Grief Defined

"What is grief?  It can safely be said that everyone who is more than a year old knows something of grief by firsthand experience, but a clinical description will help us to get it in focus.  Grief is the inward desolation that follows the losing of something or someone we loved-a child, a relative, an actual or anticipated life partner, a pet, a job, one's home, one's hopes, one's health or whatever.

Loved is the key word here.  We lavish care and affection on what we love and those whom we love, and when we lose the beloved, the shock, the hurt, the sense of being hollowed out and crushed, the haunting, taunting memory of better days, the feeling of unreality and weakness and hopelessness, and the lack of power to think and plan for the new situation can be devastating." - J.I. Packer, A Grief Sanctified, p. 9