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Illumination quote card by Laurel D. Rund

A Message for Mother’s Day: After Mother Has Died

Posted on May 8, 2016 - by Lauren Muscarella

Yesterday I received a text message saying, “I’m sorry I couldn’t call you back. I had a rough night.” I wasn’t keeping track and couldn’t readily remember what I’d called to say in the first place, so I asked if she was O.K. She responded telling me that a young friend had received a cancer diagnosis and the prognosis wasn’t good. She’d been up all night thinking about life and mortality. She closed her message with, “Life is short. I’m sure you learned that after your mom died.” People say things like that all the time, and it never bothers […]

Reflecting on Mother’s Day, Yesterday and Today

Posted on May 7, 2016 - by Lo Anne Mayer

When our daughter died, all hope seemed to be erased from my body, mind and spirit. Wherever I looked, whomever I spoke with, seemed to emphasize the despair I felt within and without. I truly believed that I was the ONLY person on the planet who had lost a child to suicide. Mother’s Day in 2005 was almost too much to bear. All I could think about was that I had lost my daughter forever. I didn’t realize in those days that, here in the US, almost 500,000 parents experienced the death of a child or young adult every year. […]

How I Survived my First Mother’s Day as a Grieving Parent

Posted on May 5, 2016 - by Joni Norby

Our 19-year-old son Ben was buried May 2, 2008 – eight days before Mother’s Day. Even though I was still in shock, I knew enough to stay away from church that Sunday. Our minister had always made a big deal out of the holiday, and every mother left the service with a rose. My husband Dave and our daughter Katie were also in shock so we three zombies wandered around a quiet house that first holiday after Ben’s death. We stayed away from everything and everyone – and that was just the right thing to do, for us. An important […]

A Letter to My Living Children for Mother’s Day

Posted on May 3, 2016 - by Maria Kubitz

Dearest ones, Mother’s Day is quickly approaching. Each year, I’ve received beautiful hand drawn cards or beautiful crafts from you that I cherish and save. Your words of love and appreciation are an echo of the profound love and appreciation I feel for each of you. Not just on Mother’s Day, but every day. And yet, you know Mother’s Day will forever more be bittersweet for me, since your sister will never again be alongside you to wish me a happy Mother’s Day. It has been a very challenging road for all of us since the death of your only […]

Loss Changes Everything

Posted on May 2, 2016 - by Sarah Kravits

I had one of “those days” recently – the kind of day when I feel a subtle but pervasive discomfort, uneasiness, agitation. Trying to feel better, I searched through the whole forest of my brain to determine what was wrong. It could be any number of things. Did I forget to pay a bill, or call someone, or complete a work task? Did I make someone mad and feel I have to make up for it somehow? Did I leave some permission slip unsigned, some kind person unthanked? I went through all of that, and the answer to each question […]

By Adversity Our Hearts Are Made Better: How Loss May Strengthen Us

Posted on April 29, 2016 - by Rabbi Daniel A. Roberts

It was so ironic that as I was flying home on a wonderful United Airlines flight at some 300 mph from the ADEC (Association of Death Education and Counseling) conference, I was reading David McCullough’s book, The Wright Brothers. It is ironic because the conference had a lot to do about sharing the best of the recent bereavement theories and about hope being a powerful tool. As I sat on the plane reading this book, I remembered someone at the conference mentioning that one deals with falling seven times by getting up for an eighth time. The story of the […]

Seasons of Remembering: Spring Brings Needed Change

Posted on April 28, 2016 - by Jill Smoot

It is amazing how tangible things can evoke some memory tucked away in the secret chambers of our thoughts. Like the changing of the seasons, like Spring. Trees that just yesterday were leafless and barren, now burst with leaf and bud. And within the intricate xylem tissue, water and minerals are transported from the roots to all the other parts, quietly, exactly on time, exactly in season. How comforting, that no matter what, come what may, life will go on. The trees, the seasons, are testifying to this fact. We welcome the changes. And how do we do this? By […]

Susan Rice: Helping Others After Loss

Posted on April 27, 2016 - by Gloria Horsley

Dr. Gloria Horsley talks with Susan Rice, fellow RN, at the National Alliance for Grieving Children conference. Rice works at a center that serves people facing a loss, the Douglas Center for Hope and Healing in Nevada. Rice also works with her daughter, Jodi Wass, similar to Dr. Horlsey. She lost her son, Joshua, three years ago when he was only 37. When grief hits home, it’s entirely different than working with it on a professional level. It can lead to career burnout and plenty of surprises. Stopping and taking a deep breath is key. There are stages of grief […]

When Lupines Bloom, I Think of Him

Posted on April 25, 2016 - by Elaine Mansfield

My husband Vic and I planted many pounds of wildflower seeds in our fields over the years. Wild grasses devoured some of them, but the lupines thrived and self-seeded on broad hillsides. On the day of Vic’s death in June 2008, lupines bloomed with wild abandon, erupting from the earth with thousands of tall purple spikes. In 2009, after my first long year of grieving, the lupines sent up flower stalks again. They pushed their way through my numb despair. Life goes on, they insisted. Open your eyes. There is joy here. Wanting to share the beauty, I invited my […]

Sibling Loss Changes a Sister Left Behind

Posted on April 25, 2016 - by Heidi Horsley

“Every loss is unique. The truth is, the worst loss is the one that is happening to you, the one that has picked you up and thrown you down and left you struggling to put your life back together.” — (Devita-Raeburn, 2004, p. 184) When I was 20 years old, I was awakened in the middle of the night to the terrible news that my 17 year old brother Scott and cousin Matthew, had been killed together in a car accident. It seemed inconceivable that my brother had died. My brother, who I had grown up with, shared a history […]