I lost my beloved husband Stanley Arthur Coombs to cancer in 2016. Over these four terrible years, I've learned many truths, for example:

• Grief marks a before and an after in the life of the survivor.


• You don't "get over" it. You learn to live with it.


• Every grief is unique.

Most grief publishers seem to keep to the practical, providing tips and tricks for how to go on when your world has collapsed. This essay goes in search of the reasons to keep going.

In this disastrous year, grief is becoming universalized. I've decided I can't be the only one who wants a symbolic framework to make sense of their grief. So here is my essay, which interprets the symbolism in three different dreams I had during the first year of my particular grief. I hope it helps.