The first meeting, they come in quiet, looking down at the carpet. They fold their arms across their chests and take shallow breaths.
The students who attend the first meeting of my weekly grief group at Queen’s University bring with them their isolation and their sense that they are completely alone.
Some of them have lost parents; others, siblings or friends. Their roommates and classmates don’t know what to say to them and their families are far away or immersed in their own cocoons of grief. This is how the dynamic begins. But over the course of the semester, the students look up and at one another. They cry unapologetically; they’re startled by their laughter. They take deep breaths and exhale.
The student grievers are able to do this because they experience what it is like to be seen and heard – by me as a facilitator and by their peers. They move from isolation to community by crossing the bridge of shared grief.
Anderson Cooper’s podcast, All There Is, explores the shadowlands of grief through Cooper’s own self-disclosure and through his conversations with guests who are familiar and comfortable with their sorrow. His interview with Stephen Colbert is one of the most popular episodes. Colbert talks about our tendency to close ourselves off from our grief and from others. “But,” he goes on,
if you can share your stories and if you can address your grief through that storytelling as you’re saying and hearing from other people, then… it turns the cave into a tunnel and there’s some way to get [to] the other side. It adds oxygen to your life. … It doesn’t cut you off. It opens you up. And I think people are afraid to talk about grief because they think it’s a … trap of depression or something like that. When, in fact, grief is a doorway to another you.
The movement from Cave to Tunnel comes when, as Jeff Munroe teaches us in his book, we tell our stories in the dark. “Storytelling in a community provides a way into and through things, even things that make no sense” (p. 5).
In writing for the Reformed Journal, many of my caves have become tunnels. As I read your stories and you read mine, oxygen is added to my life. I can breathe more deeply. I don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of me. I’m able to look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ (Colossians 3:2, The Message).
I trust you find that some of your caves become tunnels when you read The Reformed Journal. I invite you to support the work that we do to light candles in the darkness and to find breathing room when life feels suffocating.
Our annual fundraising campaign begins today. I hope you, as a token of gratitude for the oxygen you receive here, will click on the button below and then give generously.
Clicking on the purple button below will inform you about the ways to give online. Of course, we especially draw your attention to our But Wait…There’s More! offer — three, great, new books shipped to you through the course of 2026 for a gift of $300 before the end of 2025, or monthly gifts of $25 in 2026.
Thank you for your support. Thank you for moving from caves to tunnels with me.
Reformed Journal is funded by our readers; we welcome your support. This holiday season, we call your attention to our “But Wait…There’s More!” deal—three new books sent to you in 2026!
For a gift of $300 or more between now and the end of 2025, or a monthly gift of $25 or more in 2026 and you’ll receive these books. (Canadians: due to shipping costs and exchange rates, we are asking for a gift of $450 (CAD) or $38 monthly.)
Click the purple button above for more details on this year’s special “But Wait, There’s More” offer—three new books by Reformed Journal contributors in 2026! You can use the same page to give an online gift of any amount or to find info on giving by check via mail.
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Holland, MI 49422
One Response
Thank you, Heidi, for showing others the Light at the end of the tunnel. I believe your mother did the same with the many children she blessed in the Children and Worship program. You carry on her legacy well.