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Returning to the Land of Loss: ‘Enfranchising’ our Grief

Posted on April 21, 2016 - by Lisa Irish

My cousin died last year, at least that’s how it felt for me. She actually died seven years ago, so my delayed sojourn into Loss has been very private…very lonely. Let me explain. I grew up in California and made family trips to Seattle to see my three cousins: Sarah, Susan and Sally. I am without siblings, so these three were very special in my little girl years. Adult life took us all over the country, I landed on the east coast. My contact with them changed as our lives changed, but periodic calls and visits always mattered to me. […]

Inspirational poem about puzzles by author Laurel D. Rund

A Terrible Saturday Morning

Posted on April 19, 2016 - by Larry Patten

“I feel like I’m getting close to the gates,” he muttered. He was 91. I knew he was referring to death, to the “Pearly Gates” where Gabriel the angel (or Saint Peter or St. Someone) famously waited with a list of names. And he knew I was there to discuss some of the last decisions he’d make as he faced his final days. As I explained hospice’s benefits to him in a hospital room, I wouldn’t have guessed how close he was to those “gates.” In his nineties, he looked seventy and griped like a teen just told he couldn’t […]

The Quest for Closure

Posted on April 16, 2016 - by Julie Lange

I often hear people speak about finding closure after a major life trauma or loss. When a loved one dies or a relationship ends, we say we are seeking closure. We long for relief from the voices in our heads telling us that we should have done more or loved better. We may hope for absolution for our own bad behavior, or crave vindication for the lousy way we’ve been treated. We tell ourselves that when we find closure we will finally be done grieving and able to move on. The popular wisdom says that grief typically happens in […]

Eight Years Later: My Five Stages Of Grief

Posted on April 15, 2016 - by John Brooks

The Swiss psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, wrote in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, about the various stages of grief that the bereaved know all too well. I’m sure many of us have heard this from our shrinks or bereavement groups. As I reflect back on the eight years since my 17-year-old daughter Casey’s suicide, my journey tracks remarkably closely to Kübler-Ross’ own writing working with the terminally ill. It all started one weekend in January, 2008. My wife Erika and I had a big fight with Casey over her mouthiness, rudeness and defiance. Parents fight with their teens, right? […]

Dark World Community: Grievers Helping One Another

Posted on April 14, 2016 - by Mark Liebenow

When death comes, we leave the world of light behind and enter a world of shadows. Colors mute to gray. Sounds are all in the distance. Even if it’s sunny and in the eighties, the air feels cold and we wear a jacket. Food tastes like cardboard, so we don’t eat. Everything we pick up is rough to the touch. Our world shifts into slow gear. When my wife died suddenly, the world I had known went dark. The shock of what had happened was so unlike anything I had experienced before that my sensory awareness of the world went […]

I Still Grieve my Father’s Silence

Posted on April 13, 2016 - by Larry Patten

My wife pointed to a curved red slash on my leg. “Where’d you get those scrapes?” “Maybe from the dog when we played a couple of hours ago?” Our dog has raggedy claws and abundant enthusiasm. Two cats also own us and one, Milo, randomly treats our flesh like a pincushion. An errant branch could slap my cheek when I’m biking or hiking. I cook, using sharp objects and boiling liquids. Life can be dangerous in the suburbs. I always enjoy the scene in 1975’s Jaws where Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw compared scars while hunting Hollywood’s most famous shark. […]

Examining our Beliefs about Life and Death

Posted on April 12, 2016 - by Elizabeth Horwin

This is the first of four articles based on concepts, research and experiences shared in, LOVE NEVER DIES by Elizabeth Horwin. WHAT IS LIFE? It seems to me that it is a common belief (especially in Western culture) that the human experience begins with Life and ends with Death. That is not my belief because I view the human experience as beginning with the Birth of the physical body and ending with Death of that body. Life Energy, Soul, Spirit—whatever one chooses to call it—exists before Birth and continues after Death. This article will explore this concept by focusing on […]

Helpful vs. Harmful Thoughts

Posted on April 12, 2016 - by Bunny Bennett

In our culture, we tend to be overly self-critical. Sometimes we are so preoccupied, we aren’t even aware of how harmful our thoughts can be to our well-being. We are hard on ourselves when it comes to our weight and appearance, whether we are achieving enough in our workplaces and in our homes, and whether our children are in enough extracurricular activities, and the list goes on! Oftentimes, we feel guilty. Guilty that we didn’t make it to the gym enough, guilty our work obligations got in the way of making it to all of our children’s activities, guilty we […]

Kathleen Gilbert and Gloria Horsley: How Family Members Grieve Differently

Posted on April 9, 2016 - by Gloria Horsley

Dr. Gloria Horsley of the Open to Hope Foundation interviews Kathleen Gilbert, an associate professor at Indiana University. How do different family members grieve? According to Gilbert, there’s differential grieving. After a loss, people think their grief doesn’t match their loss. Who you are going into the grief is different than who you are now. There are many contributions, such as developmental stages. Just because a child looks like they should know what’s going on doesn’t mean they do. Children may need to be told time and time again what happened—which is aggravating for a grieving parent. Another example are […]

Lisa Dinhofer: Delivering a Death Notification

Posted on April 8, 2016 - by Heidi Horsley

Certified thanatologist Lisa Dinhofer talks about the best way to deliver a death notification during an Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) conference. As a death educator, she specializes in very traumatic loss. After years of training, she’s learned a lot about the impact of death notifications. Do it in person whenever possible. Avoid the phone, and always have a partner with you if you can. Look the person in the eye—you’re telling them very important information. If you can’t look them in the eye, they can’t trust you. They’ll want to know the details leading up to the […]