Walking with grief: how movement and company ease the hardest loss

In Northampton, Massachusetts, a bereavement group gathers once a week in a local park—on warm days and chilly ones alike. They move slowly, deliberately, in twos and threes along wide paths that skirt gardens. Most joined after losing a spouse. Some are there for a sibling, a parent, or a child. What happens on these walks, their counselor says, is where "the magic happens."

Maureen Cahillane is 91. Her husband James died more than two years ago. As she walked with her cane among about two dozen others, she turned to another griever and said something simple: "This group is quite a bit of help, just to know that other people are dealing with the same sadness."

There's something about walking side by side instead of sitting face to face. Shelly Bathe Lenn, a bereavement counselor at Cooley Dickinson Hospital who leads the group, noticed it immediately. "They're talking, talking, talking," she said, "without any encouragement from me." The pace is slow enough that conversation flows naturally. Sometimes it's lighthearted. Sometimes it's raw—people recalling what their loved ones endured before they died, sharing experiences they felt they couldn't tell anyone else.

Jill Mendez, whose partner Patrick died nearly four years ago, walked with Cahillane. "The grief is now more of a yearning," Mendez said. "It never goes away," Cahillane replied. "It becomes part of your anatomy, almost." That shift—from acute pain to something integrated into daily life—seems to be what the second year brings. Elaine Beaudoin noticed it: the first year, you're in the throes of it. By year two, the question changes. "Well, this is my life now. What am I going to do with it? Do I move forward? Do I just sit here?" The quietness at home can become deafening.

Movement itself matters. Helena Donovan, whose husband died more than two years ago, said walking lifts her mood in a way sitting doesn't. "I was doing way too much sitting around. And this gets me up and gets me moving, and I always feel better when I move." There's no magic potion here—just the simple fact that a body in motion, outdoors, in company, feels different than a body still.

Roger Brown remembers waking in the morning and reaching over, expecting his wife Jeanne to be there. Diana, who lost her husband Philip nearly a year ago, said the same thing: "It's hard because I can no longer walk with him." So now she walks with others who are grieving. They keep each other company. The seasons change around them—the group meets year-round—and that rhythm of change seems to help too. "Being outside distracts your mind," Diana said. "Sometimes we are so focused on our pain, but when you are outside, you're walking. It kind of helps."

Grief doesn't disappear on these walks. It transforms. It becomes something you can carry while moving forward, something you can share without explanation, something that makes sense in the company of people who understand.