5 Secrets for Overcoming Unbearable Grief

Saying goodbye

1. Be gentle on yourself. Polson tells how she struggled to move through her grief, even a year after her father and stepmother were killed, and realized that there was no right way to feel, and nothing she could do to make things better other than to wait and to witness. In her book, she writes: “In the Jewish tradition, today would end a year of mourning. There is a time to mourn, and there is a time to rejoin life. I was supposed to be past the mourning period. It didn’t feel that simple. I suppose it never is. I’d had the Requiem. And I had this trip. I had to understand that nothing would ever be enough. The idea of a Kaddish is a prayer glorifying God. In the midst of life. In the midst of pain. All of us who believe in God are supposed to do this impossible thing: to praise in the midst of crippling sorrow.”