Writer Jeph Lobe has been working through the stages of grief in the most recent issues of Marvel Comics. You see, Captain America has been gunned down. And his buddies -- Wolverine, the Avengers, Iron Man, and Spider-Man -- are battling with denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. The whole story will be revealed when the latest issue, Fallen Son, hits newsstands July 5th, the day after Independence Day.

Loeb, also an executive producer for NBC's Heroes, chose his storyline to represent current politics.

"Part of it grew out of the fact that we are a country that's at war, we are being perceived differently in the world," he says. "He wears the flag and he is assassinated -- it's impossible not to have it at least be a metaphor for the complications of present day."

Journalist Lynn Sherr is grieving the husband she lost to lymphoma in 1992. It's taken her many years to fully appreciate how his death affects her and while she once felt pressure from well-intentioned, clueless friends who urged her to move on, Sherr is now completely peaceful about her on-going, long-term grieving process. In fact, she fully plans on grieving -- for the man whose ashes still sit in her lingerie drawer -- for the rest of her life.

Sherr writes in her new memoir, Outside the Box, that it was during an interview with a pioneering psychiatrist about the agony of loss when she made her stunning revelation about grief. It's when she realized she would never fully recover from grief, that it is just fine to never fully recover.

Grieving individuals do not always follow the standard stages of denial, anger, and acceptance. Yet they often feel forced into these boxes by medical professionals, family, and friends who try to move them along and consider them abnormal if they don't get on with life in a set amount of time. But each person's pattern of grief is as unique as each person's pattern of love -- and stages and boxes just don't work. Sherr's breakthrough moment came at the exact moment she learned this.

"Bingo! I didn't have to follow anyone's pattern," she writes. "I didn't have to stop being sad. Not only was sadness okay, it was necessary. Nobody can tell you how to mourn. And it's not self-indulgent; it's not wallowing; it's hanging on to something important. We should not avoid bereavement. We should embrace it, welcoming our moments of sorrow as a time to reconnect with the person we've lost."

Sherr reconnects with her husband every chance she gets. He was her best friend, her deepest love, her soul mate, her pal. And she doesn't plan to move on -- ever -- from the sadness that keeps them connected.

Testicular cancer, cancer in one or both of the testicles, usually occurs in young men and will strike about 8,250 of these men this year. About 370 men will die.

A man's lifetime risk of developing this cancer -- that typically shows up in only one testicle -- is 1 in 300, securing it as one of the less common cancers in the United States. The chances of dying from testicular cancer are 1 in 5,000, making it one of the most curable forms of cancer. Yet it is still the most common form of cancer in men ages 15-34. It is also a cancer commonly characterized by denial and embarrassment. As a result, it is one of the least mentioned cancers.

How can that be? I preface this post with the disclaimer that I am not a medical professional. I am open to the possibility of extenuating circumstances. But honestly, if an obese person told me they were living a healthy lifestyle -- eating nutritious meals and exercising vigorously at least three times a week -- I'd be looking over their shoulder for Alice and the hookah pipe smoking caterpillar -- because I'd be under the impression reality had just taken a wavy turn to the left.

According to the Michigan-based health-care research firm Thomson Medstat, in a survey study involving 11,000 people, the majority of obese Americans stated they are living a healthy lifestyle because of healthy living habits and over 75 percent indicated they are involved in vigorous exercise at least three times a week.

To this Dr. David Schutt, from Thomson Medstat said, "There is, perhaps, some denial going on. Or there is a lack of understanding of what does it mean to be eating healthy, and what is vigorous exercise." Ya think? I am certain I may have just alienated over 60 percent of the American population, because that is how many people in this country are considered overweight, according to the Records from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I do not get as much exercise as I should. While I am well aware of the benefits of consuming healthy food, I will admit to the enjoyment of the occasional Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie or slice of Funfetti cake with Funfetti frosting because quite frankly, it is cheery food. But I am realistic that the ten extra pounds I am carrying around has to do with the eating more and moving less syndrome, and I cannot imagine anyone who is overweight not realizing or owning up to the reasons for the extra weight. As to extenuating circumstances all I can think is perhaps the survey questions were framed in such a way as to make the results appear as if overweight people live in some foggy realm of denial? What's your take on this topic?