Then came “the Morning.” There was coffee, the newspaper, and ironed shirts. I was getting ready for a student’s dissertation defense and Paul, my husband, faced his own challenging day. As I prepared to shower, a crash sounded beyond the bedroom door. Something about the silence that followed made me grab my robe and go running.

GriefTrainIllustrationThat’s a teaser paragraph from AJN‘s October Reflections essay, “The Grief Train,”  by nurse, professor, and award-winning author Cheryl Dellasega. She writes about teaching a course called Death and Dying, and then having to try to make sense of a sudden, terrible loss in her own life. Like many profound American stories, this one ends in a long train trip.

I edit this column every month, and some of the stories go right to the heart of life, love, death, health, illness, healing, human connection and disconnection. The essay is free, so please click on the link above and read the whole thing. It’s well worth five minutes of your time.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

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