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Working on Posttraumatic Growth, Another Life Journey

Posted on August 31, 2014 - by Harriet Hodgson

For the past seven years I’ve been learning and writing about grief. In 2007, four family members, including my elder daughter, father-in-law, brother, and former son-in-law, all died. My daughter, mother of our twin grandkids, and the grandkid’s father, died in separate car crashes. I wondered if I would survive these traumatic losses. There was no time for self-pity, however, because my husband and I became our grandchildren’s guardians. This responsibility changed my life and my writing. Instead of writing about health/wellness, I began to write about healing from grief, and in the process, learned many new terms. I just […]

Everything Happens for a Reason? Not Necessarily

Posted on August 30, 2014 - by Bob Baugher

Everything happens for a reason. We hear it all the time. I have been hearing it for years from my Psychology students. Part of my job as their instructor is to teach them the art of critical thinking. Yet, when my students get involved in a discussion especially of a senseless tragedy, inevitably many of them say with conviction, “Well, I believe everything happens for a reason.” usually followed by an uplifted shoulder shrug. In my field of work as a death educator and former counselor, I’ve met thousands of people who’ve experienced all kinds of tragedies. What follows is […]

Using the Pen to Return from Grief

Posted on August 29, 2014 - by Julie Nierenberg

Since my dad’s passing in April of 2012, I’ve learned there are many, varied, and sometimes unusual, ways people find to support their grief and integrate the inescapable reality of loss. No single process is best for everyone. For my own acceptance and eventual comfort, I turned to the pen. His death was not unexpected. Stage IV cancer was diagnosed more than three years before Daddy died. Nor was the moment of his passing a sudden or traumatic occurrence. He died peacefully holding my hand. Nonetheless, I was traumatized, as I believe all who lose loved ones are, by his […]

Comic Yisrael Campbell on Uplifting the Dying

Posted on August 23, 2014 - by Nancy Gershman, LMSW

How can you use your talents to make the dying feel like they’re at the center of your universe? Be a DJ on a pretend radio station with your friend’s name in the call letters: this idea and more when memory artist Nancy Gershman speaks with Yisrael Campbell (born Chris Campbell): a comedian of Irish and Italian descent, who grew up Catholic in Philadelphia and now lives with his wife and four kids as an Orthodox Jew in Israel. The star and writer behind the critically acclaimed Off Broadway show “Circumcise Me,” Yisrael brings his one-man show to The Edinburgh Fringe Festival August 2014. […]

Don’t Forget to Check Your Dip Stick: Maintaining Strength During Grief

Posted on August 19, 2014 - by Kim Meredith

After crouching on a lime-green foam kneeling pad, he pushed with all of his might against the 6’x6’ thick concrete cover. “Wait, Dad, let me help you,” I interrupted as I joined him by squatting down near the well cover, planting my feet firmly in the bordering sedum. “Oh, I can do it. Just hold it up when I lift it,” my father instructed me in a firm voice. He pried open the lid with a long metal gardening tool which was designed for digging up weeds, but now he was using it like a giant bottle opener. I leaned […]

We Would Have Died For You: The Journey of Bereaved Parents

Posted on August 19, 2014 - by Maria Kubitz

From the moment we found out you were coming into our lives, we felt electric: a mix of excitement, adrenalin, and a dose of fear for good measure. We dutifully began plotting the course of our lives together – starting with milestones like kindergarten, puberty, graduation, career, wedding, grandchildren, etc. Then we began making our maps more detailed with our hopes and dreams for you. We prepared as well as we could for your arrival. On the day we welcomed you into our lives, we held out our loving arms and said softly, “Welcome. We’ve been waiting for you.” We […]

Accepting a New Life After a Multiple Loss

Posted on August 19, 2014 - by Jill Kraft Thompson

When I was only thirty-three years old, suddenly one day I felt my life was over and my only future was my past. Up until then, my life seemed magical, full of much love and happiness. Everything had been going according to plan. My husband Bart and I had just finished building our house in Idaho, where we wanted to raise our two boys, six-year-old Benjamin and four-year-old Samuel, through their high school years. We were preparing to set off on an adventure of a lifetime, to live in Avezzano, Italy, for one to two years while Bart worked there. […]

Another School Year Begins

Posted on August 19, 2014 - by Elizabeth Brady

We hosted a college graduation party at our house for our nephew last weekend. My husband’s family was here, including our 95-year-old great-grandmother, all four grandparents in various levels of physical health. This made five generations gathered to hear my brother-in-law speak of his three children, who have now all graduated from college, and we toasted their accomplishments. I sat on the porch with my beautiful daughter Izzy, 16, listening to the toasts and thinking that it won’t be too long before she is graduating high school and heading to college. But our sweet Mack, who died suddenly of sepsis […]

On Robin Williams’ Death

Posted on August 14, 2014 - by Anne Hamilton

On Robin Williams’ Death Robin Williams had a life force that he shared with everyone. It is clear, from his outpouring of words and actions as an actor and comedian, that his inner life was fast and furious. Sometimes the body just can’t contain the pure frenzy of your inner life and you can’t calm down. Depression isn’t always paralysis and inactivity. Sometimes there is so much going on on the inside that you get paralyzed because you can’t process the thoughts, impulses, and urges with what turns out to be the woefully inadequate resources of your body. No […]

Dream After Husband’s Suicide Reassures Wife

Posted on August 13, 2014 - by Luellen Hoffman

Reprinted from the book, Special Dream, by Luellen Hoffman, following the death of Robin Williams Introduction: My husband suffered from what is now recognized as an obsessive-compulsive bipolar disorder. Greg committed suicide in 1987, when he was thirty-two years old. In his unfortunate brilliance, he was able to hide his problems from the psychiatrists with whom he worked at a well-known university hospital. Greg’s inner turmoil was tragic. It was during the year after his death that the following dream gave me much reassurance. The Special Dream: I am sitting at our old oak table in the dining room area. […]