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Grief 101

Lynne Baab • Thursday September 3 2026

Grief 101

My close friend’s husband passed to the new life from ALS less than three months after Dave did. I’ll call these friends Sam and Sarah. For more than a year, Dave and I used to joke about who would go to Jesus first, him or Sam. Dave felt it was a bit of a race and talked humorously about it.

Sam was in a different hospice program than Dave was. Like our hospice, his hospice offers solid grief support, but in a different form than ours. A couple of weeks ago, Sarah attended a 2-hour seminar called Grief 101, something our hospice does not offer. Sarah gave me a detailed report of what was covered.

If you’ve been reading my recent posts, you won’t be surprised to hear that the leader of the seminar stressed that grief is unique to each person. She added that grief is not linear and can be a bit of a roller coaster.

Sarah appreciated that the leader talked about the all-encompassing nature of grief. There can be physical, cognitive, behavioral, and spiritual challenges, as well as the emotional ones that we might consider to be common and normal.

I was amazed at some of the physical challenges the leader mentioned. Yes, of course, sleep is often disturbed. I remember writing a long email to a friend at 3 am a few days after Dave passed. And eating can change dramatically without the person who used to do the cooking, the person we used to cook for, or the companion who ate with us. Urinary tract infections are not uncommon because people in grief may forget to stay hydrated. And constipation or diarrhea can also occur because of changes in diet.

Cognitive challenges include a lack of focus. I definitely experienced that in the first few weeks. I felt like such an airhead at the exact time when there were so many details to deal with. Sarah said the leader encouraged participants to be particularly careful when driving. Pay attention! And that’s hard with our attention fractured and so many changes happening.

Behavior changes include sleep, eating, restlessness, and crying. (Some overlap here with physical changes.) Spiritual changes can relate to questions of the meaning of life and doubts about God’s goodness, as well as the loss of someone with whom we might have talked about the Bible, prayed, or attended church.

The leader of Sarah’s seminar said that people who are grieving can think, Am I going crazy?  She said that we are wired for relationships, and so when a relationship is taken from us, we have to work toward a new reality. When I felt no sadness for six weeks after Dave passed (described here), I didn’t consciously ask, Am I going crazy?, but that’s a fair description of what was going on inside as I dealt with feelings of guilt and shame about not feeling sad. 

Guilt, the leader said, likes to fill the spaces for which we don’t have answers. This was the most helpful part for me of Sarah’s report on Grief 101. I felt so much guilt the first six weeks after Dave’s passing because I felt relief rather than sadness. I just wanted to get rid of that guilt — and, with the help of the hospice grief counselor and my spiritual director, I (mostly) let it go. Based on the Grief 101 seminar, I now want to do some thinking about what answers I didn’t have during those six weeks.

I can guess at some of them. Why was caregiving so hard for me? Why did I find it so hard to cope with seeing and hearing Dave’s pain? Why was I so exhausted by my feelings of powerlessness in the face of his pain? How could I see Dave’s passing as a gift when he meant so much to me?

The leader also talked about guilt resulting from unrealistic expectations. That resonates. I expected I could relatively easily care for someone I loved. I expected that I would have more resilience than I did. Maybe I expected a level of perfection that is simply not a part of being human.

Guilt likes to fill the spaces for which we don’t have answers. I have a hunch this applies not only to grief but to life in general.

Jesus, you told your followers that you are the way, the truth, and the life. When we have questions, when we feel powerless and lost, show us the way. Send your Holy Spirit to guide us into truth. And please enable us to rest in the abundant life you have promised us.  

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Next week: More about my grief journey.  Illustration by Dave Baab: Dave and his sister, Connie, both of whom have gone to be with Jesus. Dave painted this from a black and white photo.  

This is the seventh post about grief. Here are the previous posts in case you missed one:

A book of Dave’s watercolors is here. You can buy cards, T-shirts, bags and other items with Dave’s watercolors on them here.

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