The Landscape of Grief

If grief were a landscape, it would be a rough and rugged terrain—one that shifts with the light, a scent, the time of day, the weight of a memory.

Some days, it would be a dense fog rolling over a vacant field, where the horizon fades and every step forward feels uncertain. Other times, a shoreline after a storm, littered with scattered shells and lifeless sea creatures, the air heavy with salt and absence.

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It would be a forest in winter, stripped bare, every branch barren, the frozen ground holding the quiet promise of life stirring beneath the frost.

It would be a wild, untethered river, carving new pathways through unexpected places, forcing the world around it to reshape. It is the space between two mountains, where the wind carries the voices of those we miss.

And some days, grief would be a meadow full of oxeye daisies, red clover, and yarrow, touched by warm sunlight—golden and aching—where one could feel that loss and beauty can exist together, in both shadow and light.

A Personal Note to Readers

Loss is something we all carry in one form or another. I’m sharing my grief story with you today because it has been a part of my life these past few months.

If you’ve been navigating this landscape too, I hope you find something familiar here—something that reminds you that even in sorrow, you are not alone. And if you haven’t yet walked this path, one day you will. When that time comes, I hope these words offer you some comfort, a light to help guide you through.

This is not the first time grief has knocked at my door. In 1988, when my son Cody died, it didn’t just knock—it brought me to my knees. To say I was devastated is an understatement. I was so young back then, and yet, somehow—someway—I managed to move forward.

The death of my son changed everything—shaking me to my core and altering my life’s path in every possible way.

When my father died in October of last year at 93, I never imagined that grief would hit me this hard. I had done this before, I thought I was ready.

This time, however, grief showed up differently. I am still tender, still wading my way through. One day at a time.

Just the other day, I was at my very first Super Bowl game with a few friends when a lovely woman asked me about my father’s passing—curious about how I was doing. She wanted to have a deep conversation about the loss of a parent. I could feel my sorrow moving up from just above my ribs, catching in my throat, gripping onto my words. My voice cracked. I could barely speak, holding back my tears.

(And I thought I was doing so well…)

Maybe you’ve walked this terrain too—where time stretches differently, and the world feels unfamiliar without the ones we love. In the months since my father’s passing, I’ve found myself searching for places to hold my grief, to let it unfold in the quiet.

Some grief can’t be contained in sentences—it spills over, reshaping itself into poems.

Grief 

Grief is the burrow under the cedar’s roots,
where the earth caves in,
dark, wet, and hollow.
The river keeps flowing,
carrying the silt downstream,
but the hole remains,
waiting for moss and mushrooms to take hold.

I have walked the edges of this emptiness,
felt its cold breath rise through the forest floor.
The trees do not ask why.
The wind does not wonder.
Only the owl calls,
its voice an echo of what is lost.

The earth sheds its weight:
rock falls, glaciers retreat,
valleys widen with time.
Grief too is a carving,
a quiet erosion
of what once was whole.

I gather wild gifts—
a feather,
a broken pine cone,
the dewdrops of morning on leaves.

The forest bends but does not break.
Even the damp, empty places
will cradle seedlings one day.

This is how the earth holds sorrow. 

The Way of Things

The wind doesn’t care
about age or stature,
only how the earth lets go.

One gust,
a moment of imbalance,
and a hundred years fall sideways.

This is the way of things:
not neglect, not punishment,
just the dry season
taking its due.


We walk like trees,
our roots stretching into family,
work, love, the land itself.

But when we forget the water—
the slow drink of silence,
the steady drip of connection,
the sudden rain of grief—
we, too, are undone.


Even the tallest tree,
its roots clawing deep into basalt veins,
can be toppled
when the soil runs dry.

The fallen continue to feed.
Rain comes, new shoots rise.
Decay becomes green.

The end is never the end.
Just the earth,
starting over.
  

Grief, like the ocean, keeps moving.

Some days, it’s a storm. Other days, it’s a rainbow- and if you’re lucky maybe even a double rainbow. Thank you for being here, for reading, for sharing this space with me. I would love to hear your stories about grief and loss how you are finding your way through.