Several years ago, a new family moved in up the street from us. John had just finished his Ph.D. and had taken a research job at the college. His wife, Jane, had worked to support him and their 2 small children while he was in graduate school, but she did not go to work immediately when they moved here. John spent a great deal of time at his work, and Jane was home with the children all day, which was a new experience for her. We first met them at some college function, and again at a neighbor`s Christmas party. John seemed likeable and interested in talking about his work. I didn`t get much chance to talk to Jane, but my wife said she was having a hard time adjusting to all the changes, especially, not working and having to stay home with the children. She missed her parents, who had lived nearby where they last lived, and had often taken care of the children while she worked. She was expecting them to come for Christmas, so she was getting ready, trying to make everything perfect in her new home. The day her parents were expected, Jane got a phone call that they had been killed in an automobile accident on their way to her house. She was devastated. Sometime in late January, she was hospitalized for "emotional problems." Within a year, she and John had divorced, and they moved away. This story illustrates how our grief is influenced by a number of factors, over many of which we have little or no control. These factors include how the death occurred, whether the body was recovered, what else is going on in our lives at the time, our relationship with the person who died, how we have grieved in the past (and whether we have resolved our previous losses), how our family handled grief when we were growing up, as well as our age, gender, and the culture we live in. All these interact to influence what meaning we give to the loss, and how we choose to grieve. When death is sudden, or violent, or shocking, it may disturb us much more than we realize. We often see this as evidence that everything is out of control, that the world is no longer a safe place. When the thing we feared greatly has happened: our parents die, our spouse has an affair, our children leave home, we grow old; we often take that to mean that everything we fear will happen. Since one of our worst fears has become reality; what about the other things we fear? To the degree that we have hidden reality from ourselves, the reality that our worst fear can happen (and in the case of the death of a family member, will happen), we are overwhelmed by the fact of our loss. How could this happen to me? What have I done to deserve this? What has gone wrong? Of course, nothing has gone "wrong." The world is still the world. We are just learning more about how the world really is. People die. People grieve. Sometimes we have time to prepare ourselves; sometimes it happens without warning. The laws of the universe apply to each of us. Since we have often been unaware of this fact until we experience a major loss, it comes as a shock to us. We may try to deny reality, and we may even succeed, for a time. But it is a fact we all know to be true, no matter how much we try to deny or avoid it -- everyone dies. Everyone loses something or someone important to her at some time in her life. Facing this fact is frightening, but necessary, if we are to work through our grief.