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Giving Love, Accepting Help: Keys to Grieving

Posted on September 9, 2013 - by Michael Nunley

I have a sister and a father, but I no longer need to buy them birthday cards. I don’t have their numbers in my address book and I don’t worry about running out of minutes on my cell phone plan when I tell them about my latest home improvement project. I still talk to them from time to time, but not when anyone else might be listening. I still love them and tell funny stories to other people about them and share memories with other family members, but mostly, I just miss them. I used to think the amount of […]

Multiple Losses: ‘Plowing Through the Pain’

Posted on September 8, 2013 - by Marsha Maring

Easter Sunday 2005 was expected to be like all other traditional Easters…church in the morning followed by the family gathering at my parents. We had anticipated this holiday to be extra special because our mother had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and not knowing the severity, we treasured each moment. Unfortunately the day did not unfold as planned. Tragically, the day started with an early morning phone call to my sister giving the news that her 23 year old daughter had been in a terrible car accident. This being the second catastrophic news to our family, we were almost […]

Man Who Lost Parents As a Child Speaks Through Art

Posted on September 6, 2013 - by Katherine Relf-Canas

If you have spent any time in La Jolla, California over the last decades, you might have seen Chris Canole in one of his many incarnations. This year, for the entire month of August, a series of drawn portraits and illustrations by this local polymath was on display as a one-man show at the Pannikin cafe. A playful conceptualization on the term retrospective, the artist used the show to look back on his life and inward as well. We all have key people for whom we are grateful, but Canole emphasizes that it’s doubly true for him. His parents died […]

Twenty Years After Child-Loss, a Mother Remembers

Posted on September 5, 2013 - by Fran Dorf

On October 22, 1990, I became the mother of two children. I will always be the mother of two children. Our daughter, Rachel, was already nine, but we’d been unable to conceive a second child after my husband’s shocking bout of cancer two years into our marriage, and so after several miscarriages and years on the artificial insemination rollercoaster, we’d arranged to adopt. It was a boy. He was a month early. We were thrilled. Bob and I flew to the birth mother’s southern city, made our way to the hospital, and stood at the nursery window. The 4-pound incubated […]

Re-Gaining Strength – and Letting Yourself Feel Good About it

Posted on September 3, 2013 - by Michael Nunley

It happens. One day you look up and realize that you haven’t set too many places at the table for over a month. One day you find yourself smiling at a photo instead of wanting to turn it face down on the mantle. One day you’ll know that it’s OK to leave room for them in your heart, even when they don’t need room in the backseat. Don’t let yourself feel guilty about making progress. Learning to live with loss is not the same as minimizing the life of your loved one. Finding joy in your present and future is […]

Can Grief Hide and Come Back Later?

Posted on September 2, 2013 - by Nicky C Jones

Can grief hide and come back later? I was recently asked this question by one of my followers. And, while I was thinking about my answer, a photo showed up in my life to confirm what I was already thinking. “Life is a spiral. Not a Circle.” We live in a culture that doesn’t always honour the grieving process and usually much sooner than is good for us we are thrown back into work and our other roles. We are forced to develop coping mechanisms so we can get through the day in a socially acceptable way, i.e,. not crying […]

Unhelpful Religious Beliefs on Death and the Afterlife

Posted on August 31, 2013 - by Piero Calvi-Parisetti

Ever since I have been studying the evidence for survival of human personality to physical death, the question of religious beliefs has been nagging at me. This has turned into an outright discomfort since I have moved into the field of counseling for the bereaved and the dying. It is difficult for me to approach this subject, because the last thing I want to do is to come across as disrespectful for what are likely to be the most cherished, fundamental beliefs for so many people around the world. I insist in saying that, although I am not religious myself, […]

Hiccups: During Grief, We Really Feel Them

Posted on August 28, 2013 - by Christine Thiele

Since the end of last month, my world has been in a state of flux. Those last few weeks of July, I was feeling impatient, edgy, and frustrated. I didn’t have a classroom, but had an idea about a job at the school that I’ve worked at for years. I was feeling the squeeze of the door shutting on the upcoming school year with the jobs filling, but I was still without a place to call home. As is the story of my life in more recent years, in the final hours…voila…a great job appeared. I interviewed and was offered […]

Chance Meeting and Comfort in a Discount Store

Posted on August 26, 2013 - by Harriet Hodgson

I went to my favorite discount store to see the new fall clothing. While I was pushing my cart past a woman, I commented, “Passing on the right.” After I passed the woman I turned to her and said, “We’re looking at long-sleeved tops. It’s hard to believe summer is over and fall is here.” She smiled a bit and looked at me. “I’m here to buy something to wear to my mother’s memorial service,” she said. “My mother died two days ago.” “I’m so sorry,” I said. The woman went on to tell me her 29-year-old son committed suicide […]

When the Mirror Breaks: Loss of a Close Sibling

Posted on August 26, 2013 - by Daisy Massey

“Siblings are the only relatives, and perhaps the only people you’ll ever know, who are with you through the entire arc of your life…Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most inchoate form.” – writer Jeffrey Kluger observed to Salon in 2011, the year his book “The Sibling Effect” was published. My brother Andy was more than a sibling, he was my twin. We weren’t really twins, we were just close in age and physically favored each other including, despite the 2.5 year […]