From the Editor – Grief

Dear Readers,

We are honored to offer you the spring 2025 issue of Lilipoh, with the theme “The Many Faces of Grief.”

It has been fascinating and inspiring to watch this issue take on a life of its own, and to experience the many ways that the authors featured here engage with this universally human emotion. In these pages, it becomes clear that the complex and multi-layered ways that grief manifests are far deeper and broader than, at least in the twenty-first century, we typically consciously acknowledge. Grief for people – born and unborn – pets, places, are all shared here. Personal grief, collective grief, grief that lives in our imaginations and memories, our minds, our hearts, our bodies.

The faces of grief are every age, color, social class, culture, and time in human history.  Faces whose eyes meet ours from beyond time and space with longing, seeking compassion and connection.  And, such a generous sharing from so many who have borne witness to the grief of others – as well as their own – with courage, deep listening, and simple, humble, yet eloquent words and images.  Additionally, you will encounter many invaluable resources in the form of organizations, books, processes, and people who are out there and available to the rest of us in our time of individual and collective need.  I encourage you to spend time with the stories, poems, and images in these pages; to linger, to ponder, to be open to the suffering and resolution that they hold.  I trust they will enrich and deepen your own understanding of the grief that lives in you, in others, in our society, and in the world. It could be that this common bond of experience is what bridges seeming differences and brings us together.

With warmth and gratitude,

Karen (she/her)