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Mother Finds Comfort in Living Her Daughter’s Values

Posted on June 6, 2010 - by Harriet Hodgson

On the first anniversary of our daughter’s death, my husband and I held a graveside service in her memory. It was a brief service because the February temperature hovered around zero and the wind chill was fierce. Despite the weather, 10 people gathered to remember her. I passed out a list of our daughter’s values. These simple, powerful values are her legacy. Today, as my grandchildren graduate from high school and prepare for college, I am reminded of my daughter’s values and how they shaped her life. My twin grandchildren were 15 years old when their mother and father died […]

Pet Loss Can Devastate

Posted on June 6, 2010 - by Kathryn Williams Raths

Although a common thread connects the stages of grief, the journey of sorrow materializes differently for each person who trudges through it. From overwhelming emotion, timeless pain and isolation to frozen reality or numbness, self-destruction and complete denial, grief is customized to each individual. It is also very real and may be devastating when you lose a pet who has been an integral part of your family! I lost my beloved Scruples on April 27 of this year. My cat, who reminded me of Garfield, had just turned 20 years old. He was with me, as my best friend, for […]

In Life and Death, What is ‘Right’ Will Come to Us

Posted on June 4, 2010 - by Charles Glassman

I recall during high school when I was applying to colleges. Firmly affixed in the neurons of my automatic brain was Groucho Marx’s famous line: “I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.” So it would follow that any college that accepted me could not be so great. When I did not get into my first choice schools, I cried. My high school advisor suggested that if I really did not want to go to those colleges that accepted me, I should […]

Trees Symbolize Son’s Journey

Posted on June 3, 2010 - by Alice Wisler

“It was time to dig up the thin maple that died last fall and, like Daniel, did not bloom in the spring.” It was time. In an hour the November afternoon would be dark. With Baby Elizabeth in the stroller, we headed to our front lawn. Benjamin immediately began to run around, but my husband, David, seven-year-old Rachel and I stood beside the thin tree. Rachel held the order of ceremony that she had spent the afternoon writing. It was three pages of her own creation, the “service” for our family’s gathering that afternoon. Five members were visible to the […]

We Can Survive the Grief of Child-Loss

Posted on June 1, 2010 - by Cathy Seehuetter

I vividly remember April 19, 1995. My daughter Nina had heard on the news that something horrible had just occurred in Oklahoma City. She told me that a federal office building had been bombed, killing many people, many of them very young children. As the scene replayed itself on every station, Nina and I knelt in front of the television. We held hands and were motionless and hushed except for the sound of our occasional choking sobs. As we watched the horrific scene and the victim’s loved ones in their shock and grief, I distinctly remember my reaction. After saying a […]

Mourners Can Choose Happiness, a Gift to Themselves

Posted on May 30, 2010 - by Harriet Hodgson

The death of a loved one changes you forever. You mourn, determine your grief work, do the work, and try to build a new life. At least, these are the things I had to do after four loved ones died in 2007. Though I miss my father-in-law, brother, and former son-in-law, my daughter’s death affected me the most. The pain has been unbearable. Coming to terms with multiple losses is a journey in itself. Reconciliation is hard-won and I had many times when recovery seemed elusive — a moving target I could not reach no matter how fast I ran. […]

Maintaining Emotional Fluency through Artistic Expression

Posted on May 29, 2010 - by Anne Hamilton

Last year, when the 30th anniversary of his death was coming up, I set out on a journey of healing…

What it Means to Grieve a Loss

Posted on May 28, 2010 - by Mary Jane Hurley Brant

When you open yourself up to love, you open yourself up to loss. When you suffer a loss, you will experience the painful emotion we call grief. It’s a natural response to loss, yet to the person going through this emotion, the experience feels overwhelming. I would like to help you understand that going through it means it is a process, not an event and, depending on the personal connection you have to person who has died, it is very individual. And yet, the grieving process itself is universal: we feel sad when we experience loss. Because we will all […]

How Grief Affects Your Body

Posted on May 27, 2010 - by Mary Jane Cronin

Changes in our lives can cause us to be stressed. Sometimes the changes are good ones, such as a job promotion or the birth of a child. Sometimes the opposite is true. You may be laid off because the company you work for is downsizing. Instead of the joyful experience of your child’s birth, you have experienced the death of your child. When the death of my son occurred, every facet of my life was changed from the tip of my head down to my toes. Cognitively or the way my brain thought about things was altered to the point […]

Deep Breathing for the Grieving

Posted on May 26, 2010 - by Tony Falzano

One of the most difficult side effects for those grieving the loss of a loved one is stress. Many of us already live stressful lives under normal circumstances. Add the element of losing a dear one, and in some cases, the bread winner, and our health can suffer more than we realize. In moments when we experience stress, breathing becomes quick, short and erratic. The result is not enough oxygen reaching the different organs of the body. People can become light headed. They can hyperventilate, faint or become sick. Consequently, the body stops running as smoothly as it was designed. […]