Death of a Spouse

Returning to Work After Your Spouse Dies

Friday, October 29, 2010

Returning to a job after a spouse’s death is a step that tends to be anticipated with eagerness, dread, or both, at different times. The workplace can seem like a familiar well-ordered refuge where you find many hours of distraction away from your pain. On the other hand, it can represent the ordeal of work pressures, coworkers’ reactions, and a boss’s unrealistic expectations. Here are some ways to make it through a work day while you’re grieving. Your Coworkers’ Reactions: While your private world has been drastically changed, your workplace has gone along in its usual way. You may, therefore, […]

Special Topics, Your Grief

Entering the Realm of Suicide Loss Survivor

Confused, bewildered, hurt and ashamed, we enter the realm of the suicide loss survivor. We never intended to be here. We never asked to be here. Not in a million years did we ever dream things could turn out this way. But they have. Our faith may be shattered. Our hopes may have hit the rocky shoals. We may feel numb, split off, and like we are hovering over our own bodies. People are coming up to us and saying the most loving and comforting words. We may hear them. We may not remember anything they said. Some people are […]

Death of a Parent

Channeling My Mother’s Guidance

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was five but her infectious enthusiasm allowed those around her to forget she was sick. She dropped everything for me and constantly told me not to worry. She accepted her breast cancer and brushed it off so I did the same. Eventually, in the last few years of her life, she did start to look a little different but I pushed it so far out of my head that I did not see was right in front of me. A few months before she died, she started to actually look sick. She […]

Death of a Child, Special Topics

Ghosts of Halloween

October 31st is Halloween, one of our nation’s most popular holidays.  Over 67% of American households polled by an American Express in a 2009 survey replied that indeed Halloween has surpassed Christmas as a family’s favorite holiday period.  During the month of October, Americans spend almost $2 billion on candy purchased for Halloween night.  Despite prior years of horror stories of alleged razor blades in apples and pins in popcorn balls, the holiday only grows in popularity. Halloween has its roots in pagan and deeply religious beliefs simultaneously.  In ancient Celtic tradition they celebrated “Samhain” which is Gaelic for “summers […]

Death of a Spouse

Completeness Shattered by Complete Separation

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Completeness. This is what I miss today. The feeling that you have all that you need and that all is well and safe. There were many moments that I remember feeling complete in our life together. From the early moments when we held each other to the final moments when we let each other go. What a gift feeling complete is. Contentment with all the peace that everything I needed was with me and around me. That gift of feeling complete is now a memory to me that makes my days and moments now less bearable. The incompleteness screams in […]

Special Topics

Death at Center of her Life

Sometimes I wonder if our lives are predestined or if we really have choice. Often it seems the universe conspires to lead us in a particular direction, and no matter how hard we fight it, we are going there whether we like it or not. I had a very specific vision of what my life was going to be; let’s just say it doesn’t remotely resemble the life that has unfolded (and continues to unfold) before me. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that my life’s work would be about grief, death and how death can teach […]

Death of a Spouse

Healing Through Art: One With the Universe

It was the last painting.  I didn’t see it until it was done.  When Gary finally unveiled the long canvas, there were no words.  I hoped the tears in my eyes communicated the beauty I saw in the piece. He named it One With the Universe.  It was like his reconciliation with God…his embracing of everything in his life…the love, the creativity, the illness and whatever was to come.  There was power and peace in the colors and the image.  A quiet strength…the kind it would, I imagined, later take to hide from me the fact his cancer diagnosis was […]

Special Topics

Where Was God?

co-authored with Heidi Horsley, PsyD, LMSW, MS, executive director of Open to Hope Foundation Footprints in the Sand “So I said to the Lord, You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there have only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, You have not been there for me?” The Lord replied, “The times when you have seen only one set of footprints, is when I carried you.” Mary Stevenson A question that […]

Death of a Sibling, Special Topics, Your Grief

Prepare to Make it Through the Holidays

With the holidays fast approaching, I think about last Christmas. Last year was the first Christmas without my sister.  Personally, I felt like skipping over the entire season.  I knew in my heart that others were depending on me to help make the holidays bearable, so I helped. I did ask less of myself though.  I did most of my shopping online. When I did go out to the malls I was surrounded by happy, laughing people and I felt very alone. I didn’t feel like laughing and being happy. I was almost angry that everyone around me was going […]

Death of a Child, Special Topics, Your Grief

Thanksgiving Day Can Be Painful

When you lose someone you love, Thanksgiving Day feels burdensome and painful. When a brain tumor took away our precious Katie’s life, I dreaded that holiday.  For seven years, we served no rutabagas because they were Katie’s favorite vegetable.  The thought of their seasonal aroma wafting through our home without her in it was too much to bear. I don’t share this part of me today to make my readers sad.  I share it because you are my extended family and I am yours. We are all fellow travelers. When we suffer loss we question if we will ever overcome […]