Death of a Child

Caregivers Need Time to Let Go

Monday, August 30, 2010

Last weekend, my husband and I took our granddaughter to college. She is a freshman at a small, historic, respected college in Iowa. We are excited about her college choice and acceptance. But our emotions are tugged in two directions — caregiving and letting go — and this is an uncomfortable place. We have been raising our twin grandchildren ever since their parents died of the injuries they sustained in separate car crashes. When the twins moved in with us, they were 15 1/2 years old, a vulnerable age at best, and an especially vulnerable age for grieving teens. Our […]

Death of a Child, Special Topics, Your Grief

Respecting Boundaries When Comforting a Grieving Heart

Saturday, August 28, 2010

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. – Henri […]

Death of a Spouse, Special Topics, Your Grief

Shhhh…Listen Closely. It’s the Sound of Someone Healing

Friday, August 27, 2010

I always thought that going through a profound loss would make someone an expert on loss.  I mean, we always work with what we know, right? You would think after experiencing the death of my husband that I would be one of those people who knew what to say when someone else was going through something similar. That I would have some magical words of comfort.  That I would finally know the secret handshake that gets you into the National Grievers Society and thereby bestows upon you everything you need to know about healing others.  That I wouldn’t be as […]

Death of a Spouse

Loss of Husband Makes Life Doubly Hard

Thursday, August 26, 2010

When you’re a couple in a family, there are things that are no brainers. Who will run to the grocery store, who will pick up the kids, who will help with the kids’ outings and clubs? There are two of you. Together, you can divide and conquer. When one of the two is dying, you can prepare for many things. But you can’t prepare for the small stuff, the little daily things that together you handled, handled even joyfully: those little no brainers. There have been many days that would have been a no brainer since my husband’s death. Just […]

Special Topics

At the Bedside: Perhaps the Hokey Pokey IS What it’s All About

It was a Friday night when I received a call from my Uncle Paul who told me that my Aunt Jerry, who had end-stage Alzheimer’s disease, had suffered two seizures and a heart attack and was in the hospital.  With her condition, one might have expected that she might have died the next day.  She didn’t.  She lived through the weekend and was discharged on Sunday on hospice back to Kemper House, the Alzheimer’s facility. Early that week, I was in another room at Kemper House on the phone when I got an urgent call from a cousin. I think […]

Special Topics

Men’s Grief: It’s Time to Get it Out

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The emotions of grief are the same for men and women.  How and when these emotions surface is what defines each journey.  But what I am struck with the most in my practice as a psychotherapist is how powerful this journey is for men. Men fight showing their emotions under normal circumstances.  Now, they have to fight to keep a hold of the emotion when the emotions themselves are mostly out of control. Women can and often grieve as a group.  They can publicly cry, be angry, sad — and then be happy, joyful, upbeat.  And when someone asks them […]

Death of a Child, Special Topics, Your Grief

The Importance of Adequate Support for the Bereaved

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

In his book, The Spiritual Lives of Bereaved Parents, Dennis Klass, Ph.D., discusses the importance of bereaved parents maintaining connection with their deceased children in communities that support that connection. Our ability as bereaved parents to access and receive support from other parents who understand our pain is critical to us feeling less isolated in our grief. Adequate support also is crucial in helping us adjust to a world without the physical presence of our children. Soon after my daughter Jeannine died in March of 2003, it was suggested that my wife Cheri (Jeannine’s mom) and I go to a […]

Special Topics, Your Grief

What Seasons Can Teach Us About Loss

Monday, August 23, 2010

Grief is a natural response to the loss of something, so where better to look for understanding about grief and loss than to nature itself? If we look at the seasons, we can gain understanding about how grief affects us and how we can support ourselves as we move through our own seasons of grief. Winter arrives the moment we find out about our loss. Like a blanket of snow the covers the ground, our knowledge that everything has changed stops us in our tracks. This is the time to rest and allow yourself space and time to recover. Just […]

Death of a Spouse

Woman Misses Husband Who Was ‘Finder’ and ‘Keeper’

Saturday, August 21, 2010

I always used to get upset when I lost something. Other people could misplace a key, lose a glove, or forget where they set down their wallet without going nuts. But whenever that happened to me, I went into a panic. I actually felt my blood pressure rise–and who needed that? Fortunately, I was married to a “finder” for 56 years. (Obviously, he also was a “keeper.”)  A patient, careful man who always secretly yearned to be a detective, my husband would start at the top of our home and search every corner until he exclaimed with great satisfaction “I’ve […]

Death of a Child, Special Topics, Your Grief

One Mother’s Grief Journey

Friday, August 20, 2010

I lost my son, Connor, on January 3rd, 2007—the day my world came crashing down. I had waited 17 years for my miracle number two, as I wasn’t supposed to be able to ever have children again. Even my daughter, born in 1989, was a miracle. Now my son was being taken away from me. Connor was only three days old when he got an infection in his lungs that ultimately took his life. My husband and I were able to hold him while he took his last breaths. The doctors and nurses that had so valiantly tried to save […]