We do not know why bad things happen to good people, but we can do what we can to help, and to remember that underneath those dark clouds, the sun is still shining.

By opening to his own grief instead of armoring himself with anger, Justin was finally able to start the healing process. His grief had never gone away; it had just been hidden. Once he was willing to open to it and feel it, his own sorrow could show him the way home to peace.

Some have suggested that sending a condolence card is in fact part of a physician's professional obligation to a patient. Families may be comforted by the affirmation that their loved one was not merely a name on a roster, but a person, whose death is noteworthy.

The thing about someone who was a key part of your life is that even when they leave it, even after years pass, they still are -- just from a different place. I still want to hear my dad's voice, but I will accept hearing it in dreams, or seeing it in snowfall, or smelling it in good food.

For many years, on those rare occasions when I cried, I'd get a headache. But when the grief is so intense, the tears wash over and seem to take out all the toxins and pain; at least, that's my non-scientific analysis.

I believe strongly in the five stages of grief model, developed by the Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. It has proven to be applicable for many aspects of grief, including those involving the loss of a loved one.

It's time to reclaim community as a source of healing for our grief. It's so simple. We don't need "closure." We simply need each other.

Spring has sprung. And with the shift in the weather, the daffodil blossoms, the window box we planted yesterday, comes magical renewed hope. And memories.

Grief is one of the most universal of human experiences. Virtually every single person you know, including yourself, will eventually lose a loved one.

Finding solace in ordinary tasks like gardening and organizing can be very comforting and even therapeutic when people are grieving, whether it is the death of a loved one or the loss of someone to a life-altering illness such as dementia.

Dec. 25 and many other holiday or "anniversary" dates can be highly significant. These include birthdays, marital anniversaries and days when loved ones died. This phenomenon, often deeply painful, is called an "Anniversary Reaction."

I took the kids to look at houses not because we're tired of the cows or the snakes or the spooked polo ponies that occasionally run up onto our front porch, do a few laps, and dart back off in the direction of whatever spooked them in the first place, but because the three of us miss people.

At the intellectual level everybody knows we are going to die, but what does death really mean? One interpretation is that we suffer because we do not understand or fully relate to impermanence.

You can't go around it, you can't go over it, no, you have to go through grief with wobbly legs. Like patches of black ice, grief takes you by surprise and spins you round the other way.