Grief is a subject that comes up often in Scripture because relationships are a topic in one way or another on almost every page of Scripture. We read of friendships, marriage, childrearing, loss, grief and connection.

Elizabeth Bernstein wrote in the Wall Street Journal about how to cope with losing a lifelong friend.

I recently lost my closest childhood friend. She was an important part of my life for 50 years, and here death left me reeling. I feel as if I’ve lost much more than a good friend. I’ve lost a large chunk of my past, and my future, as well.

I asked grief experts for guidance. They explained that losing someone we shared our formative years with results in a multilayered grief. “It’s like a witness to our lives and history has died,” says David Kessler, an author and founder of Grief.com.

“There’s no bereavement leave, no typical rituals,” says Rebecca Feinglos, founder of Grieve Leave, an online community. “The world expects us to be ‘fine’ in a way that feels impossible.”
Bernstein asked readers of her column how they coped with the loss of an old friend. Here are some standout strategies:

Name your grief. Attempting to stifle your sorrow will just make you feel worse.

• Create your own rituals. Grief needs an outlet. One reader, Peter Hill, held two memorials, a Zoom service after his friend’s death, a celebratory dinner a year later, and Hill planted a Japanese maple tree in his backyard.
• Stay connected. Many readers said that reaching out to their late friend’s loved ones helped with their grief.
• Make meaning. The sixth stage of grief is to make meaning, says Kessler, the grief expert. We choose to live in a way that honors our loved one.