Bonnie Bellairs-Reed

In the beginning of my grief journey, I truly thought I was losing my mind. I couldn’t focus.I couldn’t remember simple things.I was moody, overwhelmed, and so tired I could barely keep my eyes open some days. I remember sitting in my doctor’s office, worried something was seriously wrong with me. There wasn't, She gently said, “This is grief. This is widow brain.” And hearing that was such a relief. What is widow brain? When we experience a deep emotional trauma like the death of a spouse,...

I knew I would feel emotional after my husband, Michael died. I did not know how much grief would affect my body, not just my emotions. We talk about grief as sadness, heartbreak, or missing someone. But no one really talks about the physical toll it takes. The exhaustion that doesn’t go away, even after a full night of sleep. The tight chest. The headaches. The stomach issues. The brain fog. The feeling like your body is constantly on high alert. My body felt like it was in survival mode....

Grief, identity, and finding yourself again. One of the things I never understood about death, is that it doesn’t just take the person you love. It changes you . Completely. When my husband, Michael, passed away, I truly believed that after a few months I would start to feel like myself again. I told myself I just needed to get through this hard season. This was a tough patch, a chapter I would survive, and then eventually I would return to the person I had always been. What I didn’t know...