Week 6: Chapter 5 — The Amputation of Loss

1.Sittser uses the metaphor of amputation to describe his loss — that something has been permanently removed, and life must be rebuilt around the absence, not toward restoration of what was there before. How does this image help (or challenge) your previous understanding of grief?

2.He is explicit that the goal after catastrophic loss is not to "get back to normal" but to build a new normal. Why is the desire to return to the past so understandable, and yet so ultimately impossible? What does it cost us to keep reaching for it?

3.Sittser reflects on the guilt that survivors often feel — the sense that moving forward is somehow a betrayal of those who were lost. Have you ever felt something similar, either in your own grief or watching someone else grieve? Where do you think that guilt comes from?