Following are excerpts from Willowgreen Publishing’s book When Mourning Dawns: Living Your Way Through the Seasons of Your Grief by James E. Miller.

Someone you know has died.
Maybe they died recently, or maybe it was a while ago.
Maybe it’s one person you’re remembering right now,
     or maybe it’s several people.
Maybe it’s someone you’ve been very close to,
     or maybe you didn’t realize how close you were
          until they were gone.
Whoever it is,
     chances are life has lost some of its sparkle for you,
          some of its interest, maybe some of its meaning.
You may even wonder
     if life has lost all its meaning.
Sometimes that happens to people
     as they first begin to grieve.

When your relationship with this person first began,
     you probably did not give much thought
          to when your relationship would eventually end,
               or where, or how.
You probably did not think about
     how you would act when this happened,
          or what you would feel, or where you would turn.
You probably did not consider
     what would happen to your daily routines,
          or to your nightly rituals,
               or to those regular anniversaries of your heart.
You did not know because you could not know—
     you had not been through it before.
Even if you have been through other losses in your life,
     you have never made your way through this loss.
And you have never made your way
     as the person you are today,
          and with all that is happening to you now.
You did not know what this death would be like,
     what it would feel like, and now you are learning.

Grief is a natural, normal, instinctive way
     of coming to grips with the loss
          of something or someone you love.
Grief helps you grapple with this blow you have been dealt
     so that it doesn’t always set you back the way it did at first.
Your grief has one very important purpose—
     to help you return to life and to go on living
          so that you can find purpose again in your days,
               and fulfillment, and even joy.

     Jim Miller has much more to say about going through the four seasons of the grieving process in his book When Mourning Dawns: Living Your Way Fully Through the Seasons of Your Grief. He has also created a videotape with the same title.

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