griever

While earning his Master of Social Work degree at the University of Washington, Dizon interned at local bereavement centers — Virginia Mason Grief Services, The Healing Center in Ravenna — and noticed something: He was a griever.

Known as “wind phones,” they are meant to carry the griever’s words to the wind in phone booths or isolated swaths of forests.

When she shows up at the scene of a suicide, a homicide or another type of unexpected death, her job is to interview the grievers about how the deceased had lived.

Many grievers can describe their first “good” dream, finally, of someone they recently lost.

It’s unfair to expect grievers to emerge from the depths of loss having mined diamonds of meaning, alchemizing their suffering into a form of self-improvement.