Death of a Spouse

Love Well Because Loss Can Occur Any Time

Monday, April 30, 2012

The bulls make money, the bears make money, but the hogs get slaughtered, a famous warning from the gurus on Wall Street. Greed takes many forms but it is never good. It demands. It feeds selfishness and it will ultimately consume its creator. Greed always backs the looser, especially in a marriage. Annamarie, a thirtyish financial adviser, petite and feisty talked business from her cell phone while she raced down the Long Island Expressway into Manhattan. Her passion for perfection was matched only by her husband’s love of simplicity. Harry, a Robert Redford type, looked more like a student than […]

Death of a Parent

Crying Unexpectedly in the Middle of a Talk

Sunday, April 29, 2012

I speak to national and local groups about loss, grief and recovery. Last week I spoke to a group of Elder Network volunteers in my community. It was a small group, a dozen people gathered around a central table. The hour-long talk was about anticipatory grief, something everyone goes through, and something many fail to recognize. My talk began with a summary of the nine years I spent caring for my mother, who suffered from progressive dementia. The stress of caregiving increased as my mother’s dementia progressed. “Each day, I wondered if this would be the day she died,” I explained. […]

Open to Hope

Signs and Connections: Graffiti Offers Hope and Assurance

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Our youngest son, Clint, died at the age of 20 in 2005. During the early times of my grief, a bereaved mom suggested that screaming was a good outlet for tension. She recounted her screaming sessions. Try as I might, I could not bring myself to scream. Almost 3 years after Clint’s death, I was on a long isolated drive in the west. My sister was on a Rim-to-Rim hike and it was my job to meet her on the other side of the Canyon. The trip took me through miles of roadway on which I never met another car. Suddenly out […]

Children & Teens, Other Losses, Your Grief

Teen Mourns the Death of Her Best Friend

Friday, April 27, 2012

Question from a reader: When I was 12 years old, my best friend in the whole world died, one month before her 12th birthday. She was in the swimming pool playing that game—you know, who can hold their breath the longest—she was under but when she came up she inhaled a lot of water. She stood up and went over to the ladder and she was wheezing. She got up to the ladder and fell backwards, but her cousin caught her. They pulled her out of the pool and laid her down and ran for help. Her older sister was […]

Death of a Child, Your Grief

Grief Support Group Helps after Child-Loss

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Without you, my world seems too big. I don’t know how to fill the space that was you. I only know sometimes I get lost in it. The space left by you seemed to mock me. It followed me relentlessly. It threatened to consume me. Well-meaning friends pretended not to see the space you left. Others tried to get me to ignore it to, to pretend it wasn’t there, or to fill it quickly with other people, other things. I tried to tell them it didn’t work that way. I tried to reason with them. They tried to reason with […]

Children & Teens, Death of a Sibling

Teen Loses Brother to Suicide, Learns to Cope

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

At the age of 16, Carl David suffered the loss of his 22-year-old brother by suicide.  In his words, “The effects on myself and my family were devastating, beyond description. We had but two choices; to pull together or tear each other apart. We chose the former and used every bit of strength to rebuild our lives. The challenges were monumental as every day was day one. We had to start over with each sunrise because the after-effects were so persistent and the pain so ever-present that at times it seemed insurmountable. We wondered if we would ever be able […]

Death of a Child, Your Grief

How Friends Can Help after a Suicide

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

So many people get stuck when it comes to comforting someone who is grieving. They don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to do. So they send flowers, they bring over a casserole for the already filled to the brim freezer, they send a sweet card, or in some cases they just avoid the issue entirely, thinking maybe it will just go away. Even some of the people go away. Almost immediately after my son Paul’s funeral, people began to disappear. Perhaps they were threatened or couldn’t face the realities of my life. Maybe my loss and grief […]

Your Grief

Re-Writing our Grief Stories, Moving Past Fear

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Have you ever noticed how vivid our personal stories become in our minds over time? The more we tell them to others, the more we re-play those memories, the stronger they seem to become. We do a lot of that story-telling to heal. That is an important aspect of stories. But what happens when the stories themselves stop the healing process? When they only deepen a groove of hurt in our hearts and minds so profound that nothing new can enter? A few years back, I happened to meet a race car driver who worked as an instructor at the […]

Death of a Spouse

The Storm, the Dove, Renewal

Saturday, April 21, 2012

A week or two ago, a beautiful dove built a nest in a palm tree next to my house. It was nestled in a space where a palm frond had been, and there she sat on two white eggs. None of the activity of the house scared her away – lawn mowing, power washing the house, the pool generator. That mother dove centered herself on her nest in a tranquil and protective state as she waited for her eggs to hatch. She brought peace and optimism with her. My significant other –my love partner – and I would go outside […]

Death of a Child

Shoes Bring Memories Years After Child’s Death

Friday, April 20, 2012

Sometimes no matter how far we have come, a moment occurs when we are blindsided again or subtly reminded that grief does not end. A moment that no matter how hard we try cannot be ignored. A moment that will reoccur again and again until we acknowledge its presence. Or a buried memory that resurfaces, insisting we remember it once more. Who would have thought shoes could hold such significance? We were moving for the first time in thirty years. I knew we had a lot of stuff, too much stuff, but I found out how much when I began […]