When Decca Aitkenhead’s partner, Tony, died rescuing their son from a riptide, she believed she had survived the worst time of her life. But there was more to come.

Two families, two bodies, and a wilderness of secrets. By Alex Tizon.

“You just need an attitude adjustment.” “You are in need of the truth. If you were to only see it you could get over your loss and have new life.”  “You seem like a very angry person and if you just learned to release that anger you would see the path.”  One of the consequences of writing about loss and pain very publicly is that some people come to believe that you are, in fact, a deeply angry, troubled, fucked up person. That isn't an accurate description of me at all, ...

The highly intelligent birds gather around their fallen comrades, but why might surprise you. By Liz Langley. (Oct. 3)

Confronting my husband's digital ghosts—one email at a time. By Nancy Westaway.

A letter to a brother two decades after his death. By Shael Risman.

After her boyfriend's death, dating felt a bit like a combat zone to Glendaliz Camacho, but the emotional protective gear she donned soon became obsolete.

Hi! Today seems like a good day to answer some frequently asked questions... By Rachel Ward.

In 1987, my father went missing. Twenty years later, I tried to do something about it. By Kate Crane.

In 2008 a street race disaster became one of the deadliest crashes in the Washington area in a quarter-century. Is living with the carnage punishment enough? By Michael Graff. (June 4)

Following the death of a matriarch, female offspring work to establish social ties with other elephant groups, a study finds. By Sindya N. Bhanoo. (Dec. 18)

I emerge from this conversation dumbfounded. I've seen this a million times before, but it still gets me every time... By Tim J. Lawrence.

My quest to understand what the dying see began when I found out that my mom only had a few months (if that) to live. I wanted to be familiar with the stages she would go through and how I could best be there for her... By Jen Engevik.

“It’s irrational, this isn’t his fault, but I can see him (if he doesn’t die soon) at 30 or 35, telling people about his ‘best friend Paul’ and about how he tried to save you but couldn’t, and I can hear him tell it with earnestness and persuasion and even see the girl who will be with him, rub his back, and cry one single tear and think to herself, ‘What an amazing man to have come through all this.’ And Ryan—yes, by then, he’ll use his real name—will never mention his...” By Barry Friedman.

She had taken care of her husband for the last eight years of his life, through his blindness, through cancer and heart failure. After he died in 2002, she sold the Long Island house they’d loved and shared, finding it too filled with memories, and moved to their country home in upstate New York.

The sheer duration of pain for some over the loss of a loved one has given rise to recognition of and treatment for so-called complicated grief. By Paula Span.