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One Step to Healing: Write a Letter to Your Loved One

Posted on June 20, 2012 - by Cindy Shufflebarger

When the life of a loved one is cut short, we’re left with a void. We still had things to say and things to do. We still have a voice, but the hearer is gone. Putting our feelings into words can be therapeutic. The act of writing them invites our mind to sort and process our emotions. It gives us release. So, no matter where you are in the journey of grief, I encourage you to write a letter to your loved one. It can be short or long. A one-time note or a series. No rules. Just write. Here’s […]

Three Grief Lessons from ‘Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close’

Posted on June 20, 2012 - by Lauren Muscarella

When I saw Stephen Daltry’s “Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close,” I cried three times. The first time, it was the mere idea of a boy losing his father who he loved so much at age 9. The second time, I temporarily morphed into the character and adopted his struggle to understand life’s cruel injustices like 9/11 and the fractured families left behind. The protagonist’s approachability embodied a question we all encounter, “What now?” The third time, the tears were happy. I was overcome by the collective selflessness on screen. The film, adapted from the best-selling book, which was nominated for […]

Thanks to the Men who Help Kids After Father Loss

Posted on June 20, 2012 - by Christine Thiele

When my husband died, I knew it would be important to my boys to have men around and in their lives. Since they would no longer have their trail guide, it was up to me to make sure men of good character, who were loving, compassionate and wise were a part of their lives. I can’t imagine a boy growing up without his dad. I live it every day though. My dad grew up without his dad, so I knew it was possible for them, but also knew they would need some extra loving care. Cue – my brothers – […]

Grief Can Surface Years After a Loss

Posted on June 18, 2012 - by Linda Pountney

Denial of grief is common and misunderstood. Grief can wait in the wings for a time to surface, when you are better prepared to absorb its lessons. It can be triggered by other losses. Left undone, grief can wreak havoc with your ability to enjoy life and feel positive emotions. Grief has no time frame. It can be postponed, but never put away. My identical twin sister Paula Pountney died unexpectedly as her small plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean one Thanksgiving night. We were 21 years old. With the same genes and a shared history, we functioned as a […]

Suicide: Stopping the Silence

Posted on June 18, 2012 - by Nan Zastrow

Suicide doesn’t just happen to the “crazy” teen down the block, the junkie on drugs or the intoxicated college dude challenging a “dare.” It doesn’t just happen to those who are dealing with depression and the side effects of antidepressants. It doesn’t just happen to teens and young adults challenged by responsibilities, financial woes, parenting nightmares or stress in school or on-the-job. It isn’t just carried out by a soldier overwhelmed by active duty and the atrocities of war. It doesn’t just seek out the deceitful, the poor, the irresponsible, the desolate and the hopeless. Suicide is random. It happens […]

The Push and Pull of Grief Recovery

Posted on June 12, 2012 - by Harriet Hodgson

For me, 2007 was a year of grief. In the span of nine months, I lost my daughter, father-in-law, brother, and former son-in-law. As I discovered, grieving for multiple losses is more challenging than grieving for one. It also takes longer. Sometimes I would go backwards on the recovery path. Other times I would take a few baby steps forward. My emotions were like a rubber band pulled in opposite directions. The past tugged one way and grief work tugged me another. I felt confused, defeated, and robbed of a future. What were some of my forward and backward steps? […]

Grief’s Good News and Bad News

Posted on June 11, 2012 - by Larry Barber

In my counseling office, spring 2011. Julia was inconsolable. For the first half of our session, she alternately cried and apologized. The preceding Sunday had been Mother’s Day — the first Mother’s Day she had faced after the death of her infant son. Julia had been seeing me for several months now and she was convinced that she was making great progress in going through her grief. Today, though, Julia was uncertain of her progress and even hinted that the last few months of counseling may have been an utter waste. Julia reported to me that Mother’s Day had been […]

After Son’s Death, Mom Creates Room of Her Own

Posted on June 11, 2012 - by Madeline Sharples

Early on in my grieving process, I felt that my house was my safest place, and I couldn’t wait to get back to it after being out in crowds. Other times I wanted to run away because of all the memories. In fact we almost moved to get away from the reminders. Now I’m glad we did not. Memories and reminders of what might have been are everywhere, not just in our home. Instead I, like Virginia Woolf, created a room of my own in the house where our sons grew up. Six years after our son Paul died, I […]

Loss is So Complicated – Unexpected Triggers

Posted on June 11, 2012 - by Laurel D. Rund

Loss is So Complicated…. My feelings of grief and loss are complicated and intertwined within my very being. After my husband Marty’s death in 2009, I wrote a poem called “Grief’s Cloak”. An excerpt from that poem came back to “haunt” me recently. “But wait! Was I also trying to outrun grief? No hide and seek here, it was up ahead ~ my mourning was not complete. Grief’s cloak is a harsh reminder that loss is real ~ it cannot be pushed away! And, if not accepted, even honored, it will clip my wings and leave me unable to fly. […]

Sibling Loss: Honoring, Not Forgetting

Posted on June 6, 2012 - by Dr. Gloria and Dr. Heidi Horsley

In the United States today, there is a natural, assumed order to the deaths we will experience in our lives. We believe that our grandparents will die first, then our parents, then our brothers and sisters, and then our children. However, that is not how it happens for thousands of people each year, and that is not how it happened for me. When my brother Scott and cousin Matthew, were just 17 yrs. old they died together in a fiery car accident. In a sense our siblings are parallel travelers in life, we have a shared history. We expect this […]