David Roberts

David J. Roberts, LMSW, became a parent who experienced the death of a child, when his daughter Jeannine died of cancer on 3/1/03 at the age of 18. He is a retired addiction professional and an adjunct professor in the psychology and psychology child-life departments at Utica University in Utica, New York. Dave is a featured speaker, workshop facilitator and coach for Aspire Place, LLC. Dave has also been a past national workshop facilitator for The Compassionate Friends and a past national workshop facilitator and keynote speaker for The Bereaved Parents of the USA. Dave also co-presented a workshop titled “Helping Faculty After Traumatic Loss” for the Parkland, Florida community in May of 2018,in the aftermath of the mass shootings at Stoneman Douglas High School. Dave was also a keynote speaker at The Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Remembrance Weekend during in June of 2019 in Ponte Vedra, Florida .Dave has also done numerous workshops at the local and regional levels related to transformation from grief and loss. He is the co-author with Reverend Patty Furino of the recently published book "When The Psychology Professor Met The Minister" which is available for purchase on Amazon. For more information about their book,please go to: https://psychologyprofessorandminister.com/ Dave has been a past HuffPost contributor and has also published articles with the Open to Hope Foundation, The Grief Toolbox, Recovering the Self Journal, Mindfulness and Grief, and Thrive Global. He is currently a regular contributor to Medium. One of Dave's articles, My Daughter is Never Far Away, can also be found in Open to Hope: Inspirational Stories of Healing and Loss. Excerpts from Dave's article for The Open to Hope Foundation, called The Broken Places were featured in the Paraclete Press DVD video, Grieving the Sudden Death of a Loved One. He has appeared on numerous radio and internet broadcasts and Open to Hope Television. Dave was also part of a panel in 2016 for the BBC Podcast, World Have Your Say, with other grief experts, discussing the death of Carrie Fisher. Dave’s website: www.bootsyandangel.com is devoted to providing support and resources for individuals experiencing loss.

Articles:

After Loss: Fear Can Be An Asset to Grieving Individuals

“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear”– C.S. Lewis This first line in C.S. Lewis’s book A Grief Observed , inspired me to reflect on how I experienced fear during the early days of grief following my daughter Jeannine’s death. Jeannine was eighteen when she died on March 1,2003 from cancer. My fear manifested in uncertainty about my ability to live again in a world without my daughter. I feared that my other children would also die. These fears were triggered because my once predictable ,orderly and safe world was a distant memory. To […]

Hope and Clarity in the Middle of Nowhere

Lately, I have begun to revisit previous articles and blogs that I have authored. Perhaps as I grow older, I value nostalgia more, or perhaps it is the value I place on the past as a teacher. Regardless, I always discover new insights when I revisit previous writings. The majority of the content of the article that follows was originally published by Hello Grief in November of 2013. I have eliminated or changed some words here because the terminology I used then to describe my path doesn’t apply to me in this moment. I believe that as we evolve after loss, how we conceptualize […]

Scripting Our Own Paths After The Death of Our Children

My sincere and heartfelt thanks to both Susan Roback and Patty Furino for inspiring much of the content for this post. Deepening Bonds and Linking Objects The relationship that I continue to share with my daughter Jeannine following her death in 2003 has on most days, allowed me to embrace a peaceful perspective. As part of our ongoing relationship, she has regularly communicated signs of her presence. In the beginning, I longed for signs because the pain of her physical absence was unbearable. Today I still welcome signs from my daughter but no longer rely on them. Jeannine makes her presence known […]

Uncovering the Illusion of Truth in Our Grief Journeys

The Wisdom of Age As I become older, my view of the world and the people who inhabit it has evolved. I would like to believe that growing older has allowed me to acquire more wisdom because of, in part, my own actions and choices as well as those of others whose paths I have been allowed to witness. The wisdom that I have today has also been due to the teachings that I have discovered as a result of the challenges presented by my eighteen-year-old daughter Jeannine’s death in 2003, as a result of cancer. Those teachings have allowed […]

Nature and Grief: Empowering Teachings From The World Around Us

Beyond Our Front Doors Following the death of my eighteen-year-old daughter Jeannine in March of 2003, I embraced non-ordinary phenomena to help me develop new insights. One of the things that became clear to me was that we do survive death; that our deceased loved ones communicate their ongoing existence to us. My willingness to understand the significance of signs and their underlying connections, have allowed me to develop clarity and find my peace with Jeannine’s death. There are many individuals who don’t believe in signs or for whatever reason have not received them. However there are different ways to […]

Colors of the Spirit: We Are All One in Grief

Embracing Sacred Law From July 11, 2014 through July 13,2014, I attended the 37th National Conference of The Compassionate Friends in Chicago, Illinois.I have been attending and presenting workshops for this great organization whose focus is to provide hope and support to families who have experienced the death of a child, since 2008. I always look forward to meeting old friends, making new ones ,and for the opportunity to share teachings that I have discovered since the last conference. Since my daughter Jeannine’s death at age 18 of cancer, on 3/1/03, I have undergone a metamorphosis from an uncertain, pain […]

The Malaysian Airlines Crash: Reflections on Grief After Tragedy

This past Thursday (7/18/14), Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17 was hit by a missile while flying over the Ukraine. All told, 298 individuals from 11 countries, including 80 children were killed. Recalling My Past When I first heard of this tragic event, I immediately recalled the terrorist attack involving Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988. Pan Am Flight 103, a London to New York flight, exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. A total of 270 people were killed, 259 of which had been on board the plane and another 11 had been killed from the debris that hit the ground. […]

The Upside of Sadness in Our Grief Journeys

Entitled No More During the last few days of my existence, I have experienced more sadness than usual. Considering that I am a parent whose child died over 11 years ago, I could justify my sadness as something that I was entitled to because of my daughter Jeannine’s death. However, entitlement hasn’t been a part of my vocabulary for a long time. I have learned to express gratitude for the blessings in my life, as opposed to regret over what I don’t have or what I feel that I am entitled to have. Plus I have found my peace with […]

A Day of Rebirth

I originally wrote this piece for my blog on March 1, 2014, my daughter Jeannine’s 11th angelversary date. Since year nine of my life as a parent who has experienced the death of a child, I have written about the teachings I have discovered when spending time with Jeannine, on her angelversary date. I decided that I wanted to share my experience again as we approach spring, a time of both rebirth and renewal. I have discovered clarity in ritual and ceremony, while recognizing that Jeannine still exists, but in a different form of energy. I still have occasional yearnings […]

Keeping Perspective During the Grief Journey

Egocentric Grief On several occasions in the almost eleven years since my daughter Jeannine’s death, I have attended calling hours for several friends whose loved ones have died. If the deceased is not a child, I will sometimes get comments like, “I know it is not the same (death of a child), but I feel so horrible (about my loss).” In some way, I appreciate these comments because it is validation of Jeannine’s death as unthinkable and unfathomable. To me however, these comments also serve to unwittingly trivialize the significance of the loss of their loved ones. Death permanently changes […]

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