My Loss

I teach memoir writing at a prison. One week, the topic was loss. My students really went there — and so did I.

After a Teenager’s Death, Metaphors Fail

My friend's 16-year-old daughter was hit by a car and I struggled to write about it. Because no words can truly encapsulate the zero of grief.

Purple Rain on Father’s Day

By Janine Annett

My dad and the rock star Prince had everything and nothing in common. This is the time of year I feel their absence most acutely.

What This Mother Told Her Dying Son

By Laura Gilkey

Her words were perfect.

The Sewing Blogs Were My Salvation

By Susanne Grabowski

After my baby died, I didn’t know what to do with my hands. But then I found the sewing blogs.

My Mother’s Day Trifecta

By Elizabeth Felicetti

I lost my mom, my stepmom, and my dream of mothering a child of my own. On Mother’s Day, people say the darndest things to me.

What I Did With My Husband’s Life Insurance Money

By Leslie Gray Streeter

During the rawest moments of my grief, what I bought helped me breathe easier.

The Autopsy Report Should Have Been Anticlimactic. It Was Anything But.

By Margaret Feike

My beloved husband died, leaving me with three children and another on the way. But it was a letter from the coroner’s office that did me in.

‘Congratulate Kim on Her Work Anniversary’

By Anne Pinkerton

The upside of LinkedIn’s reminder about my dead friend.

What I Tell My Kids About Their Brother Who Died Before They Were Born

By Michelle DuBarry

Even in Seamus' absence, our four-person household continues to feel to us like a family of five.

Does Moving Away Mitigate Grief?

By Melanie Takefman

Thousands of miles now separate me from the landmarks of my memories with Dad. Here's what the distance has changed — and what it hasn't.

My Wedding Gown’s Last Dance

By Lucy Kalanithi

In an excerpt from the new Modern Loss book, Lucy Kalanithi, the widow of "When Breath Becomes Air" memoirist Paul Kalanithi, describes leaving her bridal gown behind — in the most unconventional of settings.

The Billy Joel Concert That Saved Me

By Ruth Tepler Roth

By taking me to that show, what remained of my family in the aftermath of my son’s suicide was telling me, ‘Please come back to us. We still need you.’

My Instagram Therapy

By Domenique Osborne

With @textsforjohn, I can still walk through the world looking for things to share with my brother — even though he’s no longer here.

The Lights and Lessons of Toro Nagashi, the Japanese Candle Boat Ceremony

By Deborah Ager

I missed a lifelong friend’s funeral. But I honored him all the same.

Vacant Seats

By Kathryn Frey-Balter

I heard about Justice Scalia’s death at one of my last dinners with my beloved, if complicated, father. Months on, as the justice’s seat sat unfilled, so did Dad’s.