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Creation and grief

Lynne Baab • Friday August 28 2026

Next Tuesday is a remarkable day, the newly declared ecumenical Feast of Creation in Christ. I thought, should I take a break from my series on grief to write about how excited I am that Christians all over the world see the creation as central to their spirituality?

No. God’s creation plays an important role in the grief process. Here are some connections.

Nature as comfort. In my grief groups and in talking with widows, numerous people have talked about how important walking, gardening, and other ways of engaging with nature have been for them as they grieve. Pets, our fellow creatures, are companions...

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Surprises in grief

Lynne Baab • Wednesday August 19 2026

I thank God for the grief counselors at hospice. They keep affirming that everyone’s grief journey is unique. No pressure to conform to any expectation of stages or emotions or thoughts. This week, I’ve been pondering all the unexpected things that I’ve thought and felt since Dave’s passing to a new life on April 9.

You might not be able to guess what I was doing when these thoughts first came to mind. I was washing dishes! When Dave and I met, we began the practice of doing the dishes when the other one cooked. Even when we were dating, I could...

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Stages of grief

Lynne Baab • Thursday August 13 2026

I’m sure you’ve heard of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s groundbreaking 1969 work on the five stages of grief, often called the five stages of loss or the grief cycle. She argued that any of these emotions and thoughts can be present in grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

I wrote three weeks ago about my stages of grief since my beloved Dave’s passing four months ago. Here are my stages:

Guilt and shame that I was so grateful he died (three weeks) Guilt and shame that I hated caregiving so much (three weeks) Deep sadness, wondering why I would want to keep living (a little longer...

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Grieving ahead of time

Lynne Baab • Thursday August 6 2026

My beloved husband Dave had permanent scarring on his lungs from pneumonia as a small child. As a result, every virus turned into bronchitis. He didn’t get viruses super often, but in the year that he was 68, he got bronchitis four times. On his 69th birthday, in 2015, he got a virus that turned into pneumonia. He never completely healed.

In his first three years of lung disease, Dave had three different diagnoses. The second one was scary, with a short life expectancy and a horrible drug for treatment. While he had that diagnosis, I had a lot of fear about the...

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