Last night I sat in a room filled with grieving men Some missing a parent or sibling but most a spouse For once not a minority sandwiched within a group of women, but a part of a group connected to one another by gender, death, and heartache. This morning as I looked into the eyes [...]
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Father Learns How to Deal with Holidays After Daughter’s Death
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December 9, 2011
4 Responses
In early grief, it is difficult to find any meaning in pain. After my daughter Jeannine’s death in 2003, the pain I experienced in early grief was raw and something that I feared. If I had a choice, I would have avoided it at all costs. However, as I have learned, we need to work [...]
Young Widow Watches Sons Grow into Men
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November 4, 2011
1 Response
I am a mom of two boys. I am mom to two boys who do not have their father around anymore as a model. I am a mom who, beyond words, loves being a mom of boys. When my husband died seven years ago, I knew that finding positive, male role models for my young sons would [...]
Grief Styles: Women Verbalize, Men Internalize
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July 1, 2011
6 Responses
Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher’s mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and [...]
How to Support a Grieving Dad
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June 15, 2011
2 Responses
I often hear from grieving dads who tell me they feel alone in their grief after the death of their child. It amazes me that after going through something as profound as the death of a child, that these men feel so alone and isolated. As much as it amazes me, I can relate because [...]
For Men: Living a Regret-Free Life After Loss
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March 17, 2011
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Hands down, the strongest, most destructive part of grief is regret. That ever-present feeling that you could have done more. Regret can become so strong that everything else about life gets tossed aside. It is exactly what happened to me. The night before I lost my 17-year old son, Michael, in an auto accident, he [...]
For Men: Letting Grief Out One Word at a Time
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December 20, 2010
2 Responses
What do holidays and journal writing have in common? They show how you feel. And that is perhaps the toughest and roughest part of living life as a man — that homegrown instinct to bottle up the negativity in order to always show strength. It means that feelings and emotions get trapped deep inside. It [...]
Men’s Grief: It’s Time to Get it Out
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August 25, 2010
1 Response
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 [...]
Bereaved Dad Defines ‘Courage’
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August 13, 2010
2 Responses
Courage. It’s a word that paints many different images in our minds. Each one of us has a different picture of what courage looks and feels like. This may change for each one of us based on events we have experienced throughout our life. I want to tell you a little bit about my recent [...]
Using Music When Grieving Divorce
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August 11, 2010
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When we hear someone is grieving, we tend to think it is the result of loss brought on by the death of a loved one. But there are other losses that cause people to suffer grief. There is loss of health that can paralyze one’s independence and quality of life. There is the loss of [...]
Overcoming Sadness Essential for Venturing into Vibrant Future
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July 29, 2010
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No, I did not see Toy Story 3; but, recently, my wife and two daughters did. When my wife came home, she shared with me the premise of the story. As she told it to me, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. Similar to the bubbling over sensation when we uncontrollably belly laugh, I [...]
For Fathers, Loss of a Child Carries Special Burdens
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June 15, 2010
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Men go through all kinds of identity changes when they experience the loss of a child, especially a child who is older and has lived long enough to create established memories with his or her father. A man identifies himself by mainly two things: the job he has and the family he has. When a [...]
Men and Grief: Surrounded by Love, Blinded by Pride
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April 10, 2010
2 Responses
“I couldn’t care less.” That’s how I felt in the months and years after I lost my 17-year old son, Michael. I felt like the life was taken out of me. I was stripped down on the outside, torn apart on the inside, and utterly vulnerable to the world. In short, my very essence, my [...]
The Insults of Aging: Why Young People Get it Wrong
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April 9, 2010
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Incredible things are heard when nobody thinks you’re listening. Recently, in downtown San Francisco, I was walking behind a 20-something–year-old couple. They were forced to reduce their fast pace as they approached an elderly man slowly walking in the same direction. Unable to go around him because foot traffic was heavy, they exchanged annoyed expressions, [...]
Death of ‘Neon Man’ Inspires Friend to Help Others
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March 25, 2010
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In 2004, I got a call that my best friend died. Mark Jamison was a neon artist from Roanoke, Virginia, who was electrocuted after he was blown into a power line while hanging a neon sign. He was only 35. A month after he died, his girlfriend discovered she was pregnant. Mark and I had been friends for nearly 18 [...]
Man Writes Poetry as Medicine for Grief
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March 24, 2010
1 Response
Ed Gray of Howell, Michigan, is reaching out to others by sharing his story, a bereavement story of both sadness and triumph. He lost his parents and his wife in just over one year’s time. His mother grew tired fighting a 37-year battle with breast cancer and stopped her treatment. His father died about four months [...]
Stuffing Emotions Isn’t a Good Grief Strategy
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March 23, 2010
2 Responses
When we’ve lost someone we love, grief is a journey we can’t avoid. But that doesn’t stop many of us (particularly men) from trying. Perhaps we’re afraid that such intense emotions will overwhelm us. Or maybe we hope that if we pretend to be okay, that fantasy will somehow come true. While mourning the loss [...]
Coming Out of a ‘Cold Winter of Grief’
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March 18, 2010
4 Responses
For three months this winter, the mid-Atlantic was locked in a hard freeze. The ground was solid, trees bare, and the flower beds were buried under dirt-encrusted snow. Birds were mobbing the feeder out back, and I wondered how they manage to survive weather like that. At this season, in the months after my Bonnie [...]
Prostate Cancer, Research Funding, and Male Vanity
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March 14, 2010
1 Response
As someone who’s living with prostate cancer, I applauded Louis Gossett Jr.’s testimony in Congress on the importance of prostate cancer research funding. If Congress was listening, maybe I’ll live long enough for something else to kill me. But according to the American Cancer Society statistics, I shouldn’t hold my breath. Fifty times more money [...]
A Poetic Look at Men and Grieving
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March 4, 2010
4 Responses
My wife died of ALS; during her final 13 months, my mom and dad also died. It was almost overwhelming, and I learned more grieving than I ever thought I would. My most effective way of dealing with this was writing and the strongest feelings emerged as poetry. In the months following, I worked with [...]
How Couples Grieve Differently After a Child-Loss
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January 11, 2010
2 Responses
A friend of mine told me recently that she is moving on with her life after her only son died 2 1/2 years ago. Her voice sounded upbeat. Her spirits were soaring. Only good things are happening now, and she is enjoying what she has to look forward to: grandchildren growing up, graduating, marrying, a [...]
When Death Steals Your Holidays
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December 12, 2009
8 Responses
We all have images about how life should look, and those images are never more powerful than when we look ahead to a holiday. My wife, Bonnie, loved Christmas. The fall when she was dying of cancer, she ordered presents by phone and online, sent our daughter Rebecca to stores, and had me pack presents [...]
Stress and Grief: To Fight or Befriend
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December 11, 2009
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By Tom Golden As I watched our local TV news the other day, I was saddened to see a brief clip about a little, seven-year-old boy who had been hit by a car and killed. The tragedy happened not far from the boy’s home. The news cameras focused on the bereaved mother, sitting in her [...]
Is Widower Ready for a New Relationship?
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September 23, 2009
2 Responses
DKT writes in: I met a man on Match.com. We are in our 50’s. He divorced his first wife after 20 years of marriage. He was married to his second wife for about 5 years before she was killed in a car accident in January 2009, just 9 months ago. We have been on several [...]
When and How to Use Medicine for Grief
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September 14, 2009
1 Response
It was a typical meeting of Compassionate Friends, the organization for parents who have lost a child. We were discussing what helped us cope with the death of our child. Joanna, a quiet lady who seldom spoke, suddenly blurted out, “I take Prozac. I couldn’t have made it without it, and I don’t care what [...]
