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What I've learned from people's stories about grief

Lynne Baab • Thursday July 30 2026

What I've learned from people's stories about grief

I’m thinking back on an online grief group about five weeks after my husband Dave passed to the next life. For those five weeks, I was focused on tasks: the graveside service, the memorial service, the bank, the IRAs, distributing Dave’s art supplies to artist friends, and on and on. And, as I wrote last week, at the time of the group, I was mostly thinking about what a reluctant job I did as a caregiver. Other than that, I was a bit paralyzed. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my time after these seemingly endless tasks wound down.

Someone in the grief group mentioned feeling aimless. Two other participants echoed that sentiment. Then someone who had already mentioned that they are a musician said, “I play a lot of music, and I’m trying to stay physically healthy so that when I know what I want to do, I’ll be able to do it.” That was so helpful for me to hear.

Okay then, I said to myself, I can let myself read novels and play games on my phone as much as I want, as long as I ride my exercise bicycle daily, do resistance exercise every second day, and eat reasonably well. That’s all I actually have to do. Such a helpful strategy! It gave me permission to focus on my own health, and yes, within weeks, I had several ideas of things I wanted to do.

One of those things I wanted to do was create a book of Dave’s art, now ready for purchase.

I’m in two online grief groups monthly. Through the groups, I’ve met more than a dozen people who are mourning the loss of a spouse or parent. All are in the first year after the death. I’ve also met one-on-one with seven widows whom I know from various settings, all of them widowed in the past few years. I had never before discussed their grieving process with them.

I mentioned last week that the leaders of the grief groups stress that everyone grieves differently. Based on the roughly 20 people with whom I’ve recently discussed grief, I can attest to that.

Here are some illustrations of the diversity of responses. One person leaves daily voicemail messages for the spouse they lost months ago. One person is finding solace through baking cookies for children their neighborhood. A couple of people talked about the challenge of filling their time now that they no longer have to go to constant medical appointments with their loved ones. One person talked about how death after caregiving is like retirement, and retirement can be confusing and disorienting.

Here’s a list of more responses I’ve heard:

  • Relief that the loved one passed because their pain was so intense and/or their quality of life so compromised (I’m in that group)
  • Regret that the loved one passed, even when that loved one desired to die
  • Anger at cancer and dementia
  • Anger at how hard caregiving was, sometimes including euphoria that the caregiving role has ended
  • Wishing that the caregiving role could have continued, even though it was hard, because the person’s absence is worse
  • Emptiness
  • Loneliness
  • Gratitude for living alone with no one to have to care for
  • Loss of a sense of purpose because of having no one to care for

I hope you noticed that some of the items on my bullet-point list are opposites. Listening to people talk about these diverse experiences has not only been moving, but it has also helped me see how often in the past I have judged and criticized what I feel. The social workers who lead the grief support groups stress that our job when grieving is to pay attention to what’s going on inside us and accept the varied emotions as part of our individual grief process.

Never before in my life have I welcomed diverse emotions with such openness. I have so often been critical of how I feel. That’s my biggest learning in my almost-four-month journey with grief after my beloved Dave walked through the doorway to the next life.

I have truly been astonished at the wide range of thoughts and emotions expressed by people who are grieving. This gives me an expanded sense of God’s grace, Jesus’s compassion, and the Holy Spirit’s comfort. None of these thoughts, emotions, or experiences is outside God’s love for us. Jesus is with us in every moment, and the Holy Spirit brings comfort in every one of our disconcerting moments. 

Holy Spirit, Comforter, you are beside us and in us. Thank you for the grace and peace you bring when we are experiencing loss. Thank you for people who are trained in the process of grief. Help us draw near to you in the big and small losses we experience.

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Next week: More about my grief journey.  Illustration by Dave Baab: Lake Hawea, New Zealand

The new book of Dave’s watercolors is here.

Previous posts about grief:

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