Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: Consolation

  • A Journey Through Grief

    by Peter Smith __ 53 years ago, I married my sweetheart. After two children and two grandchildren I looked back with contentment on a good marriage and a wonderful family. Then came the devastating news. Following the death of my son five years earlier, my wife Jenny would now also die. She was diagnosed with…

  • Lives and Principles

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ The older I get, the more I appreciate the importance of having principles and of living a life of integrity and honor. I recognize this quality in my friends, too, and it’s admirable. People who lack these qualities are sad, and likely are surrounded by others without scruples. –Nicholas A.…

  • The Best Choice One Could Make (and the Worst Outcome One Could Imagine)

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ Last Sunday, after the most harrowing several days of our lives, I told my sixteen (nearly seventeen) year old daughter, Victoria, the following:  “You can do everything right.  And things can still go horribly wrong.” It is an important point and one I had been repeating again and again to…

  • Vicarious Grief

    by Daniel Tippens A few months after my dad’s death in March 2011, I stood on the porch outside of my family home in Maryland. The sun had just risen, and I looked up and took in the scene: an acre of glistening green grass bordered by a thin lining of pine trees, their branches…