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SURVIVING GRIEF was created to help anyone dealing with the often unknown territory that comes along with the loss of a loved one, and the grief that follows. It’s my hope that through my blog, books, and helpful resources you’ll find your OWN way from grief to healing.
Grief is a natural response to loss. It’s the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away. Often, the pain of loss can feel overwhelming. You may experience all kinds of difficult and unexpected emotions, from shock or anger to disbelief, guilt, and profound sadness. The pain of grief can also disrupt your physical health, making it difficult to sleep, eat, or even think straight. These are normal reactions to loss—and the more significant the loss, the more intense your grief will be.
Coping with the loss of someone or something you love is one of life’s biggest challenges. It is my hope that you will find something within the pages of this website to take you from a place of pain to a place of peace.
You are not alone!
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Gary’s Bestselling Books on Grief!
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New from Author and Grief Specialist Gary Sturgis
SURVIVING GRIEF – 365 Days A Year
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GRIEF- Hope in the Aftermath
Losing someone you love feels like you are adrift at sea – lost and alone. You are overcome by sorrow and heartache and unsure of how to continue life without them. Gary Sturgis writes with deep insight about the journey of love and loss and how to chart a course to healing. Through his work facilitating support groups and conducting workshops, he shares what he has learned on a personal level in an honest and heart-felt way. He offers advice and encouragement to those of us grieving the loss of a loved one.
SURVIVING – Finding Your Way from Grief to Healing
The death of a spouse or close loved one is one of the most devastating experiences an individual suffers.
Author Gary Sturgis knows first-hand the pain of grief after becoming a widower in his early 50s. He suffered profound sadness along with anger, guilt, loneliness, confusion, and heartache to name just a few. But Gary found his way from grief to healing and is surviving after his loss. You can too.
In his book, Gary shares intimate details of the personal stages he encountered through his grief journey.
Throughout the book, Gary offers you reassuring guidance and comforting advice as you travel through your personal grief journey.
Excerpt From: “Surviving – Finding Your Way from Grief to Healing”
“You Just Do It!”
I have an aunt named Cleo who I love dearly. She had a husband and two sons. She lost her husband and then she lost both her sons. I remember going to each of the funerals and wondering how she could survive such loss. It just seemed too overwhelming for me to comprehend. After all her losses, she remained upbeat and positive. It was amazing to me the courage and resilience that she possessed in the face of such tragedy.
After my loss, I called her and asked, “Cleo, how did you do this? How did you survive?” She answered, “You just do it.”
I remember at the time thinking that was not the profound answer I was seeking to my question. I thought she was going to tell me some secret solution she had discovered to heal the pain of her loss. A solution I would be able to understand and utilize to comfort me in my pain and sorrow.
As time went on, I discovered that her reply was exactly the right one. There is no secret solution to healing grief. It’s a different process for everyone. “You just do it.” Each of us takes a different road on our journey through grief. It depends on the relationship we had with the person we lost. It also is based on prior losses that we may have suffered. I can only imagine how difficult her grief journey was, but I can’t know how she felt personally while traveling through it.
If someone who is grieving asks me now how to get over a loss, my answer would be like that given to me by my Aunt Cleo. “You just do it.” You have no other choice but to move forward. You somehow find a way through the heaviness of grief to a place of healing and peace. It’s a long journey that never really ends, but the light becomes more illuminated along the way.
I love this quote written by Dean Koontz. It’s so true and so relatable!
“Grief can destroy you –or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn’t allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it’s over and you’re alone, you begin to see that it wasn’t just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it.
The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can’t get off your knees for a long time, you’re driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life.”
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“Death is not an ending, but a symbol of movement along the path upon which we are all traveling. As it may be painful to lose contact with the physical aspect of one we love, the Spirit can never be lost. We have been and always will be a part of each other.” ~John Denver
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This website does not provide advice of any kind. The contents are for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment.