Blog: Between Loss and Living
About This Blog
Between Loss and Living is for people who are still doing their utmost best to show up while carrying a heavy load in a world that feels increasingly unstable. Loss rarely waits for calm and quiet. It can arrive at any time, while work continues, relationships strain, and while the bigger world feels increasingly uncertain. This blog is about the strip of terrain where private grief and public life collide. I try to write plainly and pragmatically. Grief is not something to fix or overcome. It is the price of caring and loving in a fragile world. Here I hope you’ll find language for “living with” and “living forward” with less denial and distraction, learning how to carry loss and life at the same time.
When the World Stops Making Sense: Parkes’ Assumptive World and the Polycrisis We’re Living In Part II
by David Fireman, LCSW I decided to apply Parkes’ ideas to our current world situation. Therapy has always been a “space” for examining and working on personal problems. But it also has always been a container for world tension and weariness. These days the...
Grief as Transition: Rethinking Loss Through Colin Murray Parkes
by David Fireman, LCSW When I think about grief in my work as a psychotherapist and social worker I sometimes return to the ideas of Colin Murray Parkes. His way of understanding loss feels grounded in what I see every day with clients. He does not treat grief as...
Paradox, Enigma, Mystery: Grief as the Ultimate DIY
by David Fireman, LCSW Grief is not a moral lesson. It is not a test. It is not a blessing in disguise, or a path chosen by a wiser universe. Grief is what happens when someone who mattered is no longer here, and the world strangely keeps going along anyway....
Mother Earth: Using Nature’s Powers After Loss
by David Fireman, LCSW Nature, with its predictable cycles of growth, decay, and renewal, offers a refuge for survival. Nature connects us to something larger than ourselves, invites us to sit in silence, and provides resources that go beyond words. By immersing...
The Paradox of Recovery: Navigating the Tension Between Grief and Growth
by David Fireman, LCSW Loss shatters the world as we know it. Whether through death, divorce, illness, or the ending of something once cherished, loss disrupts the internal systems that give us coherence and vitality—our assumed structure of things, the expected...
Consoling the Bereaved with Empathy and Care
by David Fireman, LCSW When someone you care about is grieving, it’s natural to want to help them feel better. But offering comfort during such a difficult time can feel overwhelming. What do you say? What should you do? It’s important to remember that your support...
2001: A Space Odyssey and the Two Paths of Facing Mortality
by David Fireman, LCSW The awareness of mortality—our finite existence—stands as one of the defining features of human consciousness. Unlike other species, humans possess the capacity to comprehend our own inevitable demise. I believe this realization, universal and...
Mentor Loss
by David Fireman, LCSW Losing a mentor, one who plays a central role in your life—a person you rely on for self-esteem, stability, and identity—is a unique form of grief. A mentor is someone we idealize, attach to, lean on, and draw strength from. The Pain of Losing a...
Lessons from Judo: The Balancing Act Between Giving Up and Hanging in There
by David Fireman, LCSW Life’s challenges often place us in a difficult tension between feeling helpless and trying to persevere. Grief can feel like a constant state of dislocation, a dizzying and porous frame of mind where one is rendered unable to focus and organize...
Healthy Ego: Five Essential Qualities
by David Fireman, LCSW The ego is a very complicated element of the personality. It is the decider, the doer, the experiencer and evaluator, and mediates between the internal world of thoughts, impulses, values and emotions, and the external world of relationships and...
Tough Times: What Good are Hope and Kindness?
by David Fireman, LCSW The role of hope in Greek mythology, particularly in the story of Pandora’s jar (commonly mistranslated as box), is puzzling at best. According to Hesiod, Pandora, the first woman created by the gods, opened a jar that released all the evils...
Stage Models for Grief are “Sus”
By David Fireman Grief is one of life’s most complex emotional experiences, which profoundly shapes our understanding of love, loss, survival, and recovery. It is often discussed through the lens of stage models, which attempt to describe the psychological and...
A Refreshed Vision: Exploring Loss, Grief, and the Odyssey Toward Self-Renovation
By David Fireman Welcome to a renewed chapter of this blog, where we explore the profound, complex, and deeply human experiences of loss, trauma, grief, mourning, and self-renovation. These topics are universal, yet they touch every person differently. Our refreshed...