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After Daughter Dies, Mother Heals Slowly

Posted on August 17, 2023 - by Nina Norstrom

After a Daughter Dies The experience of my daughter’s illness and death had seemingly sent me to hell and back. I became engulfed by rage, and my depression had finally whacked me out. It meant nothing to curl into a fetal position, with my back curved, head bowed, and all limbs bent and drawn in. I could have stayed that way endlessly. I’ll say this again: parents aren’t expected to live to bury their children. And when they do, the impact can be heartbreaking, devastating. Although the wounds mend, they are never fully healed—especially during holidays, birthdays, graduations, wedding ceremonies, […]

Sitting With My Daughter’s Body

Posted on August 16, 2023 - by Nina Norstrom

Sitting With My Daughter’s Body When we walked toward China’s room, a cold wave passed through my body. On approaching the door, I noticed it was shut. “Why, why is the door closed?” I yelled out. No one answered. Obviously, they had their reason. I entered the room. China’s eyes were closed, and her face possessed a heavenly glow. Although China had been gone for some time, her body had been untouched. Embracing her, I felt that her body temperature had dropped—the touch of her skin was cold as ice. All of us in the room, including Craig, gathered around […]

When Your Teen Daughter Clings to Life

Posted on August 15, 2023 - by Nina Norstrom

When Your Teen Daughter Clings to Life China was readmitted to South Suburban Hospital after having been released. The fear of losing her bonded our family. Many a night, the nurses came in the room to probe their needles deep into her flesh. No matter how hard they tried, the blood that flowed through her tiny veins no longer surfaced. There she lay in a hopeless, lifeless state. The blood that dried up in her veins now filtered through her urine. The catheter bag hanging from the tubes bore a deep flush of redness. Her struggle to end it all […]

When Your Teen Daughter Becomes Ill

Posted on August 14, 2023 - by Nina Norstrom

When Your Teen Daughter Becomes Ill China’s eagerness to attend school was overwhelming; she was excited about becoming a senior. Despite her illness, my daughter met her class assignments. The pain pierced deeper when her hair started shedding. As each strand thinned and faded away, I convinced China to wear a wig. Each morning as I combed her wig, it took a lot of strength to hold my tears back. Watching the tears running down her cheeks broke my heart. The first two weeks of school went well. China would come home happy from being with her classmates. But it […]

Feeling the Loss of her Brothers

Posted on August 11, 2023 - by Anne Peterson

Feeling the Loss of her Brothers On February 18, my brother George was having a procedure done. A stent was being put in his heart. I could feel my anxiety stirring. Just two years earlier, we said goodbye to our brother Gus. Pancreatic cancer came and robbed him of his health. It was painful. I remember when he leaned forward one day and told us, “I’m so glad I won’t have to go through this with one of you guys.” With George in the hospital, I became nervous. I didn’t think I could go through something like that again. I […]

Living Children Come First After Loss

Posted on August 8, 2023 - by Ken Lefkowitz

My wife and I have lost two children, and we have three living children. One day, my wife spoke to me about her ambivalence about visiting the graves of our deceased children. Urge to Visit Cemetery “You know Ken,” she said. “Sometimes I have thoughts about visiting the unmarked graves where Carolyn and Matthew are buried in New York.” “It used to be a vague distant, almost undefined feeling rather than a crystal-clear thought. Then, like a puff of mystical smoke, it dissipated. It used to be that way, so I guess that’s why I never talked about it. Recently […]

Widower Keeps Both Wives’ Memories Alive

Posted on August 5, 2023 - by Peter Lichtenberg

Widower Keeps Wives’ Memories Alive In 2022, Dr. Sara Hackett published a paper describing how widows and widowers continue to depend on their romantic partners after those partners have died. Even many years after the death, Dr. Hacket reported, the deceased spouse continues to play a major role in life of the surviving partner. Those findings hit so close to home for me. I was widowed for the first time 38 years ago at age 25, and for the second time 9 years ago at age 55. My late partners, Becky and Susan, remain so much a part of my […]

Wishing Doesn’t Change Things

Posted on August 3, 2023 - by Anne Peterson

I’m sixteen, tired from my shift at the snack shop with Dad. All I want to do is go to bed. I’m not even going to church tomorrow, I decide. Is it 8:00 yet? Is that clock broken? Finally, I bag the freshly made hamburgers for hungry mouths at home. I walk the few blocks home in the cool November night. Walking in, the food is grabbed from my hands. “Is your father okay?” my mom calls from their bedroom. “Yeah, but he was crabby.” I lay on the couch, uniform and all. Just wanting sleep. But sometimes, we don’t […]

Connecting to your Deceased Child’s Spirit

Posted on August 2, 2023 - by Lisa Boehm

Grief after child loss is not only about the immense ‘missing’. It’s also about finding a new way to feel connected to your child. It’s about finding new ways to continue your relationship. I’ve always had loose ideas about how the spiritual world worked. I believed in spirit before Katie died, and I believed in God, and I believed both could co-exist. I always felt funny about thinking those seemingly different worlds could exist together until I heard Theresa Caputo, the famous Long Island Medium, say those words. No one really knows what happens when we die or how it […]

Maintaining Contact with the Dead Heals Some Grievers

Posted on August 2, 2023 - by Bradie Hansen

Excerpt from: The Long Grief Journey: How Long-Term Unresolved Grief Can Affect Your Mental Health and What to Do About It, by Pamela D. Blair, Ph.D., and Bradie Hansen, M.A. Hidden Longing It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal. ~ M. Forster, author of A Room with a View One of the dominant features of complicated grief is the feeling of longing for the loved one […]