This essay summarizes what the author has learned about meanings of death, human existence, suffering, the life of the deceased, the life of the mourner, & love in nearly 3 decades of thinking, teaching, & writing about grieving as an active response to what happens in bereavement & the suffering that loss entails. It casts his rethinking of grief within the broad categories of philosophical reflection, including meta-theory & philosophy of science, conceptual analysis, existential-phenomenological analysis, philosophy of mind, epistemology, & ethics. (5 refs)