By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor You can find joy during times of grief. And you should. Staying in the “heaviness” of grief without shifting to some “lightness” is a profoundly uncomfortable way of being. It’s true that after the death of a loved one, life will not be the same again. However, healing is possible and learning to live again is doable, and usually, inevitable, if you want it to be. The loss will remain. Many call it “a hole in the heart.” But the st

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor Do you fall to pieces at the sound of a Christmas song playing in the store and wonder how one song can ruin your shopping trip? Do you stare at the adult buying a gift for her child as you grieve the loss of yours? Do you want to kick every Christmas tree that you see? Do you want to rip the December page right out of the calendar and hide under the covers until it’s over? You’re not alone. These feelings are SO familiar to so man

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor If you have been following my blogs on my website or Facebook page, you know that I blogged about Thanksgiving and gratefulness and gatherings two weeks ago. Having sat with clients for these several weeks as we enter the “holiday season,” working through sadness, fear, confusion and a whole bowl of assorted emotions piling one upon another, I find myself at a (rare) loss for new words to give. I want those who are grieving the los

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor So, as I write this week’s blog, I’m feeling somewhat thoughtful. This is why I decided to share with you some quotes on grief. Full disclosure: this grief counselor shed a few tears on the computer screen as she wrote out the quotes. But you know what, I have to practice what grief counselors try so hard to instill in their clients: TEARS ARE NATURAL. IT’S VERY OKAY AND HEALTHY TO CRY. So, here are a few of the well-known quotes f

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor At the end of this month the calendar marks the holiday of Thanksgiving holiday. It’s later than usual this year, so there is more time to dread its arrival. Holidays, and this one in particular, which are centered around family, friendship, laughter-filled holiday dinner tables, and declarations of thankfulness, can be very hard to handle for a grieving person, no matter how much or how little time has past since the death of a lo

AS WRITTEN ABOUT IN THE NEW YORK TIMES ON OCTOBER 30, 2019 By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor Back in July, a reporter from The New York Times called me to talk about a topic she was considering writing about. She had been noticing that whenever she went to visit a certain relative who was newly widowed, she noticed that this woman was usually microwaving her dinner ... a simple piece of fish, perhaps. The unusual part about this is that this woman used to cook and

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor In addition to my weekly blogging, I will be starting a newsletter soon, and will be sending email blasts too, from time to time, sharing what I hope will be useful information for those in mourning and in the midst of the grief experience. Why do I want to continuously share info with you and give you ideas and tips on coping? Because --- Grief Is Hard. Nobody ever taught you how to grieve. You don’t have to grieve alone. Everyone

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor We all know that holidays can be difficult after the death of a loved one. We tend to think of holidays as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Passover, New Year’s Day, and other big ones. But… Boo … there is also Halloween knocking at the door, trying to intrude on your grief. This is a holiday that also comes with the possibility of grief triggers. Why might Halloween be tricky for some grievers? It’s not just a kid’s holiday. Children and

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor Recently, a writer form the New York Magazine “Strategist” column asked to interview me on a second grief-related topic. The first one, a couple months ago, was about deciding whether or not to have children at a funeral. This topic, however, was “condolence gifts”. When the interviewer first told me the topic, all I could envision was the many Jewish “shiva” visits that I have been to, in which there is a table overloaded with cak

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor The holiday, Yom Kippur, which occurs this week, is considered one of the High Holy Days in the Jewish calendar. The High Holidays – Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – are also called the Days of Awe. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year; Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement. With these holidays come so much meaning, contemplation, solemnity, and the ever-present theme of life and death. In fact, one of the most renowned and moving poem

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor All over the world, Jewish people are celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the start of a new year on the Jewish Calendar, with wishes all around for a “happy and sweet new year” -- signified by dipping apples into honey, and greeting one another with “Shana Tova”, the Hebrew words for the greeting “A good year”. For those in mourning periods or grief-stricken from the recent death of a loved one, it’s hard to imagine a “good year” coming up

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor Not long ago, a website called Samada.com was being developed to provide end- of- life planning resources and support for those who were seeking information. The editorial staff reached out to me for my comments on a number of topics for their articles. I am sharing one of them with you in this blog. It’s called How Long Does Grief Last. Read on and you may gain some perspective on this topic. I want to emphasis the fact that when

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor I know. I know. For the majority (not all, but many many) grievers, the last thing they want to do is EXERCISE. Exercise, in this case, can even mean just getting off the couch. This may sound exaggerated, since many out there say, “I really need to go for a run or hit the gym to release the stress.” But I’m talking about the others of us, for whom grief creates a heavy lethargy, a lack of energy, and the kind of feeling in which e

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor In my work with grieving children, the question always arises, “Should my child(ren) attend the funeral?” Or afterwards, the question becomes, “Was I right or wrong to have decided to let the child attend or not attend the funeral?” Here’s the good news: There really is no right or wrong. Everyone does it differently and just hopes it works out for the kids. Much of it depends upon the maturity of the child, the relationship to t

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor Labor means work. In fact, it usually means “hard work.” Grief work is hard labor too. Don’t underestimate the kind of work that a grieving person does every day, though it may often be done silently, discreetly and is usually invisible to others. In our country, a good portion of the workforce, with the exception of some industries such as retail, transportation, and hospitality, is not expected to work on Labor Day. As a grief co

By Jill S. Cohen, NYC family grief counselor Grief can create physical illness. And it’s real. You’re not just imagining things if you don’t feel well. You know the advertisement for milk, Milk: It does your body good. Well, the advertisement for grief should be the opposite; Grief: It does your body bad. You know that after losing a loved one, words like 'heartbroken' or 'hurt' are regularly used to describe the feelings about such a loss. Did you know that 'Heartsarnes', wh

Often times, I will get a new client in my grief counseling practice. He or she is the experiencing what is known as “Disenfranchised grief.” This term was created about twenty years ago by Ken Doka, one of the big “gurus” in the grief education field. He defines disenfranchised grief as -- “Grief that persons experience when they incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned or publicly mourned”. This kind of grief can happen, says Doka, for

Surprise, vacations are for everyone! If you want to do it, you CAN do it!

More and more lately, in my grief counseling practice, I am seeing men and women (sometimes children too) who come to me prior to the death of a loved one. They’re surprised when I say: Yup, that’s anticipatory grief. It’s a “thing”. They come to me because they can’t wrap their head around what’s going on either right in front of them or around them, as a loved one declines, and life’s routines, certainties, and comforts seem to unravel. A smart way to handle imminent deat

In honor of this holiday and with the understanding that those who read my blogs are in various stages of grief and mourning, I’d like to share a piece called “The Independence of Grief,” brought to us the Hospice Foundation of America. The Independence of Grief Grief can seem to have a life of its own, independent of your hopes or expectations. Similar to a volcano, it can have a dormant state as well as an active state, and even when not consciously felt, it is there within