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Create Space in Your Life to Find Hope

Posted on September 5, 2010 - by Art & Allison Daily

I think an essential part of the grieving process is what I’ve heard called “liminal space,” or a time between things. If you’ve had significant loss in your life, you know that there is a time period when you are beyond the intense period of crying, but the missing still aches inside you. It’s as if your head says to your body, “Okay, this person is gone. He/she is not coming back. You have honored them, grieved for them, allowed them the freedom to ‘go,’…now it’s time for you to move on.” So, your head and logic know that it […]

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400 Years Later, Shakespeare’s Grief Resonates

Posted on September 4, 2010 - by Kim Go

William Shakespeare was acquainted with great grief. Learning this has deepened my admiration for the playwright and what he has penned about grief. The Bard, as Shakespeare is often referred to, was one of eight children. The family experienced multiple losses. First born to parents Mary and John Shakespeare was Joan, who lived two months after birth. Margaret, the second child, died at one year of age. William was third-born and was the oldest surviving child. Next was Gilbert and then another daughter, also named Joan, survived. The next child was Anne, who died aged 7 when William would have […]

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A Memory Game for Grieving Children

Posted on September 4, 2010 - by Kim Go

This version of the typical children’s memory game (known in some circles as Concentration) is for grieving families to share memories of a departed one. It was therapeutic for me to make, and while playing, the kids rehearse memories as they refine their recall and spacial skills. Materials: – cardboard large enough to make your template – large sheets of scrapbook card stock – scissors – pens – cold laminate sheets (optional) First, create your template shape on cardboard. I chose a heart shape to reinforce that Daddy loved them – you can pick any shape that you want. Cut […]

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Remembering Alexandria: A Personal Story of Perinatal Loss

Posted on September 2, 2010 - by Amy Daly

Some people only dream of angels, we held one in our arms. On January 22, 1998, our family welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Alexandria Nicole Daly, into the world. As with all births, this changed our lives irrevocably.  Unlike most other births, we had to say good-bye as our daughter’s earthly life was only beginning. She died in my arms just shy of a week after her birth. This, too, profoundly changed our lives.  Returning home from the hospital with empty arms and heavy hearts, our new normal began.  I was not prepared for the intense grief I would face […]

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Woman Loses Organs to Cancer, Still Revels in Life

Posted on September 1, 2010 - by Kathryn Williams Raths

I want to tell you the story of Louella Gaines from Ypsilanti, Michigan, who has persevered through many bouts of cancer, during which she has lost a lung, a kidney, her female organs, and many areas of her skin. May you find some strength from the insightful words from this remarkable woman, someone who continues to triumph over tragedy. In her own words, she is “a tough lady!” Louella’s heartbreak started early in life with the loss of her mother at the age of three. Being the youngest of ten children, she was fortunate to be loved and taken care […]

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Caregivers Need Time to Let Go

Posted on August 30, 2010 - by Harriet Hodgson

Last weekend, my husband and I took our granddaughter to college. She is a freshman at a small, historic, respected college in Iowa. We are excited about her college choice and acceptance. But our emotions are tugged in two directions — caregiving and letting go — and this is an uncomfortable place. We have been raising our twin grandchildren ever since their parents died of the injuries they sustained in separate car crashes. When the twins moved in with us, they were 15 1/2 years old, a vulnerable age at best, and an especially vulnerable age for grieving teens. Our […]

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Respecting Boundaries When Comforting a Grieving Heart

Posted on August 28, 2010 - by Kelly Buckley

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. – Henri […]

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Shhhh…Listen Closely. It’s the Sound of Someone Healing

Posted on August 27, 2010 - by Catherine Tidd

I always thought that going through a profound loss would make someone an expert on loss.  I mean, we always work with what we know, right? You would think after experiencing the death of my husband that I would be one of those people who knew what to say when someone else was going through something similar. That I would have some magical words of comfort.  That I would finally know the secret handshake that gets you into the National Grievers Society and thereby bestows upon you everything you need to know about healing others.  That I wouldn’t be as […]

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Loss of Husband Makes Life Doubly Hard

Posted on August 26, 2010 - by Christine Thiele

When you’re a couple in a family, there are things that are no brainers. Who will run to the grocery store, who will pick up the kids, who will help with the kids’ outings and clubs? There are two of you. Together, you can divide and conquer. When one of the two is dying, you can prepare for many things. But you can’t prepare for the small stuff, the little daily things that together you handled, handled even joyfully: those little no brainers. There have been many days that would have been a no brainer since my husband’s death. Just […]

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At the Bedside: Perhaps the Hokey Pokey IS What it’s All About

Posted on August 26, 2010 - by Lizzy Miles

It was a Friday night when I received a call from my Uncle Paul who told me that my Aunt Jerry, who had end-stage Alzheimer’s disease, had suffered two seizures and a heart attack and was in the hospital.  With her condition, one might have expected that she might have died the next day.  She didn’t.  She lived through the weekend and was discharged on Sunday on hospice back to Kemper House, the Alzheimer’s facility. Early that week, I was in another room at Kemper House on the phone when I got an urgent call from a cousin. I think […]

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