Meditations for the Grieving Heart

Thank you for the gift of this day.

One hundred forty-three meditations, for the hours that have no name.

On the First Morning. For the Sleepless Night. When the Silence Is Too Loud. When Someone Says the Wrong Thing. On Clearing His Things. For the Day I Forgot to Grieve.

This book began as prayers for one family. Our friends Cheryl and Paul lost her son, Josh. There is no language adequate for that, and no framework, and no fix — there is only presence, and the willingness to sit beside someone and say: I am here. You are not alone.

Words were the only thing I had to give. So I wrote these.

Josh’s name remains in these pages. Not to make the book about him, but because grief deserves a name. Hold your own person’s name wherever you find his. The book was written for that substitution. It was written for whoever you are carrying.

Each meditation begins the same way — Thank you for the gift of this day — and not because the day feels like a gift. Some days do not. Some days are survival. But beginning there, with gratitude however tentative, is itself a kind of turning toward.

Some days a single line will be enough. Some days nothing will speak, and you will close the book. That is fine. The reaching was enough.

This book will not fix anything. It was never meant to.

It is simply here. Quietly. Always.