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Holiday Sorrows and Precious Gifts

Posted on October 13, 2013 - by Thomas Attig

I am sure that I am not alone in approaching American Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years with sorrow in my heart over the death of a loved one. I hope these reflections will provide guidance for reaching through the sorrows of loss in the coming season. During the holidays, the pain of separation from loved ones who have died can become acute and preoccupying. Many will feel especially distant from others when the world is caught up in material consumption and merriment. It’s hard not to resent life in the world around us going on as if nothing has happened […]

The Fall Season: Creating New Traditions Among the Old

Posted on October 12, 2013 - by Linda Triplett

I am sitting at my desk looking outside at the glorious blue sky and just a tinge of color change in the leaves. The weekend was one of brisk cool air, the smell of bonfires in the neighborhood, and of mums replacing the petunias that are now stringy and overgrown. I am entering my 16th fall season without my son, Adam. Truthfully I don’t remember much of the first, or the second ones. My mind was numb, my heart hurt and it was enough to make it through each day let alone noticing what was going on in the world […]

The Good Fairy isn’t Coming and Recovering from Grief is Up to You

Posted on October 11, 2013 - by Harriet Hodgson

My mother had a saying and used it often: The good fairy isn’t coming. This saying applied to many aspects of life. She would say it before starting a task, such as cleaning the house or going to the grocery store. When my mother said the good fairy wasn’t coming she was implying — and showing — that I was responsible for myself. I learned this lesson in childhood and have lived it many times. In 2007, after my daughter, father-in-law, brother, and former son-in-law all died, my mother’s saying came to mind. Coping with grief was up to me, […]

Child-Loss Journey is Easier When Sharing with Others

Posted on October 11, 2013 - by Shelley Ramsey

When a husband loses his wife, they call him a widower. When a wife loses her husband, they call her a widow. And when somebody’s parents die, they call them an orphan. But there is no name for a parent, a grieving mother or a devastated father, who has lost their child. Because the pain behind the loss is so immeasurable and unbearable that it cannot be described in a single word. It just cannot be described. —Bhavya Kaushik, The Other Side of the Bed Each of the cards, notes, and e-mails that arrived following Joseph’s homegoing was cherished, but […]

Celebrating a Daughter’s 30th Birthday, Without Her

Posted on October 9, 2013 - by Kimberly Wencl

I breathe a sigh of relief today… as I write this it is the last day of September, 2013. I love the September weather and the move to Fall. But it is a month full of emotions — good and painful. My daughter, Liz, would have turned the big 30 on September 12th. What haunts me most is that I long to know what the story of her life would look like at 30. What career would she have? Would she have found someone to share her life with? Would I be a Grandmother? In my mind, Liz will always […]

Death of a Loved One: ‘Getting Over It’ Not an Option

Posted on October 8, 2013 - by Michael Nunley

Recently, I was honored to be asked to sing at a balloon release for The Compassionate Friends in Frankfort, Kentucky. We have a lovely little memory garden in a park near my home. Surrounding a central bronze statue of children at play is a circle paved with bricks. Those bricks are inscribed with the names of loved ones who have moved into the next life. One of them has my sister Cyndy’s name on it. Outside that circle are benches and rocks large enough to sit quietly listening to the sound of the nearby stream. Each year, new bricks are […]

Something’s Not Right: Remembering a Husband Near the End

Posted on October 7, 2013 - by Diane Dettmann

During our twenty-eight years of marriage, whether we drove to a northern Minnesota resort for a weekend, canoed on a Boundary Water lake or flew to a faraway city, my husband John and I, enjoyed sharing time together. In 1999, when we flew to Carmel, California, where we spent our honeymoon in 1972, I never imagined less than a year later, John would be gone. While enjoying one of our favorite beaches along the central coast, I had a feeling something wasn’t quite right, but couldn’t or didn’t want to see it. As I caught my breath after a jog […]

A Husband’s Voice Lives On

Posted on October 5, 2013 - by Kim Meredith

“Help me die!” Not a sound came out of his mouth, but I could magically decipher the startling message by reading his lips, the only body parts, along with his eyelids, that he could still move. My husband of fifteen years, David, lay motionless on white pristine sheets on a hospital bed that rocked back and forth while tangled tubes transferred nutrients and complicated machines whirled, forcing air into his dormant lungs to keep him alive. Two weeks prior, he was in a one car accident on his way home from a haircut and now, my partner was a quadriplegic. […]

Proactive Steps After a Loss

Posted on October 5, 2013 - by Harriet Hodgson

Grief is exhausting. You may be tired of feeling helpless and hopeless, yet don’t know what to do. Hope eluded me after my daughter, father-in-law, brother, and former son-in-law died within nine months. But I found hope again and it came from caring for my twin grandkids and from the proactive steps I took. Here are my suggestions for finding the happiness you seek. Choose happiness. Again and again, I told myself, “I’m worthy of happiness.” Saying this sentence helped me to believe it. I also believed in myself and the coping skills I honed over the years. You are […]

Sixteen Years After the Death of a Son

Posted on October 3, 2013 - by Linda Triplett

I am approaching the anniversary of my son’s death. It will 16 years since we heard the news from the county chaplain on duty that night that it was indeed our son, Adam, and his flight student, Jason, who had landed the plane on a city street and died in the fiery aftermath. Sixteen years since we had to plan a funeral, watched his body be laid to rest at the cemetery, and live in a grief so heavy that I thought it would cause my heart to stop with the weight of it all. A few months after his […]