Grief and Grieving Archives

ghosting is hurtful; being ghosted makes you feel abandoned and confused

Why You’re Still So Upset About Being Ghosted

November 3, 2025 / By Nina Amir / Leave a Comment

Don’t think you’re crazy if you feel upset about being ghosted. Ghosting—when someone suddenly cuts off all communication without explanation—tends to stir up intense feelings, even if the relationship wasn’t long or especially close. In fact, the distress this experience causes is tied to several well-documented psychological mechanisms. Ghosting isn’t painful because of the silence alone. […]

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Why You Must Fulfill Your Spiritual Purpose in this Lifetime

January 30, 2023 / By Nina Amir / 6 Comments

Why are you here in a physical body living on Earth? Asked another way, what is the spiritual purpose of your life…or mine, for that matter? I recorded the YouTube video for this post as I prepared to travel to New York to visit my mother one final time. For two years, I’ve thought each

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How to Move through the Grief Process

January 18, 2021 / By Nina Amir / 2 Comments

When I sat down to write this post, COVID-19 had taken the lives of two million people worldwide. The families of those two million people have also experienced a loved one’s death and the grief that follows. For some, grief is a dull nagging pain that never seems to lessen no matter how much time

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How My Father’s Death Influenced My Life

April 17, 2015 / By Nina Amir / 1 Comment

The death of a father always influences a child’s life even if that parent is lost in adulthood. When the loss occurs early in life, it can impact the person in significant ways. Hide My Tears My father, zikhrono livrakha (of blessed memory), died when I was seven. I have a vague recollection of coming home

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What We Can Learn from the Resiliency of Trees

December 6, 2010 / By Nina Amir / Leave a Comment

On Friday I took a walk in a nearby Christmas tree farm. Many people who live near to me walk there. It’s quite beautiful. I walked in the morning because in the afternoon the tree farm would be filled with people buying trees–or rather cutting down trees. As I walked I looked at the trees.

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How to Heal, Find Happiness and Feel Grateful

November 4, 2010 / By Nina Amir / 1 Comment

Not long ago I wrote a post in which I asked what people do to make themselves happy. I also publish many of my posts at VibrantNation.com, and there I received a comment from someone struggling with HOW to be happy. The woman’s daughter was struggling with a difficult situation. With Thanksgiving and the holiday

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Finding Consolation in a New Translation of Psalm 23

October 1, 2010 / By Nina Amir / 2 Comments

On Erev Yom Kippur, my rabbi, Eli Cohen, gave a moving sermon about Psalm 23. This psalm is most often read after someone dies, so for most of us it bears a negative connotation. Yet, it is meant to offer us consolation during difficult times in general, not just when someone has passed on. If

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Restore the Meaning and Spirit to Memorial Day

May 28, 2010 / By Nina Amir / Leave a Comment

On Monday we celebrate Memorial Day. This holiday started off as a somber day of remembrance, a day where we in America went to cemeteries and placed flags or flowers on the graves of those who died in battle or in some way during the course of war. We remembered our ancestors, family members, loved

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Alternative Ways to Celebrate Mother's Day

May 9, 2010 / By Nina Amir / Leave a Comment

Everyone has a mother…or had a mother. We are all born into this world from a mother, but some of us may be orphans, adults whose mother’s have died, or estranged from our mother. Even those of us in these situations can celebrate Mother’s Day. We need only think outside the box a bit. One

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A Shoah of Faith

April 12, 2010 / By Nina Amir / Leave a Comment

Yesterday many Jews observed Holocaust Memorial Day. Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah, literally the “Day of (remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism,” is celebrated on the 27th day in the month of Nisan, a week after the seventh day of Passover, and a week before Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers). It marks the

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Life is Worth Living

March 9, 2010 / By Nina Amir / 1 Comment

Today another young man in my children’s school took his life. (This is not the first, and it is the second that my daughter has known well.) Some people on Facebook were commenting on this tragedy…we were trying to understand why children feel the need to take their lives. There never seems a good reason.

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Memories are a Blessing and for Blessing

February 24, 2010 / By Nina Amir / 1 Comment

It’s a Jewish tradition when someone dies to say, “May his or her memory be for blessing.” The actual honorific is “of blessed memory,” a translation of the Hebrew “zikhrono livrakha” (m.) or “zikhronah livrakha” (f.). It’s an odd type of statement really. I tend to say, “May his or her memory be a blessing.”

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