Preface

Grief can feel for anyone like a solitary experience, even like something that no one else can understand. Indeed, it can be so personal, reach so deeply into our interior lives, that we don’t want to share it.

Yet, grief is an emotion that touches virtually everyone—in most cases, more than once in a lifetime. There are instances, such as the terror attacks of 2001 and the COVID-19 pandemic, when grief is communal—the grief of a whole society is superimposed on the grief of many individual men, women, and children.

In the aftermath of the terror attacks, RENEW International introduced Grieving the Death of a Loved One, a resource that used prayer, scripture, and faith sharing to enable small groups of adults to name and explore their grief. The book was written by Elizabeth M. Collier, who, after losing her husband in a motor vehicle accident, has spent her career in initiatives to help the bereaved. Grieving the Death of a Loved One has been used by parishes, bereavement groups, and individuals for nearly 20 years.

Now, the COVID-19 pandemic, a cause of communal and individual grief unparalleled since the influenza pandemic of 1918, has prompted RENEW to provide a new version of this resource.

In the preface to the first edition, Elizabeth Collier wrote, “My personal journey of grief began on the day my husband died. Little did I realize how this journey would impact my life. At 29 years old and the mother of two little girls, I had minimal experience with grief. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the changes that would take place. The one thing I thought I knew was that grief was an emotional crisis, but I was not prepared for the spiritual crisis that would follow. Not only were my emotions affected, but my perception of the world and my spiritual beliefs were attacked. At many points in the journey, my grief collided with my faith. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God, but I began to question what I knew about him.”

Grieving the Death of a Loved One was written as a tool to validate feelings such as the ones Elizabeth experienced. “It is important to realize,” she wrote, “that no two journeys will be the same. Grief is a unique and individual process. There is no right or wrong way in grief; there is only your way.”

Grieving the Death of a Loved One includes suggestions for healing and meditation that can be used individually or in a small faith-sharing group and reflections derived from Elizabeth’s personal journals, conversations with others who are grieving, and professional experiences, as well as insights, questions, and suggestions inspired by the COVID event.

We hope this new edition of Grieving the Death of a Loved One will help those who are grieving to find a way forward through their faith and the support of others.