These were the first words that Joan Didion was able to write down after the sudden death of her beloved husband, and the words that inspired the book she wrote about her experience afterward, The Year Of Magical Thinking.

And it couldn’t be more true—when the one that we love, the one that gives meaning and joy to life dies, our being steps into a mysterious, and disorienting territory. It is a world that is “other” than the place we knew and trusted, and we are suddenly heaved into an existential experience. This unfamiliar place often offers us little choice but to surrender to the process of grieving the loss of a life that once held our loved one here with us.

There is no way to overstate the pain of such a loss, and the grueling somatic and spiritual task of living without the physical closeness of our beloved; of grappling with where they have gone and if they are still with us somehow. Our culture very often tells us that we “need to let go”, but finding ways to stay connected, I think, is the true task of what grief calls us to.

– Lisa Havelin, MA, MFA, LAMFT

Samoyed by Mary Ludington