And After My Mother's Death I Became

I Am The Indoctrinated Child Of Two Lapsed Irish Catholics. Which Is To Say: I Am Not Religious.

The Truth Is, I Need To Experience My Mother's Presence In The World Around Me And Not Just In My Head.

I Think That Grief Is A Profound Spiritual, Metaphysical, And - Oddly - Physical Reckoning With Death, Which We Don't Understand Well. It's Both The Process By Which You Relearn The World In The Absence Of Someone Who Was A Pillar In It, And The Process In Which You Confront The Reality Of Death.

Funerals Cost So Much Money, And Are Likely To Be An Additional Source Of Stress In This Recession - It's Sad That We Don't Have A More Humane, Less Commercialized Way To Approach Burial.

Relationships Take Up Energy; Letting Go Of Them, Psychiatrists Theorize, Entails Mental Work. When You Lose Someone You Were Close To, You Have To Reassess Your Picture Of The World And Your Place In It. The More Your Identity Was Wrapped Up With The Deceased, The More Difficult The Loss.