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Finding Hope After a Loss

Posted on September 5, 2009 - by admin

by Mary Jane Hurley Brant Have you lost someone so special you feel you can never be happy again? I ask this question because sooner or later we will all be hit with a loss we think we cannot bear. No one escapes it. Consider the recent death of Senator Ted Kennedy. During his life he looked grief and personal tragedy in the eye many times. The Senator, as other giants before him, will be missed. His family, as all families, will have to wrap themselves around their monumental loss, cling together, and go forward. They and we know that no one can ever take […]

When a Friend Dies

Posted on September 5, 2009 - by Harriet Hodgson

By Harriett Hodgson — My father-in-law made many close friends during his 98 years of life. So many of those friends died that my father-in-law became known as the “last man standing.” At first, Dad would get really upset when a close friend died. After losing dozens of friends his response changed. “He (or she) was a wonderful person,” he would say, and then he would change the subject. Life taught Dad how to cope with death. Karen Callinan writes about coping with a friend’s death in “Facing the Death of Friends,” published on the American Catholic website. Coping with death […]

Helping your Child with Loss and Grief

Posted on September 4, 2009 - by Lauren Littauer Briggs

How can we help our children deal with deaths of loved ones? Here are some ways. Prepare the children for what will come. The more open you can be about what is ahead, the less uncomfortable your children will be. Explain what the funeral will be like, what they will see and what feelings they may experience. I tell children and adults alike that we hurt so much because we love so much. Encourage your child to ask questions and answer them clearly and accurately. Tell them, “Anytime you have a question or don’t understand what is happening, please ask […]

Youth Violence Often the Result of Traumatic Losses

Posted on September 3, 2009 - by Suzy Yehl Marta

By Suzy Yehl Marta — Josh was a quiet kid, a seventh grader in a mid-size, Midwest city whose parents’ divorce left him bereft. Fortunately, his school offered a peer-support group for students struggling with family transitions, and Josh chose to attend. Meeting every week, the kids in the group shared their pain, confusion and divided loyalties. But not Josh. Despite faithfully coming to each session, he remained the quiet boy who sat to the side and didn’t say a word. Is he getting anything out of this program? the facilitator wondered. One day, after the other students drifted from the […]

Parental Grief in the Wake of Homicide

Posted on September 2, 2009 - by Marty Tousley

Question from a reader: I’m writing this letter in hopes of finding some peace. It will be three years next month that my son was murdered. He was only 18. His mother and I were divorced when he was very young. At that time it was heart- breaking, knowing I would only see my son every other weekend. The years went by ever so quickly. Then he reached the tender teenage years and it seemed I lost control. My son was changing for the worst and there was nothing I could do to stop it. His mother and I had […]

Film Review: “Ghosted”

Posted on September 2, 2009 - by Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn

All I needed to hear about the movie, “Ghosted,” was that it explored the aftermath of grief and loss and, of course, I was interested. Having lost my brother when I was 14, I have had a life-long interest in these topics. “Ghosted” is the story of Sophie Schmitt, a Hamburg-based video artist, and her lover, Aing-Lee, a young woman from Taiwan. They meet when Aing-Li travels to Germany to visit an uncle, work in his restaurant, and uncover a secret about her birth. We learn all of this in flashback. The movie actually begins the tale after Aing-Lee’s death. We don’t […]

Husband’s Cancer Reminds Wife of Previous Losses

Posted on September 1, 2009 - by Deborah Tornillo

Today, I find myself crying at the drop of a hat. The tears are back, and they remind me of the tears I cried in my parents’ backyard when I realized my mom and dad were no longer there for me. They were no longer the mom and dad I knew. They were no longer the mom and dad who gave me advice. I lost my parents to Alzheimer’s, one of the cruelest of diseases. Today, those tears keep flowing and although I try my best to control them, they flow like a river. That’s because my husband, as I once […]

Creating a ‘Grief Friendly’ Workplace

Posted on September 1, 2009 - by Jane Galbraith

For many of us, our workmates are like our second family. So it’s crucial that when someone at work suffers a loss, this “second family” is there to help. After my mother died, I don’t think that I was a very good employee. I felt like I couldn’t show my grief at work, that I should act like my “normal” self. That in itself was exhausting. People in the workplace were sympathetic for a short time and then, like the rest of society, they tended to “move on.” In the meantime, I could barely make it through my daily work responsibilities. How could I not make […]

Caretakers: Dealing With Our Own Needs

Posted on August 31, 2009 - by Stan Goldberg

I’ve been a bedside volunteer for more than five years, sitting with dying patients and their families once or twice a week for up to four continuous hours. Sometimes I stay with patients overnight. Regardless of how demanding my responsibilities are, I know that when I leave the bedside, I’ll have to take three to six days to “recover.” It’s a time to prepare myself for the next week’s bedside activities that can range from conversing about life to witnessing a friend’s active dying. My downtime –something that allows me to recharge my batteries — is a luxury many caregivers […]

Heal Through Contact With ‘Inner Voice’

Posted on August 30, 2009 - by Harriet Hodgson

I have talked with many people about grief. Several years ago, I interviewed a young widow about the anticipatory grief she felt during her husband’s terminal illness. Her story was compelling. As death drew closer, the couple drew closer. “We went to a special place,” she said. “I can’t explain it.” Thanks to life experience, grief research, and my writing career, I understood her description. But I did not understand it fully until four of my loved ones died within nine months. The pain of these losses was searing. Listening to my inner voice, or soul, helped me to cope. […]