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....

It is human nature to want to know and be known by another.

by Benjamin Allen | Apr 17, 2014 | reflections on grief, reflections on grief recovery, reintegration after loss

It is natural to want to be loved and to love. The yearning for connection is an integral part of life. The yearning to know, to love and to connect to another does not end at death, but where it once went, it could no longer go. I had nowhere to lay my heart within...

I just wanted one more day.

by Benjamin Allen | Apr 16, 2014 | reflections on grief, reflections on grief recovery, reintegration after loss

Is it wrong to just want one more day? My Afterloss took me on a quest into the dynamic of continuity and closure. I needed to find a way to come to peace with what was left unsaid, undone, unfinished. And I needed to find a new way of relating to what continued. I do...