I miss them. And I miss the missing pieces of me.

by Benjamin Allen | May 5, 2014 | reflections on grief, reflections on grief recovery, reintegration after loss

When they left a part of me left, too. In loss, I wandered through life wondering what else of me was gone. I have not found anything that replaces what has left and what is left of me today is scattered across the landscape of my Afterloss. I am a puzzle with missing...

I did not understand just how much I lost when they died.

by Benjamin Allen | May 4, 2014 | reflections on grief, reflections on grief recovery, reintegration after loss

I understood the loss of their touch, the sound of their voice and that deep connection reflected in a smile or a quick glance. But what I did not understand was how death changed every relationship. Death changed me. Death irrevocably changed my world. However, the...

How do we get to here from there?

by Benjamin Allen | May 2, 2014 | reflections on grief, reflections on grief recovery, reintegration after loss

I recently met someone who spoke of a friend whose baby just recently died suddenly. As I was sharing my experience of my baby’s death and all that I went through and felt, I felt for her friend. I did not feel what I felt when I held my child in death. I was for her...

To others, something is wrong with me.

by Benjamin Allen | Apr 22, 2014 | reflections on grief, reflections on grief recovery, reintegration after loss

To me, something is right. I just need to find what it is and follow it wherever it leads. I’ve come to know the phenomenon as invisible memories. They are memories I can’t see on the surface of my day, but buried beneath the hustle and bustle is a low-grade feeling,...

Who do you know who knows you? And where do you meet?

by Benjamin Allen | Apr 20, 2014 | reflections on grief, reflections on grief recovery, reintegration after loss

We collect in our solitude in the hope of connection. Grief, by its very nature, separates. Yet, there is a desire in my emptiness to find another that can fill me with theirs. I am fragmented by loss and looking for what is gone and what is left. I walk my sorrow on...

Have you ever just wanted to walk away? Just be somewhere else?

by Benjamin Allen | Apr 19, 2014 | reflections on grief, reflections on grief recovery, reintegration after loss

I sometimes live for the moment that has not yet arrived and miss the moment that is just to about to depart. There is an undercurrent of unsettledness that pulls me even in most pleasant of moments. When my heart was broken in pieces, so was time. Tomorrow was gone....