2025 and only lasted 5 months with it. He died in April, despite being approved for a clinical trial of the pill that could have prolonged his life another 14 months. His hemoglobin was too low. For me, a large part of grieving is the shock. How could he be gone? We were together 45 years, married 38. He was such a life force. I fully expected us to explore the world together into our 90s!
Ellen, it is only recently that the shock has lifted a bit. We were together 34 years, married 28. My best friend. He was 66, and was not quite himself for 5 years. Be kind to yourself. 🕊
There are no words for a grief so massive. I remember when my mother was dying of cancer at 44 and I was a junior in HS, I begged my teacher for a sign she had in her classroom of a kitten hanging from a limb. It said “hang in there.” She gave it to me happily, generously. No one knew how to help me so I think she was happy to have something. We put it in my mother’s hospital room.
That phrase.
To hear you say it again. Yes. That’s it. Hanging in there. What else can you say?
I am grateful you share the truth of what it feels like and I send you all the love and healing thoughts. It’s unfair and wrong and life does keep moving.
Your writing is a gift to us all.
Thank you also for sharing such a beautiful and personal memory. I know grief, but not this specific type, so I can only give my condolences and thanks for such honesty
The iceberg can be even more massive for men with our shields, personas, and inability to cry with each other. My good friend lost one of his three sons a few weeks ago, at 25 years old. Spent the day with him and one of his sons yesterday and caught a glimpse of it. His iceberg is real; I see it, feel it, and want to access it.
Everything in time!
It is not a competition between who is the most heartbroken. Your comment is dismissive of her pain. Not cool.
I immediately thought of this poster and how I begged for it at the scholastic book fairs after my Dad died and I could almost see the tendons in my mom's hands gripping for dear life.
I'm sorry. Grief is so consuming. When my son died, people kept asking me how I was. Really? How did they think I was? The most polite, pat answer I could come up with was "I am here. I am breathing." And I said that many, many times.
There was a woman whose son had died at a very young age, and she said when we didn't know what to say to her we could just say, "tethered" because her heart was always tethered to her son, and will always be. This was at least 10 years ago, maybe even 20 and I think of it often...so now I say to you, "tethered."💞
This is beautiful, thank you for sharing
Me too, Shannon. Me too.
Your voice is singular and makes every human life that is washed by it cleaner. Better.
Jed! Love you, dear friend.
This exactly!
Sending you love. We, your readers, are grateful for your ability to turn your feelings into words. As hard and lonely as those feelings might feel. Your loss is profound. Hopefully you can feel our love from afar. It’s not the same as the love of a husband. But it is love nonetheless. ❤️
I don’t pretend to be a writer, but this is my take on grief. I think I wrote this two or three years after my husband passed suddenly.
Grief
Grief is like a circular journey up a steep mountain trail. I think I have already walked a particularly tough stretch just to find myself looking at the same view again. An anniversary, a milestone, a glimpse of someone who reminds me of my loss. It appears at times that I have made no progress. But if I look down the mountain, I can see the portion of the trail I previously hiked. If I dare to look up, I see with a sigh that I will pass this way again, maybe more than once. But there is a top to the mountain.
The view from the top is likely to be similar as it is on the climb. It is the same and different. It is not the view that changes, it is me. My perspective, what God has changed in me on this trek, and my place in life. That is the difference each time that particularly tough stretch comes into view. The grief will always be there, like a backdrop to life. But one day, I will be able to look down from the top and remember, and be thankful for the journey. For without it, I wouldn’t be who I am now.
You ARE a writer.Please keep writing.Thank you for your unique voice of empathy from life's coal face.Love is as universal as pain and sharing is caring. Sadly you can't make someone care.But when they do and when those with empathy in their bones ,share their message ,we all grow a little stronger and a little less crushed by life's greatest human hurdle. To brighter times 🌸🌺🌸🌺
This is so beautiful and accurate ❤️
I'm floored. As I read this I just kept thinking "holy shit...HOLY shit." I didn't even know Brian and I don't truly know you but your work and therefore your stories have been such an enormous part of my life for so many years at this point. So it feels like your stories about learning how to be married to Brian after your first marriage have taught me so much about love and partnership. What a loss. It's unfathomable that you should have to endure another untimely and devastating grief. It's nonsensical. I'm angry at the universe on your behalf and in awe of your hanging in there. Sending so much love to you and your family. I am so sorry for your loss.
GRIEF
Grief creeps into your bedroom, and folds itself over you, making it hard to breathe. It sits at the edge of your bed and emits loud sorrow-filled sighs. It knows no bounds, has no manners and finally settles down in the center of your chest. Grief is stubborn like an ink stain on a white dress shirt. It’s an unwelcome guest who stays too long and nibbles at your dinner. You can’t outrun it and it and shows no sign of leaving. You may be lucky enough to get back to sleep, but it’s sure to strike again at the crack of dawn. You wear it like an ugly jacket that doesn’t quite fit. The wool collar scratches at your neck; you embrace the pain hoping to avoid the ugly facts.
How can trains run and planes fly, how can humans eat, dance, whistle and rush around when nothing really matters now? Your heart has been clawed at and stomped upon. Trust lies wrinkled in a ball, hiding it’s swollen face and weeping silently with no place to go. The world is a muddy, foggy, damp, swampy puddle of pain and sorrow. Muddled voices and sharp chattering sentences without meaning stick in your ears. Words float
and then collapse in a heap at your feet. You want to stomp on the silly nouns and verbs, but your strength has been sapped and so you step over them.
Hope is like an ocean, black and deep with secret passages that lead to dark rooms in your soul. Well-meaning friends will gather around and make pointless plans to calm and comfort you. Eventually they’ll wander away because your sorrow is contagious; a virus, a cloud of depression that nobody wants to catch.
You will live in this place of sorrow for a while and one day, without warning, a ray of sunlight will land on your windowpane. You’ll walk towards the window, stand in the light and feel a warm memory drape it’s arms around you. You’ll push it away and shun the light. But there’s a certain persistence to this light. Nurse your sorrow and then send it to an empty corner in your heart. You must allow your grief to settle down and nap for a while. You’ll aways feel its presence, like the neighbor’s cat who stays just out of reach. One day you’ll notice that the screams have subsided. Not to say that you won’t be startled by the occasional howl. It will be like an old acquaintance or a nosy neighbor who you’d recognize, but cross the street to avoid. You won’t be the same person, but nobody is the same person from moment to moment. We are always shedding skin cells, old ideas and memories. Heraclitus said it best, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
Occasionally, when you least expect it, a sound or a scent will waft by and your eyes might fill, but you’ll learn to deal with tears. Like a surly stranger, grief might force its way into your house during the holidays. It might show up Christmas morning, sit at your table, holding a knife and fork, with a napkin on its lap and demand breakfast. A thick slice of your heart is on the menu. You’ll find a seat across the room and yawn, too tired to protest. You might long to crawl back under the covers and die in your sleep. You know that no amount of coaxing or pointing to the door can force grief to leave. And so you wait until a tiny voice from far away will call you back. It might be the memory of a child’s smile or the wag of a dog’s tail that will pull you up. You have to trust that you will get up and you might just dance again … anything is possible.
Wow. I am Gobsmacked by you.
Thank you💕
I love this…thank you for sharing
Dear Cheryl- Grief has got to be the most complex human emotion. It feels so brutal, but is sown from the deepest love. We never get over it. We learn to put it in a box that lives close to our heart, and manage it. The edges soften over time, like sea glass. And we take it out and feel it, and put it away again. There is nothing anyone can say or do to take the grief away. You can be surrounded by so many people who love you and yet this journey is walked alone. When I lost my brother, my kitchen was full of bouquets of flowers. It made me feel anger that anyone could think that a bouquet would somehow touch the depth of the grief I was feeling.
Your iceberg analogy is so true with what we feel and what we show.
I am sending you so much love and support. I know a day will come when you will reflect back on your beautiful life with Brian and you will feel some of that joy again. 🩷
My wife died recently. Everything you said about grief feels true. I’m absolutely flattened. I feel like my entire being is being forced to download a new operating system, but the install just spins. I’m exhausted, anxious, depressed and incompetent. People ask me if I’m ok. I say no. Because I’m not ok. But like you, I keep going. I have faith in myself. I want to live.
I too am a widow and writing about it. I thought finding my birth mother 15 years ago was the hardest thing. This the hardest thing. Holding witness to your loss and in solidarity. Sorry for your loss. Glad you are writing!
I have thought of you every day—you’ve been in my heart. The Love of My Life was one of the most profoundly important essays I’ve ever read; I carry it with me. And I carry you and the kids with me as well. Sending love to you. 🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻
Thank you, dear Elissa. Sending my love back to you.
"How are you?" should be banned, right? I am so sorry. I can feel the expletives inside I'd like to say right now. I was a middle school teacher in my own excruciating grief and I do not know how I got in front of students and sometimes I cried and sometimes I just went on, I guess, I don't remember how. One time I do remember standing outside in the hall, with my therapist on the phone, sobbing, before I went in to teach. Thank you for sharing some of the unseen in your iceberg. It's the realest real. It made me immediately sign up for your course online, to be in the presence of real, and write about it. xo
Oh, Cheryl, I'm so sorry to read this. I had the great privilege of working with Brian on the Horrible Terrible Life of David Atkins many years ago, and he was just a delight. I appreciate your willingness to grieve in public, and I truly hope that the pain becomes less acute soon.
I believe it may be a good thing that the language for grief is so limited -- if we were able to say, and thus really feel what we were truly feeling in that moment, we might cause ourselves and the listener to pass out -- and I kid, but not kid simultaneously. My husband died unexpectedly from, what the surgeon termed, "galloping pancreatic cancer" back in the days before there were any imagery diagnostics, so surgery was the only way to diagnose, which, I believe, further complicated the situation. I was 26, and our daughter, 3, and as I reflect on those memories of a young me, I am amazed we came through the worst of that alive. And I miss him still. Sending you blessings of consolation, Cheryl.
YOU DON’T JUST LOSE SOMEONE ONCE
You lose them over and over,
sometimes in the same day.
When the loss, momentarily forgotten,
creeps up,
and attacks you from behind.
Fresh waves of grief as the realisation hits home,
they are gone.
Again.
You don’t just lose someone once,
you lose them every time you open your eyes to a new dawn,
and as you awaken,
so does your memory,
so does the jolting bolt of lightning that rips into your heart,
they are gone.
Again.
Losing someone is a journey,
not a one-off.
There is no end to the loss,
there is only a learned skill on how to stay afloat,
when it washes over.
Be kind to those who are sailing this stormy sea,
they have a journey ahead of them,
and a daily shock to the system each time they realize,
they are gone,
Again.
You don’t just lose someone once,
you lose them every day,
for a lifetime.
Gorgeous, painful truth. You lose them every time, over and over. Hateful horrible truth. A trap. A drowning. Little lifeboats to grasp, but not to rely on for long. The morning memory is the worst 😔
Oh Cheryl. Seven years ago I too had this shock when my husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Six months, gone right before covid. Was happy to wear mask to hide all the crying in public. It is an iceberg. We talk all the time. 🕊
I'm so sorry. My husband, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer in December 2025 and only lasted 5 months with it. He died in April, despite being approved for a clinical trial of the pill that could have prolonged his life another 14 months. His hemoglobin was too low. For me, a large part of grieving is the shock. How could he be gone? We were together 45 years, married 38. He was such a life force. I fully expected us to explore the world together into our 90s!
Ellen, it is only recently that the shock has lifted a bit. We were together 34 years, married 28. My best friend. He was 66, and was not quite himself for 5 years. Be kind to yourself. 🕊
Thank you, Diane. I find writing about it is helping me. And life goes on, of course. As Robert Frost said, “The only way out is through.”